Understanding and Addressing Shame in Therapy

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with June Tangney about shame and the various components of this emotion. They provide a definition of shame and how it is a distinct emotion from guilt. They discuss how the same event can be implicated with different emotional reactions. They talk about how to understand negative shame and hubristic pride along with the differences between public and private shame. They discuss the adaptive aspects of shame and how shame may present in other cultures. They talk about shame with trauma and some of the clinical interventions that could be used in therapy for shame. They discuss how shame manifests in various medical diagnoses and how shame presents in popular culture and mainstream media. 

June Tangney is a Clinical Psychologist and University Professor at George Mason University. She has served as Associate Editor for Self and Identity, Consulting Editor for Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Psychological Assessment, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, and Journal of Personality, and is currently Associate Editor of American Psychologist. She has done extensive research on the moral emotions (e.g., shame, guilt, empathy) and has done work researching moral emotions with incarcerated offenders. You can find her books here. You can also find her peer-reviewed research here.