Ok, well...
I havent' progressed any further with the book, and so the notes I have taken so far are thus far confined to part 1 of the book which explores the origins of healthy versus toxic shame and the way each manifests and impacts on life and its quality.
I will post my notes below, a little cautiously, as I'm not sure if they'll make sense in their very brief form (I took the notes to jog my memory on the points I wanted to discuss with T). I'm happy to expand on them later (don't have time or energy now), but maybe others will find some of this interesting, and if not, feel free to ignore. Except where I have written "Maddog adds", these are brief paraphrased points from the book itself. Will come back later to expand on them...
Bradshaw speaks very candidly about his own life and battle with toxic shame. His direct experience of it, and the pain and emotion of it, are very evident in his book. At times you sense that some of the battle is ongoing, such as in his discussion of his client Max.
Shame is defined as spiritual bankcruptcy.
He normalises healthy shame as a necessary regulatory emotion that is required to remind us that we are human, have boundaries of behaviour and personal significance/importance and are intrinsically small in a big world. Shame teaches us modesty, self-respect, caution, pragmatism and empathy.
People often think that identity is an individual and internalised state. But Bradshaw argues that identity is formed through interpersonal connections and through relationships, which Erikson also reflected in his theory of psychosocial development. Bradshaw quotes an old proverb that says that "One man is no man."
Toxic shame is an internalised emotion, and hence it becomes an identity. It is deeper than an emotional state and exists and imfluences the sufferer regardless of changing emotional states.
Toxic shame makes you strive to be more than human or less than human. The acceptance of being human is intolerable and either alternate extreme will do in preference. Those who strive to be more than human become perfectionistic and with unrelenting standards of success and achievement. Those who resort to being less than human behave in ways that are commonly recognized as "shameless" and often indulge in criminality, addictions and sub-standards of living and behaviour.
I think he does a better job of explaining the development of healthy shame as opposed to toxic shame, which is a pity.
Toxic shame forms during the pre-verbal periods when the only way one learns about the world is through emotional interactions with the caregiver. So we are most susceptible to neglect, abandonment and lovelessness during this period, which may prevail even where basic caregiving behaviours are present. Neglect, rejection or harsh or inconsistent interactions teach the child that they are unimportant, problematic or despicable and as the child has no cognitive capacity to interpret or challenge the reasons for this, they accept that the behaviour reflects their fundamental defectiveness.
He describes a number of personal and social problems as being rooted in toxic shame, including borderline and narcissistic personality disorders and addictions.
Note that in some approaches, the treatment of toxic shame is essentially similar to recognized treatments of Borderline Personality Disorder, as both involve emotional regulation, establishing and maintaining a sense of self and externalised feelings of shame and unworth.
He talks about repetition compulsion in the sense of becoming one's own abuser, either directly through self harm or deprivation abuse, or internally through self hate and criticism. Maddog adds that self harm, while also a form of self soothing and emotional release, may also replicate physical abuse inflicted as punishment, therefore representing self punishment and shame.
Addictions of any kind are an attempt at a relationship with the source of the addiction. You externalise your unmet need for worth and comfort onto the source of the addiction. Needs that cannot be met internally are met externally, such as the needs for validation, control, self soothing, belonging and acceptance. Maddog adds that it is when I am feeling most alone and abandoned that I most long for work and engage in addictive behaviours around exercise. But addictions fuel the very shame they may initially suppress and so the relationship with the addiction is circular and reinforcing of the shame.
As a child, toxic shame leads the child to identify with the power of the abuser and the belief that the child is fundamentally flawed. Identifying with the abuser aligns the child with the source of control and power and thus makes the child feel less exposed, while also allowing the child to take some internal control of their defectiveness. Maddog adds that there are strong parallels with Judith Hermann's views on how the abused child takes on the abusers' view of him/her as flawed and defective.
Internalised shame transfers (projects) onto the outside world and internalised feelings of shame are projected onto others. If I think I am bad, then everyone does. Shaming messages are absorbed as valid, and are then replicated internally even when outside shaming messages have ceased. The shame-based person becomes their own abuser and internalised critic.
Interestingly, Bradshaw argues that those who experience toxic shame experience a form of grandeositty. In keeping with being more than human or less than human, the person feels beyond reproach or beyond help respectively. Counterintuitively, the latter is also a form of grandeosity as it implies the person believes they are the best at being the worst and are hence superior in their inferiority. Interesting perspective. Maddog adds that this resonates strangely when I think about it. Feeling beyond help and too broken is a form of protective rejection of the world. I am different to everyone. Nobody can understand me and my problems are too complex for normal people and the normal world. It can feel almost insulting when others try to understand or imply I can be helped.
Shame-based people marry shame-based people because their mutual failures to meet their own and the other person's needs are dysfunctionally compatible, including an agreement never to disagree.
Shame-based parents are needy and experience their own needs like a toothache that doesn't allow them to focus on anything else, including the child's needs. The child's needs are in conflict with the parent's needs, as the parent's needs are usually the same needs which were never met when they were children themselves. A parent cannot meet a child's needs if he/she has the same needs.
Shame-based people become adult children. They remain always needy, as their needs are a child's needs which cannot be met in adulthood. As adults they turn lovers into parents and friends into caregivers. They are insatiable. Maddog adds that this is why relationships never feel enough and as though I am always wanting something I can't have. Awareness of this fact deepens the sense of shame as I know it is wrong and inappropriate, but can't help feeling that way.
Toxic shame destroys personal boundaries. Without personal boundaries, interpersonal and life difficulties can't be managed or regulated, so escape is the only means of survival.
Markers of toxic shame in interpersonal settings include breaking eye contact, blushing, extreme self consciousness, occasional directly challenging behaviour and dialogue about achievements, delusional assessments of self. Bradshaw writes about how the shame-based person can often analyse others and the world with uncanny accuracy, compassion and fairness, but tumbles into "delusional" assessments of self which are often fiercely defended when challenged, even where the person is otherwise not aggressive or defensive. Maddog notes this with irony - T has often referred to my assessments of myself as "delusional".
