ABSTRACT
Shame and the fear of shame can play highly significant roles for each participant in treatment. For example, the analyst may feel afraid that doing treatment will expose their insufficiencies as a clinician, and, even more broadly, as a human being. This paper discusses a number of varieties of the experience of shame, including those tinged with anger, guilt, and anxiety. It also examines the shame about feeling shame, which can be particularly troubling in training. Aspects of the candidate’s position that may elicit shame are explored, with some suggestions about ways they could be ameliorated.
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Sandra Buechler
Sandra Buechler, Ph.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute in New York. She is the author of Clinical Values: Emotions that Guide Psychoanalytic Treatment (Analytic Press, 2004); Making a Difference in Patients’ Lives (Routledge, 2008), which won the Gradiva award; Still Practicing: The Heartaches and Joys of a Clinical Career (Routledge, 2012); Understanding and Treating Patients in Clinical Psychoanalysis: Lessons from Literature (Routledge, 2015); Psychoanalytic Reflections: Training and Practice (IPBooks, 2017); Psychoanalytic Approaches to Problems in Living (Routledge, 2019); and Poetic Dialogues (IPBooks, 2021).