GAPS Annual Conference
November 9th, 2016
London
Juliet Koprowska
University of York
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I am not a client, a customer, nor a service user.
I am not a shirker, a scrounger, a beggar, nor a thief.
I am not a national insurance number, nor a blip on a
screen.
I paid my dues, never a penny short and proud to do
so.
I don't tug the forelock, but look my neighbour in the
eye.
I don't accept or seek charity.
My name is Daniel Blake, I am a man, not a dog.
As such, I demand my rights. I demand you treat me
with respect...
(Ken Loach, 2016)
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(You do not have to be shamed in my
closeness. Family are the people who must
never make you feel ashamed.)
(You are wrong. Family are the people who
must make you feel ashamed when you are
deserving of shame.)
(Jonathan Safran Foer, 2002 p. 245)
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Emotion is finding a new ascendancy in social
work (e.g. Joanne Warner’s new book)
The main aim of this talk is to stimulate
thinking, feeling and discussion about the
subject of shame, in particular
How do we build resistance through
relationships?
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An occasion when you have been shamed
An occasion when you have witnessed the shaming
of someone else
An occasion when you have participated in shaming
or scapegoating someone else
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Body-shaming
Sexual shaming, especially of young women
Shaming the poor
Trolling, bullying
Shameful behaviour shames the victim
We deal with shamers by shaming them
Processes of concealment, revelation and
erasure
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To have a sense of honour in ancient Rome
was to have a sense of shame….A fall meant
disgrace (Barton, 2001, p. 199)
An essential characteristic of this conception
is that only those who have honour run the
risk of shame
What is most shameful is also most sacred
(Barton, 2001)
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Judaeo-Christian
tradition of the
source of shame,
resulting from
eating of the Tree of
Knowledge
What do you notice?
(Masaccio, 1424-1427, Brancacci
Chapel, Florence)
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Disobedience
Seeking knowledge
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Punishment consists in
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Self-awareness
Sexual shame
Shame for having disobeyed and been foolish
Absolute and ineradicable – being cast out
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A person feeling shame will exercise her
capacity for self-awareness, and she will do
so dramatically: from being just an actor
absorbed in what she is doing she will
suddenly become self-aware and selfcritical…. It is the fall itself which is here the
prime consideration, rather than her new
degraded status. (Taylor, 1998, p. 67)
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Shame arises out of the tension between the Ego and
the Ego-Ideal, not between Ego and Super-Ego as in
guilt
…guilt is generated whenever a boundary (set by the
Super-Ego) is…transgressed, shame occurs when a
goal (presented by the Ego-Ideal) is not being
reached
The unconscious, irrational threat implied by shame
anxiety is abandonment and not mutilation…as in
guilt
The Law of Talion does not obtain…. (Piers & Singer,
1953/1971, p. 147)
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Behind the feeling of shame stands not the
fear of hatred, but the fear of contempt
which, on an even deeper level of the
unconscious, spells fear of abandonment,
the death by emotional starvation. (Piers & Singer,
1953/1971, p. 150)
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Guilt anticipates punishment; shame
anticipates ostracisation
Guilt vs shame cultures: internal vs external
sanctions – not so clear cut
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Experiences of shame.…are experiences of
exposure, exposure of peculiarly sensitive,
intimate, vulnerable aspects of the self. (Merrell
Lynd, 1958/71, p. 159)
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…feeling shame is connected with the
thought that eyes are upon one (Taylor, 1985, p. 53)
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Her final judgment concerns herself only: she
is degraded not relatively to this audience,
she is degraded absolutely. (Taylor, 1998, p. 68)
Taylor regards embarrassment as a social
emotion, but not shame, where failure is seen
as absolute (p. 75)
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Shame is so painful we hope it ends quickly.
We have no particular desire to reflect on it or
talk about it, because to do so is to run the
risk of reexperiencing it. Shame is also
somewhat contagious; it is difficult to
witness…without some vicarious twinge..
(Broucek, 1991, p. 4)
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Guilt is about what one did, shame is about
the self, what one is. …Guilt is a highly
individualist emotion, reaffirming the
centrality of the isolated person; shame is a
social emotion, reaffirming the emotional
interdependency of persons.
(Scheff, 2000, p. 92, writing on the ideas of Helen Lynd)
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An unacknowledged emotion: not in the
‘universal list’
A large family of emotions, including
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(Scheff, 2000, pp. 96-97)
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The feeling trap
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(Lewis, cited in Scheff, 2000)
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embarrassment, humiliation, and related
feelings such as shyness…they involve the
feeling of a threat to the social bond.
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The Ancient Greeks and
many other cultures have
scapegoating rituals
involving animals and
humans
Individuals may be selected
or volunteer; subgroups
(‘witches’) and whole
communities (Jews, Tutsis)
may be ‘chosen’.
Attention to difference
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(Douglas, 1995)
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The Scapegoat, William
Holman Hunt, National
Museums, Liverpool
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Solomon Asch: Conformity
◦ Scheff’s analysis
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Milgram: Obedience to Authority
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Zimbardo: The Lucifer Effect
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Enjoyable
A feeling of power
A feeling of moral worth
Lack of attunement and lack of connection
are requisites
The shock of realisation
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There are always at least two subgroups
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Projection
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Role locks
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Inability to ‘see’ the other as a person
(Agazarian, 2004)
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The sociology of moral indignation
Ritual destruction of an individual’s identity
…the former identity stands as accidental; the
new identity is the "basic reality." What he is
now is what, "after all," he was all along….
Finally, the denounced person must be
ritually separated from a place in the
legitimate order, i.e., he must be defined as
standing at a place opposed to it. He must be
placed "outside," he must be made "strange.”
(Garfinkel, p. 422 & 423)
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Sadomasochistic pleasure in the degradation
of others (Gustafson, 2013)
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Aims to be anti-oppressive
Works with denigrated populations
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We are sensitive to threats to our social
bonds
We are not immune to the pressure of
conformity
We can take pleasure in the dark side of
power, given the chance
By denigrating the denigrators, we may be
joining them
We are subject to projections and intractable
role locks
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One point that Lynd makes is profoundly
important for a social theory of shame and
the bond—sharing one’s shame with another
can strengthen the relationship: “The very
fact that shame is an isolating experience
also means that if one can find ways of
sharing and communicating it this
communication can bring about particular
closeness with other persons” (1958:66).
(Scheff, 2000, p. 92)
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Reflection is not enough — self-inspection
will not penetrate the boundary
Systems-centred work, especially in groups,
allows both shame and shaming to be
explored
Shame is reduced by subgrouping with others
We could become more sensitive to shame
markers in colleagues and clients,
acknowledge them, and avoid strengthening
them
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The occasion when you were shamed
The occasion when you witnessed the shaming of
someone else
The occasion when you participated in shaming or
scapegoating someone else
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We need to make space in social work for the
unspoken and the unspeakable
We need to hear and speak about acts of
commission and omission and the shame we
feel
We need to acknowledge our intense and
inescapable interdependency
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Shame, blame and scapegoating are
interpersonal and social processes
They are enduring and inescapable parts of
human social life, despite the pain they cause
Empathy for others and compassion for
ourselves are good starting points for change
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How do we build resistance through
relationships?
Please take your thoughts and feelings with
you into the group discussions
THANK YOU
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Agazarian, Yvonne M. (2004) Systems-Centered
Psychotherapy for Groups. London: Karnac.
Asch, Solomon E. (1952) Social Pyschology.
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Barton, Carlin A. (2001) Roman Honor: The fire in
the bones. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Broucek, Francis J. (1991) Shame and the Self. New
York: Guilford Press.
Douglas, Tom (1995) Scapegoats: Transferring
blame. London: Routledge.
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Foer, Jonathan Safran (2002) Everything is
Illuminated. London: Penguin.
Garfinkel, Harold (1956) Conditions of Successful
Degradation Ceremonies. American Journal of
Sociology. Vol. 61 No. 5, pp. 420-424.
Gustafson, Kaaryn (2013) Degradation Ceremonies
and the Criminalization of Low-Income Women.
University of California Irvine Law Review, Vol.3 No.
2, Research paper No. 2014-42, pp.101-160.
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Kahneman, Daniel (2000) Evaluation by
Moments: Past and Future, in D. Kahneman and
A. Tversky (Eds.) Choices, Values and Frames.
New York: Cambridge University Press and the
Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 693-708.
Merrell Lynd, Helen (1958/71) The Nature of
Shame, in H. Morris (ed) Guilt and Shame.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, pp. 159-202.
Milgram, Stanley, (1974) Obedience to
Authority. New York: Harper Collins.
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Piers, Gerhart & Singer, Milton B. (1953/1971) in H.
Morris (ed) Guilt and Shame. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth,
pp. 147-154.
Scheff, Thomas (2000)Shame as a Social Bond: A
sociological theory. Sociological Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1,
pp. 84-99.
Taylor, Gabrielle (1985) Pride, Shame and Guilt:
Emotions of self-assessment. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Warner, Joanne (2015) The Emotional Politics of Child
Protection. Bristol: Policy Press.
Zimbardo, Philip (2007) The Lucifer Effect: How good
people turn evil. London:Rider.
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