American society is often characterized as a “guilt culture,” as opposed to non-Western “shame cultures.” But is this distinction still valid today? Through examples like shaming penalties in criminal law, “fat shaming,” and cyberbullying on the social media, The Rise of the Shame Society: America’s Change from a Guilt Culture into a Shame Culture shows how shame is increasingly invading our lives, leading to feelings of humiliation and depression. Marcel Van Herpen identifies three causes of this phenomenon: new childrearing methods, the advent of the social media, and a transformation of Western individualism. He weighs the arguments for and against a shame society and concludes that a guilt-centered approach remains preferable. Although shame increasingly permeates everyday life, the author argues that its rise is not a fatality. He emphasizes that shame is a dynamic phenomenon and that one can observe trends which lead to an increase of shame, as well as to its decrease. Examples of the latter are a growing sensitivity to the pain caused by anti-Black racism, the decrease of anti-LGBTQIA+ prejudices, and efforts to end the stigmatization of people with disabilities. Along with exploring its increase, The Rise of the Shame Society demonstrates that there are ways to overcome shame.

This edited collection of interdisciplinary perspectives on shame provides insight into scholarly concerns regarding the appropriate methods for studying shame and the theories that they yield, as well as the import of shame to our self, others, and the community to which we belong.

Performing Shame shows how simulations of shame by North American writers and artists have the power to resist its withering influence. Chapter 1 analyses the projects’ key terms: shame, performance, and empathy. Chapter 2 probes the book’s key terms in light of a real-world study of an "empathy device" that aims to teach the public what it feels like to be disabled. Chapter 3 analyses how theatre intervenes in the practice of medicine via standardized patient actors who engage in role play to enhance medical students’ empathy for patients coping with shame. Chapter 4 moves from the clinic to the street to examine how The Raging Grannies’ public performances contest ageist constructions of older women’s bodies and desires. Chapter 5 shifts further from the bedside to the book by exploring Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home, which challenges the shame projected onto homosexuals. Bringing the study full circle, the final chapter offers close readings of the stories of Alice Munro; like empathy devices, her texts restage scenes of shame to undo its malevolent spell. This book will be of interest to scholars in theatre and performance studies, health humanities, gender studies, queer studies, literary studies, disability studies, and affect studies.

In this book, first published in 2000, Stephen Pattison considers the nature of shame as it is discussed in the diverse discourses of literature, psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, history and sociology and concludes that 'shame' is not a single unitary phenomenon, but rather a set of separable but related understandings in different discourses. Situating chronic shame primarily within the metaphorical ecology of defilement, pollution and toxic unwantedness, Pattison goes on to examine the causes and effects of shame. He then considers the way in which Christianity has responded to and used shame. Psychologists, philosophers, theologians and therapists will find this a fascinating source of insight, and it will be of particular use to pastoral workers and those concerned with religion and mental health.

Examining experiences of shame and stigma in the context of austerity and the declining welfare state, this book shows how social work can ameliorate the impacts of shame through sensitive, reflective and relationship-based practice. It provides a broad understanding of shame and looks at its impact on both service users and practitioners.

The cultural atmosphere is changing so rapidly, it is becoming difficult to maintain perspective and understanding with so many variations. Riots are called peaceful, and only a certain group such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa matter; they demonstrate to defund the police and law enforcement who protect them. Babies are killed in the womb, and it is justified as women's rights. Illegal drugs, which are destructive to the mind and the body, are now legal and accessible. God's plan for marriage between a man and a woman is blatantly disregarded to accommodate same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and the LGBT movement agenda. It is now permissible for transgender males to compete in female sports. Our young people are a confused generation who have no ethical or moral compass. This thinking comes from the organizations who have no concept or morality or compassion and deny that there is a God. If anything makes them feel ashamed of their motives or sinfulness, they "cancel" it with the goal of changing culture.

Each essay in this volume provides a cultural perspective on shame. More specifically, each chapter focuses on the question of how culture can differentially affect experiences of shame for members of that culture. As a collection, this volume provides a cross-cultural perspective on shame, highlighting the various similarities and differences of experiences of shame across cultures. In Part 1, each contributor focuses primarily on how shame is theorized in a non-English-speaking culture, and address how the science of shame ought to be pursued, how it ought to identify its object of study, what methods are appropriate for a rigorous science of shame, and how a method of study can determine or influence a theory of shame. In Part 2, each contributor is primarily concerned with a cultural practice of shame, and addresses how shame is related to a normative understanding of our self as a person and an individual member of a community, how culture and politics affect the value and import of shame, and what the relationship between culture and politics is in the construction of shamed identities. Cultural Perspectives on Shame will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in cross-cultural philosophy, philosophy of emotion, moral psychology, and the social sciences.

What role does emotion play in child and family social work practice? In this book, researcher Matthew Gibson reviews the role of shame and pride in social work, providing invaluable new insights from the first study undertaken into the role of these emotions within professional practice. The author demonstrates how these emotions, which are embedded within the very structures of society but experienced as individual phenomena, are used as mechanism of control in relation to both professionals themselves and service users. Examining the implications of these emotional experiences in the context of professional practice and the relationship between the individual, the family and the state, the book calls for a more humane form of practice, rooted in more informed policies that take in to consideration the realities and frailties of the human experience.

The Widening Scope of Shame is the first collection of papers on shame to appear in a decade and contains contributions from most of the major authors currently writing on this topic. It is not a sourcebook, but a comprehensive introduction to clinical and theoretical perspectives on shame that is intended to be read cover to cover. The panoramic scope of this multidisciplinary volume is evidenced by a variety of clinically and developmentally grounded chapters; by chapters explicating the theories of Silvan Tomkins and Helen Block Lewis; and by chapters examining shame from the viewpoints of philosophy, social theory, and the study of family systems. A final section of brief chapters illuminates shame in relation to specific clinical problems and experiential contexts, including envy, attention deficit disorder, infertility, masochism, the medical setting, and religious experience. This collection will be of special interest to psychoanalytically oriented readers. It begins with a chapter charting the evolution of Freud's thinking on shame, followed by chapters providing contemporary perspectives on the role of shame in development, and the status of shame within the theory of narcissism. Of further psychoanalytic interest are two reprinted classics by Sidney Levin on shame and marital dysfunction. In both depth of clinical coverage and breadth of perspectives, The Widening Scope of Shame is unique in the shame literature. Readable, well organized, and completely up to date, it becomes essential reading for all students of this intriguing and unsettling emotion and of human development more generally.

Shame, the quintessential human emotion, received little attention during the years in which the central forces believed to be motivating us were identified as primitive instincts like sex and aggression. Now, redressing the balance, there is an explosion of interest in the self-conscious emotion. Much of our psychic lives involve the negotiation of shame, asserts Michael Lewis, internationally known developmental and clinical psychologist. Shame is normal, not pathological, though opposite reactions to shame underlie many conflicts among individuals and groups, and some styles of handling shame are clearly maladaptive. Illustrating his argument with examples from everyday life, Lewis draws on his own pathbreaking studies and the theory and research of many others to construct the first comprehensive and empirically based account of emotional development focused on shame. In this paperback edition, Michael Lewis adds a compelling new chapter on stigma in which he details the process in which stigmatization produces shame.