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Shame from
Gender Loving Care
Guilt over the "damage," or perceived damage,
done to others is often expressed in therapeutic situations and thwarts
realistic decision-making. In a study of 262 patients, Schaefer and Wheeler
(1995) identified guilt as underlying a host of psychological problems facing
the gender-variant individual. This guilt about one's condition leads to the
formation of defensive maneuvers and compensatory strategies, as a means of
"undoing" and atonement.
In order to understand the profound toxicity of this gender
guilt to the development of identity, it is essential to understand the emotion,
or more precisely the affect, of shame. Donald Nathanson is a psychiatrist who
has written extensively on the affect system, and particularly the affect of
shame. Referring to Sullivan as the founder of American psychiatry, Nathanson
superimposes affect, biologically wired mechanisms that are triggered in
response to conditions that recur throughout life, atop the phenomenological
experiences of self-in-relation-to-others, which Sullivan outlined.
So, return to the gender-confused child, who, after age
two, is capable of cognitively reflecting that parts of the self are not valued,
e.g., contrary exhibitions of gender. These experiences form the "bad
me." On the other hand, behaviors that elicit praise and acceptance
comprise the "good me." According to Nathanson, "in the simplest
possible terms, 'good me' equals pride, and 'bad me' equals shame" (1992).
This linkage is not just a cognitive appraisal that certain behaviors are
disapproved of, but evokes a biological assemblage of physiological sequel that
is scripted into the human circuitry. The affect shame throws the organism into
a painful state of inner tension. It interferes with neocortical cognition,
causes the head to drop, eves to turn downward, the face to undergo
vasodilatation (blush), and a brief incapacity to speak.
But more importantly, shame has one characteristic that is
unlike any other affect--it has the ability to act as an attenuator system. As
the organism becomes able to assemble perceptions into patterns, and compare
patterns with other patterns stored in long-term memory, mismatched patterns
that appear in the midst of interest or enjoyment, reduce the positive affect
that was operational a moment before:
Shame affect is a highly painful mechanism that operates to
pull the organism away from whatever might interest it or make it content. Shame
is painful in direct proportion to the degree of positive affect it limits....
The specific "feel" of shame is that of an impediment to something we
had wanted or enjoyed or which excited or pleased us. Although the affect is
triggered initially by chance occurrence, later we learn new triggers for shame.
The more information we can absorb, the more functions that can be handled by
the ever-evolving brain of our species, the more these triggers for shame can be
found. (Nathanson, 1992, pp. 138, 139)
Shame can interfere with any activity. It operates to
reduce not only interest-excitement, but also enjoyment-joy, the affects that
make people fun, charming, and engaging. Nathanson advises psychotherapists who
encounter clients who appear lacking m vitality to "look first for nearness
to shame."
Few experiences are as painful as the feeling of being
deserving of rejection. Over time, the incorporation of shame affect and other
affects of rejection, such as disgust, are solidified. This amalgamation of
painful affect and negative self-appraisal acts as an instrument to isolate the
self. Shame in such wise molds character by causing the individual to avoid
contact test something be exposed and trigger shame. We have seen this system at
work in the formation of the identity of the gender-variant child as he or she
progresses developmentally toward preadolescence and accumulates shame-based
self-perceptions.
Thus shame ravages the self. It concerns Nathanson that so
little is understood about the nature of shame and the development of
psychopathology. Few therapists are aware of how deeply shame influences the
entire character structure. For example:
It seems obvious to anybody who has studied shame that the
so-called "borderline illness" is little more than all exaggerated
result of the interference in development to be expected when a child encounters
severe impediments to positive affect while learning to be independent.
"Borderlines" are shame-bound people loaded with diss-mell and
self-disgust.., a large part of the time spent in therapy is devoted to
meticulous reconstruction of life events made painful by shame. The importance
of shame in these cases is rivaled by few clinical conditions encountered in the
practice of psychotherapy. (p. 183)
Kristen's journey is an erudite narrative of the insidious
and pervasive nature of shame-based depression. Surely, gender-conflicted people
do indeed rival, if not surpass, other individuals in terms of the extent of
shame-damage that has affixed itself to the self, defying triumphant living.
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