Hello. Today we’re going to talk about working with shame in the therapy room. So Brene Brown talks about shame as an emotional contagion, which means it can be subtly scary to even therapists when shame is in the room. And when therapists get scared, just like anyone, they defend, let me show you what that looks like and what to do instead.
Therapists often defend against shame rather than joining it to defend, we explain, we soothe, we try to connect too quickly instead of sitting with the painful aloneness of it together, we rush to cognitive interventions, we offer reassurance, anything to make the discomfort stop. But that’s not what shame needs.
When you sit with shame together, it’s. Like shining a light in the dark. Dark cannot exist with light, and shame can’t exist if connection is present and can be felt. But here’s what that actually requires from the therapist. When I’m sitting with the painful aloneness together with a client, I’m connecting to my own version of that pain.
I let myself be impacted by that. I let myself feel moved by their suffering a little bit while trusting this pain will shift in time through connection and empathy. You have to be willing to go into the dark with them. And the easiest way to do that is to just think about when you have felt shame yourself.
I was doing a demo with a graduate student recently in front of the class. The client’s goal was to process self-judgment. As we started approaching the pattern, shame showed up, global body tension, a freeze state gaze turning downward, looking frightened. Shame became, just became the priority in that moment.
Nothing else can happen until it shifts. So I asked her to feel the shame and describe it for a moment. She did. Then I said. If my face and my voice were communicating something to you right now, what would they say? She said after a little pause, it’s okay. You’re okay with my feelings and my patterns?
That’s right. I said, what do you notice when you see that I’m not judging you? My body softens and I can think again. Great. Stay with that softness. And then we were able to continue with the original goal. Notice I didn’t rush to soothe the pain. We got clear on what it feels like first. Then I intervened with connection.
Looking at faces and hearing voices is one of the first experiences we have in the world as infants, it’s primal. So when you invite a client to take in your face and your voice, while shame is present, the shame starts to soften on its own. That’s one version. There are many others. Sometimes I’ll get an object.
A scarf works well and I’ll hold one end while lying. The other end in front of the client. They can pick it up when they’re ready. Physical connection, they control or it’s verbal. I’m here with you feeling this with you right now. Simple words, true words. Some people are ready for me to come sit next to them physically.
I actually don’t have a couch in my office. This this is the chair that the client actually sits in, but I will take my rolling desk chair and pull it over here to the side and sit near them. But some of my colleagues will actually sit on the couch with them. Whatever you do.
It’s, there’s a lot of consent and it takes 10 to 40 minutes sometimes to do these more relational processes because shame has this thing where it’s shame is longing to connect, but it’s also fearful of the connection at the same time, usually because. The person is fearful that they’re going to give the shame to the therapist, emotional contagion or that they don’t wanna be seen like this.
Clients will say, I don’t want you to see me feeling this way. So we have to go back and forth between the rejection of closeness and the longing for closeness. And that can take a long time. So the specific intervention that we choose matters less than. What we’re doing here, and that is slowly reestablishing connection while the person is still feeling the shame.
That’s the reparative experience because our shame gets stuck in our bodies and our nervous systems, our brains, whatever you want to call it. Because we were left alone when we felt shame too many times for too long. You’re getting to where you need to go because the client’s body will start to soften.
There will be some kind of change. They may go from consumed by the shame and pulled pain painfully inward, and then start to emerge out into the room. Connected to themselves and to the other person. They’re gaze. Though I hear this report frequently that it goes from narrow to panoramic. Their spine straightens and everything softens.
They shift from, I’m not okay to, we are okay. You can see it happen. Eye contact naturally is made. Breath deepens naturally. I’m not asking anyone to take a deep breath. And often the words it’s okay, emerges from a voice that has found its strength, not from the therapist’s voice from theirs, naturally, automatically.
It’s like magic. My students always tell me it looks like magic. So if you’re defending against shame because it’s uncomfortable for you, you’re asking your client to be alone in the most isolating human emotion. It’s, yeah, one in, in, in one of the most isolating emotions humans can experience. We want to start with connection first.
Sit in the yucky feelings together, then everything else becomes possible. All right. Thanks for joining me. And subscribe. I hope to see you in the next video.
