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The following article is taken from a chapter
of Shame and Anger: The Criticism Connection,
a new book by Brock Hansen, LCSW that explores
the affects of shame and anger and how the interaction
between these two emotions make it difficult for
us to hear criticism. The book can be previewed
and bought at www.lulu.com/content/264018.
For many of us, criticism can represent a threat
that triggers the primal emotions of shame and
anger because we learned to think of it that way
at an early age. The part of our brains in charge
of arousing the powerful survival emotions memorized
the tone and context of criticism and assigned
it the value of a dangerous event, as if we had
startled a rattlesnake or stepped too close to
the edge of a cliff. So we react to criticism
with an intensity of emotion that makes it difficult
to evaluate criticism objectively. But what if
we didn't?
If we can learn to quiet these powerful emotions,
it is possible to evaluate criticism objectively
and hear it as potentially useful information
from another perspective. The columnist, David
Brooks, reports that one of the most impressive
qualities of Senator Barack Obama is his ability
to listen carefully to someone with whom he disagrees
strongly and to hear the best parts of his opponent's
argument. This is an enviable and empowering skill.
Each individual's response to criticism is a
learned mental behavior, though strongly influenced
by the primary emotions of shame and anger. We
learn at an early age to interpret and respond
to signs of disapproval and associate them with
a sense of threat that evokes shame and anger.
When these emotions are aroused, and especially
when they are intense, they influence the way
we interpret and understand criticism as well
as how we react to it. This is true for self-criticism
as well as criticism we hear from others. The
main problem is that many of us have learned to
react to any criticism with an arousal of shame,
anger, or even fear—and often these emotional
reactions are not only instantaneous, but intense.
Fear, shame, and anger cause us to distort the
meaning and importance of criticism.
If fear or shame dominate, we are more likely
to exaggerate the truth or importance of the criticism
or to make emotionally driven assumptions about
the content of the criticism. When anger is the
dominant emotion in reaction to criticism, there
is a strong tendency to minimize the importance
or truth of the criticism or to reject it altogether.
The good news is that a number of techniques
are available that help us learn to attenuate
an excessive emotional response to any stimulus.
Some of these have been practiced with good results
for thousands of years. Some variations of these
techniques have been further refined, researched,
and shown to be effective in helping people with
panic disorders or anger management problems.
Enhancements to these techniques that have come
from the practice of hypnosis, guided imagery,
and neuro-linguistic programming over the last
twenty years have further improved their effectiveness.
There is more good news in the fact that some
individuals whose anxiety, shame, or irritability
is aggravated by depression can find partial relief
in medication.
The not quite so good news is that most of these
techniques are not as simple as taking a pill.
They can be thought of as skills that require
experimentation and practice before an individual
can use them reliably and effectively. For an
adult with longstanding emotional habits of responding
to criticism with intense emotional arousal, change
usually requires determination, guidance, creativity,
and a lot of practice. Children, on the other
hand, can learn these skills easily, just as they
can learn multiple languages and music skills
easily if they are given exposure to proper role
models and guidance at an early age.
Jim was the CEO of a small corporation. He had
a tendency to be quite impatient and irritable.
Though he was vaguely aware of this, he did not
consider it a problem until he sought the services
of an executive coach to improve his leadership
skills. The coach urged him to participate in
a "360 degree evaluation process" in
which all of the people with whom Jim interacted
provided the coach with their reactions to and
assessment of Jim's leadership qualities. They
all understood that the information would be handled
confidentially and only shared with Jim in an
appropriate manner in order to facilitate improved
communications and work relations. The coach would
take responsibility for talking to Jim about the
results. When the results came in, Jim discovered
that many of the people around him reported feeling
intimidated by his tendency to scowl or bark his
disapproval, often over a very minor disagreement.
Although his subordinates had learned that this
was "just his style," they were still
reluctant to approach him when he looked irritable,
and they were especially reluctant to deliver
"bad news." This limited the information
flow in the organization, as well as their own
creative risk-taking, and therefore made Jim an
inhibiting factor in the office operations. Jim
was shocked to receive this information and reacted
with his accustomed impatience and irritability,
inwardly criticizing others for their misinterpretation
of his behavior or their oversensitivity. He was
responding to the criticism he perceived in this
feedback with anger, rejecting the criticism automatically.
Then, at the end of one hectic Friday, a young
and promising staff member delivered a less than
positive report. Jim immediately snapped at her
and watched the color drain from her face. In
that instant he saw the impact of his anger and
realized that the feedback he had received was
true. He was angry too much of the time and it
was influencing his effectiveness. Once he accepted
this, he realized he needed to change and became
highly motivated to learn to tame his anger. Because
he was proactive, Jim immediately read one of
the recommended books on anger management. The
book outlined a number of exercises. The exercises
focused on interrupting anger as soon as he became
aware of it, and there were a number of suggestions
for how to do this. He could see a stop sign flashing
in front of his face and say to himself, "Stop!
Stop! Stop!" while breathing deeply and slowly.
He could ask himself, "Do I really need to
be angry to solve this problem?" He could
remind himself of times when a calm listening
approach worked better. He could stretch and smile
to change the physiology associated with anger
and break the tension mounting in his body as
well as his mind. After reading about these techniques
and practicing some of them, Jim returned to the
coach for more guidance.
Habitual anger can become such a common experience
that it is possible for someone not even to notice
his own feelings. Jim had become so accustomed
to being angry that he did not notice it until
others pointed it out to him. The same can be
true of feelings of shame. Affect theorists believe
that shyness and self-consciousness are ways in
which we react automatically with shame to social
exposure, just as Jim reacted automatically with
anger to many situations. Some people are shy
or self-conscious so much of the time they do
not even realize it could be otherwise.
Susan was embarrassed twenty times a day. She
blushed at some of the most inoffensive things,
and some of her friends teased her about it, which
made her blush even more. As the middle child
of an otherwise boisterous group of five siblings,
she had always considered herself "the dumb
one," though her grades in school clearly
demonstrated otherwise. She had learned as a child
that asserting herself in her family risked making
her the object of jokes, so she tried never to
stick out. This habit was so familiar to her that
she assumed no one would see her as especially
capable or impressive. Nonetheless, she was encouraged
to accept a promotion that would require giving
presentations to small and medium-sized groups.
She soon found herself so sensitive when she was
the center of attention that her embarrassment
quickly escalated to acute anxiety. A friend suggested
she see a counselor to help her overcome this
limitation so that she could advance her career.
Susan was sure that there was nothing that could
be done about it. She thought it was just the
way she was and always had been. With encouragement
from her friend however, she agreed to meet with
a counselor who specialized in this kind of problem.
The counselor first asked background questions
to make sure that she had not had traumatic experiences
in life that might underlie her shame response.
It seemed that she had always been shy and this
embarrassment reaction had grown over the years
as she contrasted herself unfavorably with her
extraverted siblings. After an explanation of
the shame response and the change protocol that
would be used, and after brief examples of how
the imagination and physical changes in facial
expression, breathing, and posture could affect
emotion, Susan was less skeptical and willing
to give it a try. The goal would be to learn to
quiet the rapid and intense shame response to
a number of insignificant everyday triggers. She
could then use that skill to consciously quiet
shame in other situations as she determined best.
Susan wanted reassurance that she would not be
"shameless," a person with no self-restraint,
or someone others would find egotistical. The
counselor explained that the shame response was
normal and would always be there for her as a
signal to keep her from transgressing her own
moral standards or exposing herself to social
risk, but it would not have to be so painful and
extreme that it paralyzed and limited her. She
was told that she would always be the one who
would decide how much quieting of the shame response
she wanted. Susan was satisfied with these answers
and committed herself to a course of 10 to 12
sessions to learn the emotional skills necessary
to begin to quiet her overactive shame.
Both Jim and Susan were introduced in their separate
counseling experiences to a variety of exercises
and approaches similar to the ones George had
learned about in his efforts to deal with anxiety.
Some were cognitive therapy strategies by which
they were taught to identify recurring thoughts
that would arouse shame or anger. After identifying
them, they would learn to question or challenge
these thoughts methodically whenever they became
aware of them.
Jim learned to question the universal sense of
urgency that he discovered underlying his angry
thoughts. He found that he tended to assume everything
had to be done right now, even though this was
often unrealistic or even unnecessary. This tendency
generated frustration over the things he could
not control and led to a simmering impatience
that fueled his temper. Jim was also taught that
he could shift his mood by changing his posture,
his breathing, and his facial expression. Because
emotions are physical responses, changing the
physiology helps to change the emotion. Shifting
from anger to a more neutral or joyful emotional
state allows more freedom in thinking. Jim learned
that when he was angry or impatient he was more
likely to make assumptions or believe thoughts
that were associated in his mind with urgency
and anger. When he was not angry, he was freer
to entertain other assumptions.
When Jim was able to shift his mood away from
anger, he discovered that it was easier to challenge
or question the thought patterns associated with
anger, because he was no longer riveted on the
focus of his frustration. Jim also learned that
he could soften his mood and shake off frustration
by breathing deeply, stretching, and smiling while
he thought about a quiet vacation spot, one associated
with relaxation. With practice, Jim found that
he could cut his exaggerated sense of urgency
and frustration significantly, and he was pleasantly
surprised when his wife and youngest son were
the first to notice his new mood.
Susan found the cognitive therapy approach more
difficult. She could not easily identify any thoughts
associated with her embarrassment. To her it seemed
just a sudden intense feeling that came over her
in social situations. Many thoughts and memories
associated with her embarrassment seemed to come
later, but when she was feeling embarrassed it
was hard to stop and notice what she had been
thinking. The counselor pointed out that Susan
had experienced shame or embarrassment in family
situations when she was very young. She had learned
embarrassment so well that it had become an automatic
and intense internal response to the stimulus
of being the center of attention. In order to
change this Susan would have to learn and practice
new emotional responses to these situations, and
this could be done through structured or guided
use of her imagination.
Susan was asked if she could remember any time
when she was having so much fun that she forgot
to be embarrassed. She remembered a relay race
in which she had been required to participate
in grade school. She was the last member of her
relay team and her team was ahead, but not by
much. Even though she was the center of attention
with teammates cheering for her as well as others
cheering for her opponents, she was so caught
up in running and winning that she did not feel
embarrassed during the race. After the race was
won and she was being congratulated, her embarrassment
returned. The counselor asked Susan to focus on
the memory of the moment when she was in the race
and feeling excited instead of embarrassed, and
to memorize that moment and hold onto it as a
mental emotional resource. The counselor explained
that keeping the sense of focus and excitement
of the race in mind could help interfere with
the usual shame response and help her to learn
a new emotional reaction to the stimulus of being
the center of attention in everyday situations.
Susan tried this in the counseling session, but
was having difficulty keeping the excitement of
the race in mind. The counselor added another
step. First he asked Susan to think about the
race, and when Susan remembered the race experience
with all the physical intensity of running as
fast as she could, she was given a spongy ball
to hold in her hand and squeeze. While she was
squeezing the ball, she was encouraged to think
about an embarrassing event with part of her mind's
eye while still squeezing the ball and remembering
the race with another part of her mind. Finally
she was asked to follow a pointer with her eyes
as the counselor moved it back and forth in front
of her face while Susan continued to keep the
race and the other events in mind. This complicated
but structured mental task helped Susan to blend
the two different emotional reactions in her mind
and when she was asked to think about the embarrassing
situation again, she was surprised to notice that
the intensity of the embarrassment was much less.
After this procedure was repeated three more times,
Susan reported that she could think about the
problem situation with very little embarrassment.
She was amazed at the dramatic change.
Susan was then coached on a handful of "shame
interrupting" behaviors that she could experiment
with and practice. Because the typical posture
and facial expression of shame includes bowing
the head, averting the eyes, and frowning slightly,
Susan was encouraged to stand in an exaggerated
upright posture as if a string was attached to
the top of her head, stretching her spine. At
the same time she was encouraged to look up and
out rather than down, and to smile slightly and
calmly. When she was able to get herself to do
all these things, she reported a decrease in her
usual feeling of self-consciousness. Adopting
a posture of pride can interfere with the shame
response. Because shame is the posture of defeat,
soldiers are trained to stand tall and proud,
even when the drill sergeant is shouting insults
at them. This helps them resist the impulse to
surrender in stressful situations.
Susan was also encouraged to focus intensely
on external visual and auditory stimuli. The conscious
mind can only focus on a limited number of stimuli
at any one time. The external visual focus, even
on ordinary objects like the fabric of her skirt
or common sounds like the slight ringing in her
ears, would distract her from an automatic tendency
to monitor internal sensations of shame and self-deprecating
internal analysis.
The old habits were deeply ingrained and Susan
had to practice these techniques often to make
a difference. But the fact that she could actually
notice a difference was encouragement enough for
her to continue. The more she practiced, the more
her confidence grew, and the painful habits of
self-consciousness gradually began to fade.
Brock Hansen, LCSW, practices psychotherapy
and personal effectiveness coaching in Washington,
DC. He has over thirty years experience in counseling
individuals and families with a variety of problems
related to shame and anger. Educated at Johns
Hopkins University and Smith College, he is trained
in hypnosis and neurolinguistic programming, as
well as cognitive therapy. Other articles on topics
of shame, eating disorders and emotional intelligence
for children can be found on his website at www.ei4rkids.com.
He is available for telephone and online coaching
and can be contacted by email at brockhansenlcsw@aol.com.
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