Psychiatry 69(1) Spring 2006
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Self-Reproach and Personal Responsibility
Shapiro
Self–Reproach and Personal Responsibility
David Shapiro
A confusion exists between the aims of psychotherapy of diminishing self–reproach, on the one hand, and increasing the experience of personal responsibility,
on the other. In order to clarify this problem a distinction is made between moral
responsibility, central to self–reproach, and psychological responsibility or agency.
Self–reproach is shown to be inimical to the experience of psychological responsibility, with reference to psychotherapy of a case of severe obsessive self–reproach.
People who constantly reproach themselves are usually considered to have an excessive sense of personal responsibility. They feel
responsible even for failures or mistakes that
are obviously beyond their capacity to avoid.
It is generally the aim of psychotherapy to diminish such self–reproach and the exaggerated
sense of responsibility it seems to be founded
on. Yet, psychotherapy is also thought to have
what seems a contrary aim, namely, to increase the patient’s experience of responsibility for what he or she does (Kaiser, 1955,
1965; Shapiro, 1989), or agency. Neurotic patients regularly tell us that they do things they
really don’t want to do, that they continue relationships they get nothing out of, and that
they somehow don’t do what they’re sure they
actually want to do. This is the sort of thing we
mean when we say that the neurotic personality is not well integrated. If psychotherapy is
successful, it is said to diminish that kind of
self–estrangement, so that the individual
knows more clearly what he or she wants and
wants to do, and in that sense experiences
more clearly their responsibility for what they
do. Evidently there are two different kinds or
meanings of responsibility here—the kind that
therapy aims to diminish and the kind it aims
to expand—and two different kinds of subjective experience. For convenience I will call the
kind of responsibility contained in self–reproach the moral sense of responsibility and its
alternative the psychological sense of
responsibility.
These two are certainly different, but
they are not entirely different. The reality of
volition and personal choice is central to both
ideas of responsibility, but their conceptions
of volition and choice are quite different.
There is also a definite relation between the
two kinds of experience of responsibility, actually a dynamic relation. They are in conflict
with one another. To the extent that one kind
of experience predominates, the other is diminished, or even extinguished. My purpose
here is to clarify these two conceptions of responsibility and the kind of experience that
each refers to, and to demonstrate the relation
that exists between them.
MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY
Self–reproach is punishment for having
done or not having done something. Its message is: I shouldn’t (or I should) have done
that. But self–reproach is not merely regret,
and its aim is not merely correction; correction
would be superfluous where the one to be cor-
David Shapiro, PhD, is Professor of Psychology, Graduate Faculty of New School University, 65
Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10003; E–mail: [email protected].
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rected is also the one who corrects. The aim of
self–reproach, as I said, is punishment; its tone
is aggressive and it is often accompanied by explicit denunciation (I shouldn’t have run
away—I’m a coward). It is true that those denunciations are usually not completely believed, but that is because they are accusations
aimed at punishing—repentant self–punishments, not simple statements of fact. Like most
accusations intended to punish, they exaggerate. The repentant admission, “I shouldn’t
have done that,” constitutes the acceptance of
moral responsibility in self–reproach.
The premise of self–reproach is that one
not only should have, but also might have, chosen to do otherwise. However, there is a problem here for psychologists and psychotherapists. We are accustomed to assuming that
what was done had its reasons in the point of
view of the one who has done it, whether he
was conscious of those reasons or not, and that
those reasons were decisive. This idea is fundamental to our therapeutic method, and perhaps
to our general conception of human behavior
as well. The attitude of self–reproach, for that
matter the attitude of reproach in general, is
not friendly to an understanding of the transgressor’s point of view—or the special circumstances that might account for his transgression. The attitude of self–reproach takes for
granted a capability of choice independent of
individual psychology. The one who reproaches himself, or someone else, is not interested in reasons or psychology. Those reasons
and that psychology are irrelevant to the
assignment of moral responsibility.
The focus of self–reproach is strictly on
the measurement of the act itself, the transgression. The act has been measured according to some principles or personal ideals
(bravery, generosity, what an idealized person
would have done, and so forth). Those general
principles or ideals define what should have
been done and, it is presumed, might have
been done by anyone, without regard for the
particular person’s psychological capabilities
or point of view. It is this presumption that
any choice is available to anyone that justifies
self–reproach.
Actually, of course, an understanding
Self-Reproach and Personal Responsibility
of the transgressor’s reasons and point of view
is not merely irrelevant to the attitude of reproach or self–reproach, it weakens and undermines reproach in general. Understanding
evokes sympathy. The proverb says, to understand is to forgive, even ourselves. Understanding the point of view of the one who acts
ultimately makes his action seem reasonable,
not perhaps for someone else with a different
point of view, but for him. In effect, it recognizes that this act was inevitable. That is not to
say that the individual had no choice, but only
that the choice he or she made was from
among the possibilities defined by his point of
view and was bound to seem to him to be the
one to make (Shapiro, 1981).
But while it is true that a recognition of
the limitations and tendencies of one’s own
point of view weakens self–reproach and undermines the basis of moral responsibility, it is
also true that it increases an experience of responsibility of a different kind. The experience of personal responsibility that psychotherapy aims to achieve is exactly what
self–reproach excludes: the consciousness that
what one chose to do was done for reasons
that can be understood, and that what was
done must have promised some kind of satisfaction or, if not, some relief from what was
no longer bearable—or, if neither of those,
then the escape, however costly, from some
prospect that threatened to be even costlier.
This sense of responsibility consists of the
awareness that what was done was not a failure of will, but an expression of will, not a
lapse of judgment, but an exercise of judgment, not an act that was “unlike me” and
against my aims or values, but only against
what I imagined to be my aims and values and
unlike only my image of myself.
It is the realization, for example, by the
young woman who thinks she wants to get out
of a troubled relationship, but somehow
“can’t,” that she only thinks she should leave,
but doesn’t really want to. Or the husband’s
realization that he didn’t “lose it” or really
mean to hurt his wife, but rather that his
manly pride was wounded and demanded that
he “teach her a lesson.” Or the realization, by
the man who says he “can’t shake” the terrible
Shapiro
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obsessive thought that he might rape his or none at all. Several times, when referring to
daughter, that he is afraid not to look for that her husband, she said,
thought, believing that if it exists without his
awareness, he might actually do it. Each of
Patient: He’s so fine . . . and Emily (the family
these constitutes an increased consciousness
friend), too . . . they’re doing everything. God
of intention, of agency, or of responsibility for
knows how he’s doing his job, too . . . but he
one’s action. Each can also be said to constidoes it, he does his job.
tute an increased integration of the personalTherapist: You mean in contrast to you.
ity. And inasmuch as each clarifies that what
was done was expressive of a point of view
Patient: What I’ve put them through, hell.
and the compelling aims that follow from it,
each shows the reproachful, “I shouldn’t have
Therapist: I suppose you’ve all been through
done it! I should have done something else!”
hell, not least you.
to be without sensible meaning, hardly
different from telling the blind man he should
Patient: But it’s my fault!
have seen that obstacle.
Therapist: That you feel the way you do?
A CASE OF SELF-REPROACH
Patient: Don’t you believe that people are responsible for themselves?!
A thirty-six-year-old woman, an accomTherapist: For the way they feel? No, I don’t
plished, extremely ambitious college professor,
think you have any choice about that.
had been severely depressed for about 2
months, her condition diagnosed as
At one point, the patient sat silently,
postpartum depression. She had her baby, her
looking
like she was concentrating.
first, without unusual difficulty and had initially seemed all right. About two weeks after
the birth, she became noticeably depressed and
Therapist: You are silent, but you certainly
attempted suicide. Since that time, she had redon’t look peaceful.
fused to have anything to do with the care of
Patient: Susie is damaged already. I know it!
her baby. She was hospitalized after the suicide
attempt and medicated, improved and was disTherapist: Damaged? How?
charged. When she returned home, she reverted to her earlier condition. The care of the
Patient (vaguely, impatiently, but without
baby was turned over to an elderly family
conviction): She’s not developing as fast as
friend who moved into the house for that purshe should, I know it!
pose. The patient was described as sitting home
all day, saying almost nothing, eating little, and
Therapist: You don’t seem much convinced
occasionally crying silently. When asked to
of this “damage.”
perform some caretaking act for the baby, her
response invariably was a quiet, “I can’t.”
Patient: I just think to myself, over and over,
She began psychotherapy at the insisthat she’s been damaged and that it’s too late
tence of her husband. I will now describe sevto make up . . . When I sit home, I think that
eral exchanges between the patient and the
over and over . . . that’s what I think all day.
therapist that reflect something of therapeutic
Therapist: That isn’t just “thinking.” It’s an
process:
accusation, against yourself. What you do,
When the patient began therapy, and
perhaps, is accuse yourself over and over, all
for several weeks thereafter, she sat silently,
day, as you say, relentlessly.
just as described earlier. The therapist’s occasional comments elicited very little response
Self-Reproach and Personal Responsibility
24
Patient (defensively): I can’t take care of her!
I just can’t!
think I was nervous about it. In fact, I felt
self–confident. I knew the material.
Therapist: OK, if you can’t, you can’t. But
you say it as if you’re in a courtroom answering a charge.
She explained that at first she was very
happy, but then after the baby was home for a
few days, she was very tense. Things didn’t go
well—nothing went according to expectaSome time later the patient made the ac- tions, according to the books. She was very
cusation in a different form:
frightened. There were no relatives to turn to.
She then referred to the death of her mother
Patient: I’ve failed in the basic function of a
when she was twelve. She was an only child,
woman.
had always been a good student, and was later
an outstanding student. Grades meant a great
Therapist: It’s your view that that’s what
deal to her.
women are good for, that’s how they should
At this point she “remembered” that
be measured?
once before in her life she had gotten terribly
panicky. She disclosed that she had originally
Patient (angrily): You’re just trying to make me
done graduate work in a different field and
feel better. But how can I forget it, what I’ve
was not far from her master’s degree when she
done, what I’m still doing?! I can’t forget it!
had to take an important examination for
which she had studied intensively. On the day
Therapist: When you say you “can’t” forget
of the exam, she became extremely worried
it, do you mean, perhaps, that you can’t perabout whether she would do well. She went
mit yourself to forget it, that you shouldn’t
into the examination room, looked over the
forget it, that it would be wrong to relent?
questions quickly, immediately decided that
she “couldn’t” write the exam, and walked
The patient did not respond directly,
out. Thereafter she changed her field and went
but seemed to soften.
to another university.
At some later point, when she was a little more relaxed in general and a little less reTherapist: When you say that you “couldn’t”
proachful of herself, she spoke for the first
write the exam, I assume you mean that you
time of what preceded the present crisis, startwere afraid to risk it and wouldn’t write the
ing with her pregnancy and anticipation of the
exam.
baby.
Patient: I studied very hard for it.
She then explained that she had read extensively over a period of months on the psychology of infancy. She was well into the psychoanalytic literature on the subject and had
gone through an extensive course on natural
childbirth. All this work and studying, she
says ironically, was in preparation for her
“big success” as a mother.
The therapist said (incorrectly, as it
turned out), “I suppose you were nervous
about it, wanted to reassure yourself.”
Patient (crying, for the first time): No, I don’t
Patient: Well, of course. (This last was said as
if that should have been obvious, even to the
therapist.)
The relation of this incident to her current situation was not lost on her.
CONCLUSION
I believe the development in this case to
be typical of the therapeutic process in cases of
severe obsessive self–reproach. The attitude of
self–reproach with its assumption of moral responsibility obstructed this woman’s clear
consciousness of her reasons for failing to care
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25
for her baby. As this attitude was weakened in
the course of the therapy, it became possible
for her attention to turn in a different direction, initially to the reasons for her comparable action in earlier, comparable circumstances. A transformation of her experience
came about, expressed first in terms of the earlier event, from a helpless “I can’t,” as though
she were unwillingly disabled, to a consciousness of active, even reasoned, refusal. This
transformation constitutes an advance in the
integration of the personality and the
experience of personal responsibility.
REFERENCES
Kaiser, H. (1955). The problem of responsibility
in psychotherapy. Psychiatry, 18, 205–211; also
in Effective Psychotherapy: The Contribution of
Hellmuth Kaiser (L.B. Fierman, ed.). New York:
Free Press, 1965.
Shapiro, D. (1981). Autonomy and Rigid Character. New York: Basic Books.
Shapiro, D. (1989). Psychotherapy of Neurotic
Character. New York: Basic Books.