Shame: The "Sleeper" in Psychopathology

Helen Block Lewis

In this chapter, Lewis goes into the ways shame is not addressed in psychoanalysis, making a case for why this failure limits the field. Lewis points to a trend of substituting guilt for shame in analysis, which she says leads to misdiagnosis.

Lewis points out that Freud's original theory of seduction allowed for a more in depth consideration of shame than his later writings on fantasy and guilt, which replaced his work in seduction.

Lewis illustrates her experiments in spatial orientation, which led to her theories of field dependent and independent people. She ties these categories to gender socialization, depression, guilt, and shame over the course of this chapter and the next. Women, she writes, are more likely to be field dependent, and also to experience shame and depression. She attributes this to women's inferior social position. Men, she writes, are more likely to be field independent, and experience guilt and paranoia. This is a function of their superior social position and inherent aggression.

Lewis classifies shame as a "vicarious experience" of another's scorn. This idea, which is developed in this reading and further ones, posits shame as a self-conscious phenomenon, a negative emotion that carries a judgment of the self, rather than of an action committed by the self, which is how Lewis classifies guilt. (Lewis, 15). Lewis further ties shame to the loss of affectional bonds or the loss of love.

Question: Lewis calls shame a "wordless" state. I wonder how this can relate to analysis and the "talking cure." Further, as Lewis classifies shame as a state experienced chiefly by women, and women are stereotypically more likely to talk about their feelings, how does this inform shame as a "wordless" state?