@Promicarus the quoted sections from my 2nd post were taken out of "Healing the shame that binds you" by John Bradshaw
Thanks for the long post, it did offer me some 'food for thought', reminds me of my own thinking style.
Some quick thoughts to add:
Guilt vs. Shame... I think that guilt is more intellectual, while shame is emotional. Though shame might be a spectrum of emotions of which guilt is simply a type of shame.
Emotion is 'energy in motion', it's an energy that gets people into action. Too much intellect can create freezing from 'paralysis of analysis', but too much emotions will always get a person to do something.
Shame is an emotion of limitation but it's also an emotion of unlimited potential and power.
Healthy shame is when it's a felt emotion that helps us into the action of setting the proper boundaries that honor our human limitations, but also honor our human desires to grow, connect, and expand.
Psychologically abusive shame is the repeated act of abuser to dump shameful emotions onto the victim, to the point of brain washing, a distortion campaign to manipulate another person's image of themselves.
Excessive encouragement and rescuing also has the same effect of a distortion campaign, and can be just as abusive because it's an action that weakens a person's individual ability to develop a healthy relationship with their own shame, and learn to work through it themselves.
Excess in both dehumanizing another person with negative shame, or super-humanizing self or others with unrealistic positive shame, are both common strategies to cover up and avoid feeling genuine healthy shame.
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Interesting observation about the Baby Boomer generation... Demographics do play a big factor in cultural influences. I think that the depresssion/ww2 generation felt genuine shame from actual real life tragedy and suffering. The baby boomer generation was mostly isolated from actual tangible tragedies, the Vietnam vets who actually suffered, did so overseas, and many died, while the ones who returned with PTSD often got stigmatized from rest of society. So baby boomer generation ended up sprouting advocacy movements, civil rights, feminism, etc. Essentially using social shame and mob mentality to try to protect and rescue other's feelings. Prevention of suffering became a higher ideal than personal responsibility and personal freedom to risk, suffer, or fail.
So, it flips between over-protective of feelings 'rescuing' shaming by baby boomers vs. prior less-protective, individual freedom, isolation, 'tough it out' rules based/highly structured type of shaming by depression/ww2 generation.
In time, baby boomers in leadership will get old and retire, then start to be replaced by X generation which is likely to flip back to more individualistic freedom and risk type of shaming.
Social shaming is the way societies and cultures move together. But it becomes excessive and potentially harmful, when individuals start to identify more with external shame (from society, relationships, abusers) and then lose touch with healthy internal shame. This healthy internal shame keeps the proper balance between grounded to humanity and connection to our desires, wants and needs.
