Guilt and shame are complex human emotions that can have significant impacts on mental health and wellbeing. While related, they stem from different sources and serve different purposes. Understanding where these emotions come from is an important first step in learning to manage them in a healthy way.
What is guilt?
Guilt arises when we believe we have done something wrong or immoral. It involves a sense of responsibility and remorse over actions that violate internalized values or societal norms. Guilt serves an important social function – it helps motivate us to treat others well and make amends for harm we may have caused.
Some key things to know about guilt:
- Guilt stems from our actions and behaviors, when we believe we have done something wrong.
- It involves a sense of regret and responsibility over our actions.
- Guilt can motivate us to apologize, make amends, or change future behavior.
- Moderate levels of guilt can be healthy and prosocial.
- Excessive, irrational guilt is linked to mental health problems like depression and anxiety disorders.
What causes feelings of guilt?
There are several potential sources of guilt:
Early childhood experiences
Our early upbringing plays a major role in shaping adult attitudes about right and wrong. Having very strict parents who emphasized guilt and shame as parenting techniques can make someone more prone to excessive guilt as an adult. On the other hand, parents who are overly permissive and fail to discipline can make it harder for a child to internalize values and norms.
Cultural and religious beliefs
The broader culture and religious upbringing also influences moral values and norms around guilt. Cultures and religions vary in how much emphasis they place on guilt, shame, and sin. For example, Catholicism has a stronger focus on confession of sins and guilt compared to Protestant traditions. Collectivist cultures tend to have higher emphasis on shame compared to individualistic Western cultures that emphasize guilt more.
Violating one’s moral standards
Guilt often occurs when we violate internalized rules, values or integrity. For example, cheating on a partner could induce guilt by conflicting with values around fidelity and honesty. Guilt can also occur when we fail to live up to our ideals or responsibilities.
Empathy and harming others
Behaving in ways that harm or negatively impact others can be a major source of guilt. Due to empathy and social bonds, we tend to feel guilty when our actions cause suffering or difficulty for people we care about. Accidentally hurting someone else is a common trigger for guilt.
Childhood trauma or PTSD
Survivors of childhood trauma, abuse or PTSD often struggle with strong feelings of guilt over things they did or failed to do. This can include guilt over not being able to stop the abuse, guilt over enjoying some aspects of the relationship, or guilt over fighting back. These types of trauma-related guilts are often irrational but very painful.
What is shame?
Shame is related to but distinct from guilt. While guilt involves feeling bad about one’s actions, shame involves feeling bad about one’s self or core identity.
Key characteristics of shame:
- Shame is felt about oneself or one’s defects rather than specific behaviors.
- Shame involves feeling fundamentally flawed, inferior or unworthy.
- It often involves wanting to hide, withdraw, or disappear.
- Chronic shame is linked to mental health issues like social anxiety, eating disorders, addiction, and depression.
What causes feelings of shame?
There are several potential sources of shame.
Childhood emotional neglect or abuse
Children who grow up with critical, cold, or emotionally abusive parents are at high risk for shame and low self-esteem. Being repeatedly mistreated or made to feel inferior can embed a sense of core shame. Sexual abuse is also closely tied to shame.
Social rejection and bullying
Being rejected, excluded, mocked or bullied, especially during childhood and adolescence, can damage self-image and create chronic feelings of shame. Ongoing experiences of racism, sexism, homophobia or other discrimination in adulthood can also provoke shame.
Harsh self-criticism
Habitual self-criticism and focusing on our flaws and mistakes can drive shame. Perfectionism is linked to increased shame, as perfectionists constantly feel they fall short of standards.
Appearance and body image
Body shame is common, especially for those who get strong messages that aspects of their appearance are flawed or unacceptable. Weight stigma is a frequent source of body shame. Eating disorders, which have high rates of shame, often originate from body image issues.
Failing to meet expectations
Letting down important people, failing to achieve goals, and not living up to ego ideals are common shame triggers. Shame often occurs when our actual self fails to meet our ideal, imagined self in areas like career success, relationships, finances, or lifestyles.
Keeping secrets
Keeping dark or embarrassing secrets about oneself can fuel shame. Common examples are secrets about addiction, mental illness, abusive behaviors, and financial problems. Coming clean about secrets can relieve shame.
Cultural factors
Conformist cultures that judge people harshly for deviating from traditions and norms tend to have higher rates of shame. Minority groups often experience collective cultural shame related to prejudice and social stigma about their identities.
How do guilt and shame differ?
While guilt and shame are related in some ways, there are key differences:
| Guilt | Shame |
|---|---|
| Focuses on specific actions or behaviors | Focuses on the global self |
| Involves feeling bad about what one did | Involves feeling bad about who one is |
| Often proportional to the offense | Extreme, overwhelming feelings |
| Motivates positive change | Motivates hiding, withdrawing, lashing out |
| Allows forgiveness and repair of mistakes | Feelings of being unforgivable, irreparable |
While both guilt and shame are unpleasant emotions, guilt serves more constructive social purposes compared to more toxic shame. Guilt promotes accountability, making amends, and learning from mistakes. In contrast, chronic shame can damage self-esteem, relationships, and mental health.
Healthy vs toxic guilt
Not all guilt is created equal. Guilt can be:
- Appropriate – Proportional feelings of guilt that motivate positive change after wrongdoing
- Inappropriate – Excessive guilt disproportionate to the situation
- Irrational – Feeling guilty over events outside one’s control
Mild to moderate “appropriate” guilt is generally healthy, while excessive, irrational guilt can become problematic and damaging.
Signs of toxic, problematic guilt include:
- Feeling guilty about irrational things outside one’s control
- Ruminating excessively on mistakes
- Feeling one deserves punishment
- Being unable to forgive oneself
- Believing one is inherently bad due to mistakes
Learning to identify and counter irrational thoughts that drive unhealthy guilt is important. Therapy approaches like CBT can help challenge guilt-provoking cognitive distortions.
Overcoming problematic guilt and shame
Chronic, irrational guilt and shame takes a toll mentally and emotionally. Here are some strategies that can help:
Cognitive reframing
Identifying and reframing guilt-inducing irrational thoughts is helpful. For example, countering thoughts like “I’m a terrible person for messing up” with more realistic assessments like “I’m human and made a mistake but can learn from this.”
Mindfulness
Mindfulness practices help observe feelings of guilt/shame without over-identifying with them. They enable responding mindfully rather than reacting reflexively.
Self-compassion
Treating ourselves kindly rather than judging ourselves harshly combats shame. Self-compassion practices help replace shame with self-acceptance and understanding.
Vulnerability and connection
Sharing our struggles openly and forming authentic connections counteracts the isolation of shame. Being vulnerable replaces hiding and helps build self-acceptance.
Therapy
For long-standing guilt/shame, professional counseling provides objective feedback and healthy coping strategies. Certain therapies like CBT directly address guilty thoughts while others target childhood shame roots. Support groups can also be very helpful.
Conclusion
Guilt and shame have complex origins in our upbringing, social experiences, moral values, and self-beliefs. While guilt can serve positive functions, chronic shame is detrimental. Recognizing roots of problematic guilt/shame and taking steps to develop self-compassion, challenge distorted thinking, and increase vulnerability and connection can help overcome these difficult emotions. With proper support, we can free ourselves of guilt and shame’s grip and develop greater self-acceptance.