Working with Trauma-Related Shame and Self-Loathing

Therapists frequently confront the negative impact of shame on their clients’ ability to find relief and perspective. The feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy interfere with taking in positive experiences, leaving only hopelessness. Attempts to increase the ability for self-assertion get undermined by beliefs that they do not deserve respect or care.  Even progress in the treatment or greater success in life stimulates more shame and self-judgment rather than pride in their hard work. Clients repeatedly take two steps forward, then one step back.

This workshop will introduce participants to understanding shame from a neurobiological perspective—as a survival strategy driving somatic responses of "total submission," disconnection, and numbing. Participants will learn to help clients learn to relate to their shame with curiosity rather than self-hatred. When traditional psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural techniques are integrated with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy interventions emphasizing posture, movement, and gesture, issues of shame can become an avenue to transformation rather than a source of stuckness in treatment.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the biological role of shame and self-loathing

• Define the difference between healthy shame and “toxic shame”

• Identify basic principles and techniques of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

• Describe two Sensorimotor interventions for shifting shame states somatically

• Describe two ways of challenging shame-related cognitive schemas