Unlearning Shame - How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power

Informationen zum Autor Devon Price, PhD , is a social psychologist, professor, author, and proud Autistic person. His research has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , and the Journal of Positive Psychology . Devon’s writing has appeared in outlets such as the Financial Times , HuffPost , The Los Angeles Times , Slate , Jacobin , Business Insider , LitHub , and on PBS, NPR, MSNBC, and the BBC. He lives in Chicago, where he serves as an assistant professor at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Klappentext "Learn to identify-and combat-Systemic Shame, the feeling of self-hatred and disempowerment that comes from living in a society that blames individuals for systemic problems, with this invaluable resource from the social psychologist and author of Unmasking Autism"-- Leseprobe Chapter 1 Understanding Systemic Shame Ellen is a single mom living with a teen daughter, Jenna, just outside of Boston. For the past five years, Ellen has worked in grant writing, helping to raise funds for an organization that serves teenagers with mental health issues. In her free time, which she doesn’t have a lot of, Ellen also volunteers as a content writer for the organization’s blog and social media pages. On a typical evening she’s up late into the night, double-checking grant applications for formatting errors, taking breaks to edit the organization’s latest Instagram posts. Then she rolls over in bed with an alarm set for six in the morning, so she can take meetings with foundations and get her daughter off to school. “I do all of this because I don’t ever want to fail another kid,” she says to me tearfully. She’s referring to her daughter Jenna’s experience with self-harm. About a year and a half after Ellen got divorced, she found out her daughter had started cutting and burning herself. Ellen’s still not sure how long it went on before she found out. It was a neighbor who first noticed injuries on Jenna’s body. In the ensuing years—filled with therapeutic appointments, psychological assessments, mental health retreats, family meetings, and doctor visits—Ellen felt ashamed for not noticing more quickly. And she’s coped with that shame by throwing herself into nonprofit work. “I have to do all that I can to save other children from depression and pain,” Ellen says to me. “In every client [the organization] served, I saw Jenna, but with even less support than Jenna has.” The long hours and volunteer gigs didn’t bring Ellen and Jenna any closer. In fact, Ellen’s work stress only made it easier for Jenna to pull away. Ellen says that she spiraled into self-recrimination every single time she caught Jenna self-harming again, which didn’t make Jenna feel any better either. Ellen could only escape her worst feelings by burying herself in her work. But it turned out trying to save all other children from self-harm was impossible and did not “make up” for the harm Ellen felt responsible for. “It has been an endless cycle,” Ellen says. “Trying to escape how awful I feel about what’s happened, but only making it worse.” But finally, she tells me, she’s ready for this cycle to stop. She wants to stop acting like Jenna’s scars are too painful to look at. She wants to stop wrecking her own life with dreams of undoing the past. And most of all, she wants herself and her daughter to both be able to put down their shame, if only for one moment, so that they can be close again. Shame and the Search for a Symbol In early 2022, TikTok was overrun with videos about a man users called “West Elm Caleb.” Several New York–based women had posted videos to the platform talking about disappointing dates they’d had with a charming, super affectionate guy who’d m...

Product details

• Authors: Devon Price
• Publisher: Harmony
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 06.02.2024
• EAN: 9780593581216
• ISBN: 978-0-593-58121-6
• No. of pages: 368
• Dimensions: 162 mm x 240 mm x 30 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Psychology > Theoretical psychology; Social sciences, law, business > Ethnology > Folklore