Abstract
This book, translated from the German, is the result of the author's scholarly labours over 7 years. It is comprehensive in its scope. Detailed references are liberally provided together with extensive footnotes. It is clear that shame has long occupied the minds of philosophers, theologians, poets and playwrights. Its links with other affective states touch on fundamental questions of self-definition in one's own eyes and in the eyes of others. The significance of the gaze, the gazer and the gazed upon are highlighted.
The author explores the phenomenology of shame from the perspective of philosophy. The first two chapters are devoted to the nature of consciousness, subjectivity, intersubjectivity and the vicissitudes of awareness. Seidler introduces shame as an ‘interface affect’ in which there is an interplay between inner (psychic) reality and external (consensual) reality. The subjective experience of shame is said to denote a dislocation from a position of intrapsychic and interpersonal equilibrium. The role of conflict is central.
Seidler asserts that shame has long been neglected within the body of psychoanalytic theory. He is critical of a theory of instinctual drives that marginalizes shame and an object relations theory which relegates the interactional domain to a position of secondary importance. Partial but incomplete redress is forthcoming from Kohut's self-psychology. Seidler posits a comprehensive conceptual framework that attempts to integrate drive theory, object relations theory, and self-psychology within a primary relational context. His notion of ‘alterity’ is that ‘the self is formed from the image of the self taken back from the (significant) other’. He draws upon the empirically based ideas of Spitz, Erikson and Stern to discuss the developmental aspects of a sense of ‘self’ and ‘other’. Internalization of the ‘gazed upon self’ may be understood as occurring at the stages of narcissism (pre-object), preoedipal (part-object) and oedipal (whole-object). Shame can thus be considered an adaptive regulatory and organizing affect essential for the development of a capacity for self-reflective thought, socialization and more generally, a robust sense of self.
From the clinical perspective the author discusses conditions in which shame is either hypertrophic (anxiety/ depressive disorders), implied (anorexia nervosa), or conspicuous by its absence (sociopathy). In each case there is a problem in the shame-affect regulation of the internal world vis-à-vis the external world. The role of the face, facing and being faced are central to Seidler's psychodynamic conceptual understanding of these psychopathological conditions. Therapeutic implications are discussed. Not surprisingly, the author understands the psychotherapeutic objective to be one in which the therapist contributes to his patient's ‘self-definition’ and ‘actualization’ through appropriate, timely and empathic verbal and non-verbal responses. In this dynamic interactional system, the importance, both literally and figuratively, of the vis-à-vis is emphasized. Reciprocity between patient and therapist is understood as essential to the development of an enhanced capacity for selfreflection and improved self-perception.
Seidler's narrative style is discursive and rhetorical. Not infrequently, I found it difficult to comprehend the author's idiosyncratic terminology, for example, ‘oedipal overlay’, ‘interactional unconsciousness’ and ‘psychization’ to name a few. The claim that this is ‘an entirely new theory’ seems exaggerated. If I have understood the author correctly, it may be more a matter of emphasis on the respective parts played by introjective versus projective processes in early life. Certainly other psychoanalytic workers have addressed ‘alterity’, for example, Winnicott's notion of the critical maternalfunction ‘mirroring’.
To my mind, there are too few clinical illustrations that might otherwise enliven Seidler's leitmotiv. The chapter on therapeutic implications is quantitatively and qualitatively thin. Seidler is both reductionistic and simplistic in his views about the objectives, process and clinical realities associated with psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy. In my view, there is an underestimation of the links between shame and negative transference, negative therapeutic reactions, masochism and transference enactments.
Overall, I found this book a difficult but rewarding read. Certainly I found it useful to reflect on shame as a central organizing affect in development, health and illness. The book would be most valuable to those interested in the theory of affects and affect research. For anyone wishing to understand the philosophical underpinnings of shame, this book is recommended. The chapter on shame and illness is the one most likely to appeal to clinicians. Seidler makes the salient observation that shame is often tacit rather than explicated. This may provide a clue as to shame's relative neglect as a worthy focus of clinical research. The allied notions of ‘unconscious shame’ and ‘shame denied’ are useful constructs in the understanding and psychoanalytically informed treatment of a variety of psychiatric conditions: indeed for understanding many ordinary interactions and transactions of everyday life!