In Part 2, we learned that shame develops as a complex survival response to socialization and developmental trauma.  When left unprocessed, shame can transform into a toxic and chronic state of being, where one perceives oneself to be flawed and defective as a human being, unworthy of love, respect, or belonging.  Facing this incredibly painful experience, infants and children develop automatic defense mechanisms and compensatory behaviors to cope with shame to survive.  Unfortunately, these defense mechanisms may prove to be maladaptive in adulthood as they were formed during childhood or adolescence when the brain was still developing.  This brings me to the Third Principle of Shame:

It’s our defenses against shame that cause the most harm to our lives and relationships

Characteristics of the Defenses

Although we use five distinct defensive mechanisms to manage shame, they all share some common characteristics that can indicate when they are being deployed by ourselves or others.  They are:

• Blindspots that operate outside our conscious awareness or control
• A tendency to personalize everything with a self-centered worldview
• Difficulty accepting or trusting new information/perspective
• Highly resistant to change and show discomfort when challenged by new facts or data
• Repetitive behavioral patterns or responses based on past memories that aim to validate and re-affirm the old narrative
• React in binary or contradictory ways (either/or, all/nothing, always/never, love/hate, black/white thinking)
• Attempt to re-establish a sense of safety, connection, and control over the situation

According to Donald Nathanson, these defensive strategies fall loosely into two major categories - patterns of acceptance or avoidance.  However, he noted that “each of these would be recalled not in terms of shame, but as…completely different experiences.”

Patterns of Acceptance

1.  Withdrawal

In most societies, withdrawal is considered a normal and acceptable response to shame, particularly when one is at risk of being publicly shamed or rejected by the group. People who favor this strategy are the most willing to acknowledge and accept their feelings of shame and choose to remove themselves from the distressing situation, reducing further harm.  This corresponds to the “flight” response of the sympathetic nervous system.

If a person can utilize their time away for genuine self-reflection and work through their fears and insecurities, then they can emerge from the experience with a greater sense of humility, clarity, and resilience.

2.  Attack Self

At first glance, it may seem odd and counterintuitive that attacking or shaming oneself can function as a defense against shame.  However, if we dig deeper, we can see how this defense system protects us in four key areas. 

• Cry for help - If we learned as children that it’s normal and healthy to call for help when we’re in pain or distress, then we are more likely to apply the same approach in our adult lives.  Only now, the cry takes the form of self-attack, self-effacing, or self-criticism.  Consciously or not, we are seeking someone to relieve us from our shame either by interrupting the self-attack (ie. Stop saying that, you’re not fat!) or mitigating it with the reassurance of our lovability (ie. No matter what you look like, I will always love you).  The cry for help, even if it’s self-inflicted, can evoke kindness and empathy in others and draw them closer to us.  When done with care, it can foster genuine care and connection between people.  However, if this defense gets overused, it can morph into a self-pitying victim mentality, ultimately pushing people away and increasing our sense of shame.

• Submit to survive - In cases of developmental trauma when it’s not possible to fight, flee or cry for help, attacking oneself can be a useful strategy for a vulnerable child to survive the abusive environment.  By assuming responsibility for the abuse or internalizing the shaming messages of the perpetrator, the child can keep their attachment to the caregivers and avoid feeling the helpless rage or existential terror of abandonment or physical harm.  With time, self-blame becomes a reflexive and automatic submissive response whenever shame is triggered, regardless of what is actually happening.  

• Motivate with criticism - The habitual self-attack can lead to unrealistic and distorted beliefs about personal responsibility, motivation, and punishment.  Many of us can recognize it as the inner critic, which may sound like the perpetrator’s voice.  It usually manifests as negative self-talk that harshly judges all our thoughts, feelings, and actions.  Here are a few examples:

“You should be ashamed of yourself.  Only an idiot would do such a thing!”

“If I believe it was my fault, then I can do something about it instead of feeling helpless.”

“If I beat myself up enough, then I won't make the same mistake again.”

• Control the experience - For those who are unable to tolerate the helplessness or isolation of the withdrawal strategy, self-shaming offers an alternative to accepting shame in a controlled way and being in relationships with others.  It works by following the saying “Do unto yourself what you fear others may do to you.”  This anticipatory defense helps the individual regain a sense of safety by allowing them to control the amount and type of shame they can expect to experience, rather than being caught off guard by unexpected shame.  It can also act as an unconscious attempt to repair or gain mastery over their traumatic experience.  A good example of this is when victims of sexual assault intentionally place themselves into dangerous situations or seek out BDSM sexual dynamics where they can have control over what they want to happen to them.  Of course, if the person is not aware of what they’re doing, they can convince themselves that it’s an act of self-empowerment when in actuality it’s a form of self-harm.

Patterns of Avoidance  

On the other end of the spectrum, there are individuals who cannot tolerate the experience of shame and have constructed elaborate defense mechanisms to avoid it at all costs.  They are Attack Other, Denial, and Fawn/Co-Dependent. 

3.  Attack Other

As we know, one important function of shame is to help us fit into society by inhibiting our expression of rage and anger.  However, the attack other mechanism draws on this rage and unleashes it without any shame or guilt.  Unlike the acceptance patterns, shame triggers rage instead of restraining it. 

According to Nathanson, the attack other scripts is learned and not innate.  One must have grown up in a family or environment that encourages it, like in many cultural gender socialization of young boys and teenagers to “toughen” them up. 

“The trigger is learned…it is something that makes us feel like a child in danger, one who cannot expect protection from a loving other, and one who must mount a solitary defense against increasing peril.”  

What exactly is the “peril” that the child has to forcefully defend themselves against? Why shame, of course.  Particularly the kind that involves negative judgment about our physical size, strength, skill, or mental ability.  Any thought or feeling that one is defective, weak, small, incompetent, or stupid is not only toxic to our self-esteem, but it can pose a real danger in our lives if we are indeed too weak or incompetent to protect ourselves. 

Therefore, anything that can trigger shame is seen as a life-threatening assault on the self that must be vehemently avoided and rejected through projection and attacking others.  While this defense can be helpful when dealing with toxic shame, it can inadvertently reject some level of healthy shame or guilt that’s needed for our growth and maturity.  This “shamelessness” may foster a self-righteous mindset where the individual believes they have the right to punish and shame others whom they feel wronged them with social and personal impunity.  In the end, there is no real justice or peace in always attacking others, no matter how justified one feels.  As they say, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

4.  Denial

When feelings of shame overwhelmed our capacity to cope, denial can offer us a momentary respite from the fear, pain, and distress of shame through dissociation.  While this is meant to be a temporary strategy, many trauma survivors prefer to live in a constant state of denial, where they can block out unpleasant or unwanted thoughts, feelings, memories, or knowledge from their awareness.  This capacity to deny their inner experience and outer reality requires a few psychological tricks:

• The ability to lie to oneself and others so convincingly that they don’t even know they’re doing it.  Even if one is caught in a lie or contradiction, it can be explained away with magical thinking or conveniently forgotten. 
• Distract people and yourself from the harsh truth by being overly charming, indulging in addictive behaviors, or creating a false sense of self (persona) to mask the shameful self.
• Avoid and dismiss people, places, and ideas that don’t fit their perception of “reality” because that might trigger the denied shame.

Although denial has its place under extreme circumstances, it can cost us our mental health, personal safety, and intimate relationships in the long run.  Those who live in denial remain psychologically fragile, helpless, anxious, and fearful about anything that can threaten their sense of self or reality.  They cannot truly be themselves, connect intimately with others, or live an authentic life because that would mean seeing themselves, others, and the world as it is, not what they want or wish it to be.  And that requires the courage to accept shame as part of life and learn to handle problems openly and honestly. 

5.  Fawn/Co-dependent

Fawn or the co-dependent defense is a long-term survival strategy for those who are stuck living in a suboptimal or dangerous environment where they cannot deploy any other defenses.  Examples of this are women and children who are victims of domestic violence or marginalized people who have to navigate an oppressive system.  

The primary objective of this defense is to make the traumatizing environment safer and more bearable by bending to the will of the oppressor.  As long as the oppressor is pleased, then the victim is spared from the pain, abuse, and humiliation.  Sometimes the victim may even get some love and attention in return.  This type of dynamic is called trauma bonding.  It requires the victim to give up their sense of self (desires, needs, thoughts, and feelings) and commit to pleasing and appeasing the perpetrator to survive and be loved.  This way, the victim is conditioned to stay loyal to the perpetrator and feel like they have to keep the connection no matter what because a traumatic bond is better than no bonding at all.

Summary of the 5 Defenses 

In essence, the defenses are very similar at the core but they function differently to help us regulate, mitigate, and protect against the pain of shame.  None are inherently bad and one is not better or worse than the other. Typically, they work together as a pattern of defenses or independently depending on the circumstances and what the person defaults to when under stress.  Defenses can vary greatly in their style and expression, ranging from mild and adaptive to harmful and toxic.  Let’s see how this works in a video example from the movie Crazy Rich Asians:

In this clip, we see the grandmother, Ah-Ma, admonish Eleanor, Nick, and Rachel with the attack other script throughout the scene.  Ah-Ma’s position in the family gives her the power and authority to impose her will and shame others without restraints.  As part of her fawning strategy with Ah-Ma, Eleanor also uses the attack other defense when she confronts an unsuspecting Rachel about her shameful family secrets.  Both women hope that this public exposure will shame Rachel into submission and leave Nick, preventing her from becoming a part of their family.  

Caught off guard, Rachel’s only defense is shock and disbelief, a form of denial.  She’s unable to process what’s happening and most likely goes into a shame spiral.  Eventually, Rachel withdraws to save herself from further humiliation as Nick runs after her.  Though Nick is not the primary target of Ah-Ma’s and Eleanor’s attack, he is unable to defend Rachel and is also shocked by the news.  He also retreats from the confrontation, not out of shame like Rachel, but out of fear of losing her.

Luckily this movie has a happy ending, but some of us are not so lucky in real life when our shameful reactions have caused serious harm to our relationships.  If you would like to heal your relationships by transforming your shame reaction patterns, then consider attending an upcoming Healing Shame in Relationship Workshop.   I'd love to see you there.

Reference

Nathanson, Donald L.  (1992).  Shame and pride : affect, sex, and the birth of the self.  New York :  Norton

Gilbert, P., & Andrews, B. (Eds.). (1998). Shame: Interpersonal behavior, psychopathology, and culture. Oxford University Press, p. 102

Walker P. (2013).  Complex Ptsd: From Surviving to Thriving. Lafayette CA: Azure Coyote