SHAME IN THE THERAPIST
February 8th, 2016 adminA friend and advisor recently sent me a most moving piece of spiritual writing, believed to be Native American origin. If you care to read it, see below. Little did my friend realize how timely his message would be! The prayer mentions shame and in our training program that very day, we as a group shared aspects of our shame experiences, which drew us very close to one another.
Each month that I train, I ask for inspirational guidance and it usually comes. Therefore, no training event is manualized, though it has structure. This time I was led to chew on one of the teaching principles in DEFT, which states that DEFT “Actively attends to the therapist’s state of well-being.” This means that self-compassion needs to extend in both directions in the therapeutic dyad. I began thinking how we place such emphasis on skills and the dictates of theory but so little on the impact of shame within the therapist that can be triggered when we are devalued, dismissed, seen to be ineffectual, or seem powerless to bring about the results we’d hoped for. Or when we think we’re not as good as a colleague or teacher and feel the sting of envy.
Shame afflicts us not only in our offices but also in our training programs, when we are embarrassed because we don’t know as much as someone else and we cringe realizing that gaps in our knowledge will be exposed in our public discussions, role-playing and group supervision. Our shame leads to fear that we will be identified by our struggles and labeled as lacking forevermore. We may bravely show a piece of work to get help with it, but then we fear that our colleagues will hold on to those impressions and draw negative conclusions about us, as we also do towards ourselves. Even though we know that there are deeply gratifying periods in our work, that aspect recedes from consciousness.
My premise is that the way we deal with our shame experiences holds as much weight in our effectiveness as a therapist as the skills we are learning. I wish to put forth that working with our own shame as we train with other colleagues is one of the most valuable uses of the training experience. This involves attending not only to content but also to the process that takes place as we attempt to absorb that content. How do we get the most from our training or stay attuned to our client when our hearts are pounding, our hands are sweating, and sometimes we can’t even think clearly? Maybe our mind is actively engaged in devaluing us viciously.
It happened to me the other day at a lecture I had attended. I was moved to share something of a personal nature and held up my hand twice. The speaker looked past me both times. I battled internally about giving up, and my hands began to sweat. For a brief period, I couldn’t follow what others were saying. Ultimately, I retreated. I would like our training program to be a place that encourages us to share these distressing experiences so that we might help each other to nurture ourselves in our shame states and move beyond them.
Let us remember that shame dissipates when there is awareness of it; when we allow ourselves to share and work with our shame; when we make course corrections that may be indicated; and when we really take in that a mistake or shortcoming does not define us… that there is far more to us than the thing we are ashamed of. Even really big things that are or have been sources of excruciating shame can be separated from, like leaving a sinking ship and walking onto land, taking new steps afresh and anew, able to forgive and accept ourselves no matter the humiliating source of shame.
Last Saturday at training, something told me to address the omnipresent undercurrent of shame that stifles our speech, participation and self-exposure. These very same forces that smother us in our training do the same in our offices. It takes a great leap of faith in ourselves to stand with what we are learning and go against powerful character habits that exist in most of us. These are habits that pull us into compliance and into pleasing our clients so they don’t have to deal with the discomfort of going into new territory either. However, since the very mastery that we envy and want for ourselves demands that we come into relationship with our own shame and work with it actively and caringly, wouldn’t it be even better to practice our own inner shame work with loving colleagues? Must we feel so alone?
I began to share with my training group about my own shame journey and that I’d been noticing I was more tolerant of my shame states than I once was. I told about an experience at a recent professional meeting led by an eminent and famous teacher, and he’d said something that made me think he’d misunderstood me and may have thought I knew less than I did. Of course, what I know was not the relevant topic but rather my concern that he and the group underestimate what I knew. There was a time I would have felt compelled to correct his misperception or withdrawn and agonized that this had occurred. But this time I rather rapidly let it go. Just having a choice was refreshingly freeing.
I also teach with tapes sometimes that were created years earlier. Though still illustrating powerful teaching points, I see things that I would do quite differently today. It’s been wonderful to present these tapes and publicly assess what still works effectively and also discuss what calls for improvement and why. It becomes possible to have a non-defensive discussion about this without my needing to hide. On more than one occasion, my trainees have said they appreciated that I could admit aspects of my work that I no longer like.
Over the years I’ve learned some tough lessons that came from overexposure in professional forums. When there had been critical or dismissive responses, I felt compelled to set the record straight, so to speak. But my struggle to clarify and be understood only discomforted others and dug the problem deeper. While I don’t regret speaking up, my lesson was to release conflicts more quickly that can’t be resolved and share with kindred people with whom there is not such a struggle to be understood.
An amazing process unfolded in our training this past Saturday as person after person began to share vulnerability after vulnerability, sometimes with tears in the eyes, as we asked each other for help or empathy for our painful self-doubts that could be so discouraging. The spirit in the room shifted to something very alive and beautiful and deeply connected. One person asked rhetorically, “Was this group special today?” This is a good place to share with you this wonderful Native American piece:
Oh, Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you
without shame.
American Indian – Lakota – Chief Yellow Lark – 1887
