Shame as a compromise for humiliation and rage in the internal representation of abuse by loved ones: Processes, motivations, and the role of dissociation

ABSTRACT

This paper examines one particular way a person abused may come to internally position themselves and the abuser to understand their abuse experience. It is based on a differentiation and exploration of the dynamic relationship between shame and humiliation associated with complex feelings the abused has to the abuser. Humiliation is described as denoting the naked self exposed by another, while shame is described as denoting the naked self exposed to another. From this lens, abusive events are conceived as humiliating experiences that come to be represented as shame experiences. Shame is argued to cover over humiliation in order to separate the abused from their internal representation of the abuser (i.e., conceal the self-other object-relationship). This process is facilitated by dissociation and serves several functions, including cloaking hostile feelings (e.g., humiliation fury) toward the abusive (though loved) object. Shame, with the assistance of dissociation, becomes a compromise formation. It punishes the self for the initial humiliation rage directed at the object, protects the object from further attack and blame for the abuse, and obscures awareness of the rage felt toward the object as well as the reparatory guilt possible from it. Dissociation maintains this position by isolating the interpersonal field, the self and object, from the narrative of abuse events. The potential for freedom comes from eroding dissociation, leaving the shame bubble, entertaining the abusive (though loved) object as etiologically significant, and facing the humiliation and humiliation rage that provides the path to reparatory guilt.

KEYWORDS:

• Shame
• humiliation
• dissociation
• abuse

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Drs Richard Chefetz, Donncha Hanna, Henry Luiker, and Catherine Gallagher for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.