On Dignity, a Sense of Dignity, and Inspirational Shame

ABSTRACT

The word dignity encompasses more than we can say of it. It is difficult to define, and yet we work with it every day in our offices. I explore various ideas about dignity, and then examine the place of dignity in the process of analysis and therapy. I draw out psychological components of dignity that are often strong themes in our psychoanalytic work. Many patients come to therapy as a result of assaults on their dignity, or from the effects of family situations that are so corrosive that they never developed a sense of their own dignity. For these patients, I think of therapy as a process of either finding or restoring dignity.

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to Frank-M. Staemmler, Ph.D., and Robert Morris, Ph.D., for their helpful ideas. I am solely responsible for any errors or problems.

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Notes on contributors

Lynne Jacobs

Lynne Jacobs, Ph.D., is a training analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles, and Co-founder of the Pacific Gestalt Institute.