Beverly Engel's Blog, page 5

7 Toxic Habits Of Emotionally Abusive Partners

Emotional abuse can be difficult to recognize

The scars left by emotional abuse may not be visible to the eye, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less painful to endure.

While physical abuse is easy to recognize, emotional abuse can be less obvious. It’s crucial to know what to look for, whether you’re the victim or a family member or friend of someone who’s struggling.

“Months or years of being emotionally abused can cause you to distrust your perceptions and even your sanity,” Beverly Engel, psychotherapist and author of The Emotionally Abusive Relationship, told HuffPost. “Because the abuse usually takes place in private, there are no witnesses to validate your experience.”

Emotional abuse may include criticizing, insulting, blaming, belittling, withholding affection, threatening, gaslighting, humiliating or stonewalling in order to gain and maintain power and control in the relationship. An abusive partner may also exercise control over your money, where you go, what you wear and whom you spend time with.

Difficult as it may be, admitting to yourself that you are caught in an emotionally abusive relationship is a critical first step.

“It can be challenging and scary to fully embrace the truth about being in a relationship with an abusive partner,” said Lisa Ferentz, a licensed clinical social worker and educator specializing in trauma. “When you have invested your time and your heart in a relationship and much of your world revolves around that person, it can feel easier or safer to make up excuses or downplay the impact of the abuser’s behaviors.”

You should also talk to a therapist, join a support group and open up to a trusted friend or family member who can help you take the necessary steps to safely end the relationship.

We asked relationship experts to reveal some of the toxic habits of emotionally abusive partners to help you identify these damaging dynamics in your own relationships.

1. They refuse to take responsibility for their actions and find ways to blame you for anything that goes wrong instead. 

“It’s extremely rare for an emotionally abusive partner to take responsibility for his or her behavior. Their tactic is to project responsibility or fault onto their partner. They will deceptively twist reality, distort the truth or outright lie to make the case that their partner is to blame. The subject matter becomes irrelevant as the emotionally abusive partner sidesteps responsibility at all cost.” ― Carol A. Lambert, psychotherapist and author of Women With Controlling Partners

2. At first, they may try to appear loving and attentive to rope you in, but it doesn’t last long.

“The abuser knows how to use charm and ‘grooming’ with gifts and affection to initially win over the victim. Then they manipulate the victim into believing that keeping tabs on them, excessive texting, wanting to spend more and more time alone with them and discouraging independence is really about being ‘deeply in love.’ What might be initially interpreted as ‘jealousy’ very quickly becomes an abusive attempt to control, create self-doubt, and chip away at self-worth and self-confidence.” ― Ferentz

3. They undermine your strengths and minimize your accomplishments. 

“For example, let’s say you won a prize for the best essay in a writing contest but instead of congratulating you he says, ‘Oh, big deal. There were only 10 other contestants.’ Emotional abusers also tend to invalidate your feelings with comments like, ‘Why are you making such a big deal out of this?’ or ‘Oh, poor baby, you got your feelings hurt.’ They accuse you of being ‘too sensitive,’ ‘too emotional’ or ‘crazy.’ They also refuse to acknowledge or accept your opinions or ideas as valid and instead make fun of them or discount them with comments like, ‘You don’t know what you are talking about.’ They suggest that your perceptions are wrong by saying things like, ‘You’re blowing this out of proportion’ or ‘You exaggerate.’” ― Engel

4. They lash out when you disagree with them. 

“Emotionally abusive partners cannot tolerate disagreement from their partner. They hear the opposing idea from their partner as a personal attack. Feeling victimized, they react with anger and intimidation. Emotionally abusive partners believe their partner is actually the emotionally abusive one.” ― Lambert

5. They make excuses for their destructive behavior. 

“They contextualize their abusive behavior, which serves to excuse it by saying, I was stressed, tired, overwhelmed, overreacting, I drank too much, etc. This gives their brain permission to repeat the behavior the next time the context occurs ― that is, whenever the abuser wants adrenaline for temporary energy and confidence.” ― Steven Stosny, psychologist and author of Empowered Love

6. They isolate you from your family and friends so you become completely dependent on them.

“An emotionally abusive partner will systematically and intentionally try to separate the victim from their external network of support: friends, family, co-workers, clergy. This is designed to make the victim solely dependent upon the abuser and to decrease the likelihood that others will witness the abuse. The more a victim is isolated, the harder it is for them to be connected to the resources they need to escape the relationship.” ― Ferentz

7. They put unrealistic expectations on you and the relationship. 

“They make unreasonable demands on their partners, insisting that they spend all their time with him or her, expecting them to put everything aside to meet his or her needs. They are dissatisfied no matter how hard you try or how much you give, and they criticize you for not completing tasks according to their standards. They often expect their partner to share the same opinions and become angry if you dare to contradict them.”

Why Don’t Victims of Sexual Harassment Come Forward Sooner?

These are eight reasons why victims of sexual harassment don’t come forward.

People seem to ask this question every time a high-profile sexual harassment or assault case is reported. Cases like the recent article from Washington Post detailing allegations against Roy Moore, Alabama’s Republican candidate for Senate, seems to have offered fresh opportunities to perpetuate victim blaming. It is amazing how many people shift the blame onto alleged victims, asking why they waited until now.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports receiving 12,000 allegations of sex-based harassment each year, with women accounting for about 83 percent of the complainants. That figure is believed to be just the tip of the iceberg. In a study issued last year, the co-chairwomen of a commission task force said that roughly three to four people experiencing such harassment never tell anyone in authority about it. Instead, they said women typically “avoid the harasser, deny or downplay the gravity of the situation, or attempt to ignore, forget or endure the behavior.”

It is indeed very common for victims to delay disclosing their trauma if they ever do. But since even highly educated people are continually baffled by why women don’t come forward, I offer some information based on the psychology of abuse and my forty year experience working with victims of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sexual harassment to help answer this question.

Let’s begin by making sure we are all on the same page. Sexual harassment and behaviors that fall under this category include: inappropriate touching; invasion of privacy; sexual jokes; lewd or obscene comments or gestures; exposing body parts; showing graphic images; unwelcome sexual emails, text messages, or phone calls; sexual bribery, coercion, and overt requests for sex; sexual favoritism; being offered a benefit for a sexual favor; being denied a promotion or pay raise because you didn’t cooperate. And of course, some women experience what more aptly could be described as sexual assault: being forced to perform oral sex on a man in the position of power, a man in power forcing himself on the woman either orally, vaginally, or anally, being drugged and rendered unconscious or incapable of defending oneself.

Below I have listed the most significant reasons why women do not come forward more often or delay in coming forward. While I recognize that men are also sexually harassed and assaulted, due to limited space, I am going to limit this article to a discussion about female victims of sexual harassment and assault. Male victims do, however, suffer from many of the same after-effects and have many of the same reasons for not coming forward.

Shame

One of the primary reasons women don’t come forward to report sexual harassment or assault is shame. Shame is at the core of the intense emotional wounding women and men experience when they are sexually violated. As expert on shame Gershen Kaufman aptly stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, “Shame is a natural reaction to being violated or abused. In fact, abuse, by its very nature, is humiliating and dehumanizing.” This is especially true with sexual violations. The victim feels invaded and defiled, while simultaneously experiencing the indignity of being helpless and at the mercy of another person.

This sense of shame often causes victims to blame themselves for the sexual misconduct of their perpetrator. Case in point, Lee Corfman, the woman who reported to a Washington Post reporter that she was molested by Roy Moore when she was 14, said, “I felt responsible. I thought I was bad.” Time after time clients who experienced sexual harassment at work or at school have told me things like: “I assumed it was my fault. I’m a very friendly person and I always smiled and said hello to my boss. I think he must have thought I was flirting with him.” Another client, a student who was sexually assaulted by one of her college professors told me, “I liked all the attention I was getting from him. We’d sit for hours in his office talking and I was learning a lot from him. I guess I was sending him the wrong message.”

Understanding more about the emotion of shame can help explain why women blame themselves when they are violated and why more women do not report sexual assault or harassment. Shame is a feeling deep within us of being exposed and unworthy. When we feel ashamed we want to hide. We hang our heads, stoop our shoulders and curve inward as if trying to make ourselves invisible. Most people who have been deeply shamed take on the underlying and pervasive belief that they are defective or unacceptable. They feel unworthy, unlovable, or “bad.” Shame can also cause us to feel isolated – set apart from the crowd. In fact, in primitive cultures, people were banished from the tribe when they broke society’s rules. Being shamed feels like being banished – unworthy to be around others.

Sexual harassment and assault can be a humiliating experience to recount privately, let alone publically. Victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault in adulthood or sexual abuse in childhood tend to feel shame because as human beings, we want to believe that we have control over what happens to us. When that personal power is challenged by a victimization of any kind, we feel humiliated. We believe we should have been able to defend ourselves. And because we weren’t able to do so, we feel helpless and powerless. This powerlessness causes humiliation – which leads to shame.

It is often easier to blame oneself than to admit that you were rendered helpless or that you were victimized by another person. As humans we want to believe that we are in control of our own lives. When something that occurs reminds us that in fact, we are not always in control it is very upsetting. So upsetting that we would prefer to blame ourselves for our victimization.

Women, in particular, feel shame because they are often blamed for being sexually assaulted. Even today women are accused of causing their own victimization with comments like, “What did she expect when she dresses like she does?” and “She shouldn’t have had so much to drink.”

And women are used to being shamed and feeling shame. Women feel shame when they are heckled by men on the street. They feel shame when men make fun of their body or make disparaging remarks about the size of their breasts or behinds. They feel shame when their entire being is reduced to how attractive or unattractive a man finds them.

This sense of shame has a cumulative effect. Depending on how much a woman has already been shamed, by previous abuse or by bullying, she may choose to try to forget the entire incident, to put her head in the sand, and try to pretend it never happened.

Denial, Minimization

This tendency to blame themselves and to be overwhelmed with shame leads into the next important reason why women don’t come forward: denial and minimization. Many women refuse to believe that the treatment they endured was actually abusive. They downplay how much they have been harmed by sexual harassment and even sexual assault. They convince themselves that “it wasn’t a big deal.” As one client told me, “I know a lot of women who were brutally raped and I have friends who were sexually abused in childhood. Being sexually harassed by my boss was nothing compared to what these women went through. I told myself to just move on and forget the whole thing.”

Unfortunately, this same client had come to see me because she was suffering from depression. She couldn’t sleep at night, she had no appetite, she had lost her motivation and she had isolated herself from friends and family. When we traced these symptoms back we discovered that they all began after the sexual harassment incident. Depression is one of the major after-effects of sexual harassment or assault. Victims may experience self-doubt which can lead to self-blame and the hopelessness of the situation can also lead to depression.

Other women are good at making excuses for their abusers. I have often heard victims of sexual harassment say things like “I felt sorry for him” or “I figured he wasn’t getting enough sex at home” even, “I knew he couldn’t help himself.”

And finally, women convince themselves that they are the only victim of a sexual harasser or abuser. It is often only after other women step forward to say that they were abused by a perpetrator that a victim may realize that they are dealing with a serial abuser or pedophile. For example, Beverly Young Nelson recently went on TV to tell her story of how Roy Moore sexually attacked her when she was 16 and said, “I thought I was Roy Moore’s only victim.”

Fear of the Consequences

Fear of the repercussions is a huge obstacle women face when it comes to reporting sexual harassment or assault – fear of losing their job, fear they won’t find another job, fear they will be passed over for a promotion, fear of losing their credibility, fear of being branded a troublemaker, fear of being blackballed in their industry, fear of their physical safety. This is true whether it is a case of a young woman in her first job being harassed, an actress trying to make her way in the entertainment business, or a career woman desperately trying to break through the glass ceiling.

Many don’t disclose because they fear they won’t be believed and until very recently that has primarily been the case. Tthe fact that sexual misconduct is the most under-reported crime is due to a common belief that women make up these stories for attention or to get back at a man who rejected them. Victim’s accounts are often scrutinized to the point of exhaustion. In high profile cases, victims are often labeled opportunists, blamed for their own victimization, and punished for coming forward.

Another reason why victims don’t report or delay reporting is that they fear retaliation and we have evidence from recent events to validate that fear. Sexual harassers frequently threaten the lives, jobs, and careers of their victims. And many victims are frightened by the perpetrator’s position of power and what he could do with it. Those who have reported sexual harassment or assault, especially by powerful men, have reported that they lost their jobs and that their careers or reputations have been destroyed. In the case of Harvey Weinstein, the New Yorker reported that he enlisted private security agencies staffed with “highly experienced and trained in Israel’s elite military and government intelligence units” to collect information on women and journalists who tried to expose sexual harassment allegations against him. This fear of retaliation does not only apply to high profile cases, people who wield their power to prey on other people are often quite adept at holding onto that power by any means necessary. Sexual harassment cuts across all industries – Hollywood, politics, media, tech, and service industries like food services.

Low Self-Esteem

Some victims have such low self-esteem that they don’t consider what happened to them to be very serious. They don’t value or respect their own bodies or their own integrity so if someone violates them they downplay it. As one client who had been sexually violated by a boss when she was in her early twenties shared with me: “Guys were always coming on to me and trying to grab me back then. When my boss did it I figured, ‘Why not let him do what he wants, no big deal.’” But my client had not anticipated what the short-term and long-term consequences of “giving herself away” might be. “When I look back I can recognize that my boss violating me was a real turning point in my life. After that, I started acting out. I had never taken drugs before but when someone offered me some cocaine I thought, ‘Why not?’ When guys wanted to party, including having group sex, I figured, ‘What have I got to lose’ I just stopped caring about myself.”

Sexual violations wound a woman’s self-esteem, self-concept, and sense of self. The more a girl or woman puts up with, the more her self-image becomes distorted. Little by little, acts of disrespect, objectification, and shaming whittle away at her self-esteem until she has little regard for herself and her feelings. There is a huge price to pay for “going along” with sexual exploitation. A woman doesn’t just give away her body but she gives away her integrity.

In the last several years there has been a focus on raising the self-esteem of girls and young women. We want our young women to feel proud and strong, to walk with their heads held high. We try to instill confidence in them and tell them they can do whatever they set their minds to do. We send them off to college with the feeling that they are safe, that they can protect themselves and that we will protect them. But this is a lie. They are not safe, they don’t know how to protect themselves and we don’t protect them.

By far the most damaging thing to affect the self-esteem of young girls and women is the way they are mistreated in our culture. Beginning in early childhood, the average girl experiences unwanted sexual remarks and sexual behavior from boys and men. Remarks about her body and her sexuality come from boys at school and from men on the streets. Young girls today continually complain that they are bullied in school – not in the way we think of boys bullying other boys – but by boys making remarks about their genitals, their behinds, and as they get older, about their breasts. In today’s schools, there is a common practice of boys running by girls and grabbing their behinds or breasts and running away.

Even the most confident girl cannot sustain her sense of confidence if she is sexually violated. She feels so much shame that it is difficult to hold her head up high. She finds it difficult to have the motivation to continue on her path, whether it be college or a career.

Feelings of Hopelessness and Helplessness

Research has shown us that victims who cannot see a way out of an abusive situation soon develop a sense of hopelessness and helplessness and this, in turn, contributes to them giving up and not trying to escape or seek help. Specifically, learned helplessness, is a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed and considered to be one of the underlying causes of depression. A concept originally developed by the research of psychologist Martin Seligman and Steven D. Meier, learned helplessness is a phenomenon that says when people feel like they have no control over what happens, they tend to simply give up and accept their fate.

Women feel it is useless to come forward because they have seen the way others have been treated. They feel it is hopeless because they won’t be believed, and their reputations will be tainted, if not ruined. Women who have already been sexually assaulted or harassed feel especially helpless since the chances are extremely high that they did not receive the justice they so desperately needed. These fears can cause women to feel there is nowhere to turn, to feel trapped, and even hopeless.

Most women feel that they are on their own when it comes to protecting themselves from sexual harassment. While they may take precautions to protect themselves, overall, they still feel helpless about changing the situation. Many women have learned the hard way that going to the HR in their company is useless since HR departments are notorious for protecting the company at all costs.

As mentioned above, many women are overwhelmed with self-blame and debilitating shame due to sexual harassment. This self-blame and debilitating shame robs them of their power, their sense of efficacy and agency, and their belief that they can change their circumstances.

Some women don’t have the emotional strength to stand up to intense manipulation, to sexual pressure, or to threats of rejection. While they may take precautions against being sexually assaulted, from avoiding walking alone at night, to avoiding eye contact, to carrying pepper spray in their handbags, measures such as these don’t take away their overarching fear, brought on by witnessing and experiencing the consistent objectification of women, as well as evidence of the rape culture which currently permeates our country. In a recent study, researchers found the treatment of women as sex objects has shown to contribute to women’s fear of sexual assault. According to Dr. Laurel Watson, a psychology professor specializing in traumatology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, “Our research supports previous findings that the rampant sexual objectification of women, what some consider an act of sexual terrorism, can heighten women’s fear of incurring physical and sexual harm.”

A History of Being Sexually Violated

Closely related to the above, women who have already been traumatized by child sexual abuse or by sexual assault as an adult are far less likely to speak out about sexual harassment at work or at school. Research shows that survivors of previous abuse and assault are at a higher risk of being sexually assaulted again. For example, research shows that 38% of college-aged women who have been sexually violated had first been victimized prior to college.

Those who experienced previous abuse will likely respond to overtures of sexual harassment much differently than women who have not been abused. As one client shared with me, “Time after time I just freeze when a guy makes a sexual advance, hoping it will stop him or he will walk away.” This “freezing reaction” is a common one for those who were sexually abused in childhood. And as was mentioned above, those who have previously been victimized or more likely to keep quiet about the abuse since they may have already had the experience of not being believed and not receiving justice.

Lack of Information

Recent statistics show that 70% of women suffer sexual harassment on the job. In fact, the stats for sexual harassment are the same as those for sexual assault: one in every four women nationwide have been sexually harassed at work. And yet many women, even highly educated ones, are uneducated about exactly what constitutes sexual harassment, don’t recognize sexual harassment as a real threat, don’t understand how sexual harassment or assault affected them, nor do they understand the real world consequences of not reaching out for help or not reporting it. For example, the emotional effects of this type of harassment can have devastating psychiatric effects, including:

* Anxiety

* Loss self-esteem

* PTSD—studies have found a link between victims of sexual harassment and          PTSD which causes the victim to re-live the harassment and avoid situations where it could happen again

*Suicidal behavior—studies suggest that sexual harassment can lead to suicidal behavior. Up to 15 of 1,000 females studied reported saying they made suicidal attempts after suffering from some sort of sexual harassment.

Disbelief, Dissociated or Drugged

Finally, sometimes women don’t report sexual harassment or assault because at the time of the abuse they were drugged, inebriated, or dissociated. As was the case with the Bill Cosby accusers – it is not uncommon for women and girls to have been drugged by their abusers and because of this, to have only vague memories. Others may have been so drunk before the assault that they doubt their memories and as we know, some are so traumatized that they dissociated during the attack and have only vague memories. It usually takes one woman coming forward before a woman is able to trust her own memories of the experience. Unless other women come forward to make a complaint about someone most will continue doubting themselves and assuming they will be doubted if they report.

It is understandable that women have a difficult time coming forward for a number of reasons. These women deserve our recognition about how difficult it is and our compassion for what they have been through. Women need to be encouraged to begin to push away their internalized shame with anger and to learn how to give the shame back to their abusers.

Instead of focusing so much energy on trying to figure out why victims don’t report, it be far more productive to ask, “Why do we allow men to continue to sexually harass and assault women?” Perhaps even more important, we need to stop asking why victims wait to report and instead focus on how we can better support victims in their quest for justice and healing.

If you have been sexually harassed or assaulted and need someone to talk to please contact the following:

National Sex Assault Hotline: (800) 656-4673

How Compassion Can Help You Support an Addicted Loved One

By | The Compassion Chronicles

October 3, 2016
Transform your relationship with an addicted partner or family member.

“Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.”

—Henry Ward Beecher

Most everyone has someone in their life that suffers from an addiction problem, whether it be a dependence on drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, shopping or some other form of addiction. Many have a partner who suffers from one of these addictions or a family member who continually struggles with an activity or substance dependence. Relationships between substance dependent individuals and their partners and family members are typically considered not only painful, but unsupportive and destructive. But this doesn’t have to be the case.

Source: Aliaksei Smalenski/Shutterstock

We’ve been told that staying with a partner who struggles with addiction—whether it be with drugs, alcohol, or addictive behaviors such as sex or gambling—means that we’re enabling their destructive behavior. That wanting to help a family member means we’re codependent, and the best thing for both of us is to walk away from the relationship entirely. But is this true?

In this article I challenge these beliefs and focus on another way to relate to a partner or family member who is addicted to a substance or activity—one that allows you to tap into your love feelings as well as helping you bypass the obstacles that get in the way of your love feelings. Based on a new book I have written with addiction activist, Christopher Kennedy Lawford entitled, When Your Partner Has an Addiction: How Compassion can Transform Your Relationship (and Heal You Both in the Process), this article will outline the most effective ways to support your partner or family member.

Loved ones have often been told that the best way to help their substance dependent partner or family member is not to help. Those with codependent behavior have often been told to “detach with love” or to practice “tough love.” Partners and family members worry about doing anything nice for their loved one for fear of “enabling” their destructive behavior. But contrary to these admonishments research has shown that partners of those who are substance dependent can actually play an important role in helping their partner to change. 

Today many experts are recommending that partners and families become involved with the recovery process. And contrary to the popular myth that “you can’t help an alcoholic until he wants help,” families and partners are now being encouraged to do what they can to help their partner reach out for help. For example, Debra Jay, interventionist, lecturer, and coauthor with her husband, Jeff Jay, of the book, Love First: A Family’s Guide to Intervention (2008, Hazeldon) stated, “I call that an ‘action stopping’ myth. It says you can’t help an alcoholic until he wants help. So that’s it for families: Step back and let the addiction run through your family like a freight train. There’s nothing you can do. Well, it’s a completely different story when you say, “If you can’t help an alcoholic until he wants help, what will get him to want help? You see, now I’m thinking differently. Now that opens up the door to possibility. Now I can start looking for solutions and answers.”

While loved ones can’t change their addicted partner, there are things they can change about themselves that will benefit their loved one, their relationship, and greatly improve his or her chances of recovery. In this article I will feature many of these strategies.

The most significant and beneficial strategies involve becoming more compassionate toward your loved one. Far from enabling your partner, compassion is the key to helping someone with an addiction problem. More important, you can learn how to take care of your loved one without condoning or supporting the behavior you don’t want.

Finally, you can work on the core issues that have led you to behave in codependent ways. While you are not the cause of your loved one’s substance dependence, you can make life a lot easier for him or her partner by giving up certain behaviors—behaviors that cause your loved one to become more defensive about her substance dependence and more stubborn about getting help. You can also cause her to feel even worse about herself than he already does and thus, discourage her from getting the help she needs.

Reasons to Feel Hopeful

If you still feel love toward your partner or family member and you still have hope that he can change there are good reasons for you to feel hopeful about your partner’s recovery. There has been a great deal of new research making recovery from substance abusemuch more viable than ever before. We now know more about what causes addiction, why it is so difficult to manage and how best to treat it. We now understand that it doesn’t require a person to “hit bottom” before he can begin to change and we know that there are many treatment options in addition to 12 step programs and residential treatment programs.

In the area of neuroscience alone there have been major breakthroughs offering those with substance abuse problems a great deal of hope. We now understand more about how the brain works and its role in substance problems. Specifically, we now know that our brains are constantly evolving, even as adults. Instead of the concept of “permanent brain damage” or that our brains only grow in our formative years, we have learned that our brains create new pathways long into adulthood. What this means is that we can develop new patterns of behavior if we practice new activities and if we get the proper help. In the area of substance abuse, especially drug dependence, this means that given help and time and sometimes medication, plus concerted effort and measures to safeguard against returning to substance use, brains can heal from the effects of drugs.

If your partner is already in recovery in some form you have even more reason to feel hopeful. Even if she has relapsed many times, the fact that she has admitted she has a problem and has reached out for help is half the battle. Most experts in recovery now understand that relapse is actually a natural part of recovery so you can play an important role in her ongoing recovery by not giving up on her.

And thanks to new research, we now know that family members and others important to a substance abuser can all have a positive impact on his motivation. CRAFT—Community Reinforcement and Family Training—is a scientifically supported, evidence-based approach to helping families of substance abusers. A group of researchers in Illinois, led by behavioral psychologist Nathan Azrin, developed what is considered the most effective behavioral treatment for substance users—the Community Reinforcement Approach (or CRA). In the process, they discovered that family involvement was a crucial factor in successful change. Meyers expanded the CRA approach to work with families when their loved one refused help, and called it CRAFT. After moving to the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addictions (CASAA) at the University of New Mexico, Dr. Meyers conducted further research and clinical trials (teaming with Jane Ellen Smith, PhD). Their work has now given us ample evidence that given the right tools, family can effect change.

CRAFT is designed specifically to empower family members. It teaches them how to take control of their lives, and to change their interactions with the substance abuser in ways that promote positive behavioral change. Clinical trials on CRAFT have shown that when family members use these positive, supportive,  non-confrontational techniques, not only do they find ways to get their loved one into treatment, but the family members themselves feel better—specifically showing decreases in depression, anger, anxiety, and medical problems.. Clinical trials also have shown that family members benefit emotionally even if their loved one does not enter treatment.

Compassion as a Key to Healing

Compassion is the most powerful tool you can have when it comes to healing addictions of any kind. In other words, what your loved one needs the most from you is compassion.

The word compassion comes from the Latin roots com (with) and pati (suffer), so it denotes “suffering with” another person. When we offer someone genuine compassion, we join them in their suffering.

When we join someone in their suffering, we provide them with not one, but five healing gifts:

We let them know we really see them and we recognize their suffering. One of the most powerful needs for humans is to be seen. This is especially true for those with a substance abuse problem who were often victims of childhood neglect and abuse and who often felt invisible within their families. When we offer someone compassion, we give them the gift of seeing them and recognizing their pain.
We let the person know that we hear them. Being heard is another primal need for humans. Again, it is a need that often went unmet for those with substance abuse issues who often felt that their needs, wants, and feelings went unheard.
We confirm to the person that we recognize their suffering and that he has a right to express his pain, sadness, fear, anger, or any other emotion due to his suffering. In other words, we validate or confirm the other person’s experience of suffering. We don’t deny, minimize, ignore, or otherwise invalidate it, which is what he may have grown accustomed to when he was a child and what he may continue to expect.
We let him know we care about him as a human being; that we care about the fact that he  suffered and is still suffering. Respect and care for his humanity may have been in short supply when he was a child and it is a gift to have this birthright restored.
We offer comfort and soothing in some way, whether it’s a healing glance, a loving touch, a supportive hug, or kind words. The gift of comforting and soothing stimulates the soothing/contentment system in the body and provides a sense of security that helps tone down negative emotions.

The Benefits of Compassion

Compassion for others has been found to be deeply rooted in human nature; it has a biological basis in the brain and body. It seems that we are wired to respond to others in need. In fact, helping others brings the same pleasure we get from the gratification of personal desire. In addition, it has been found that when young children and adults feel compassion for others, this emotion is reflected in very real physiological changes. Their heart rate goes down from baseline levels, which prepares them not to fight or flee, but to approach and sooth. In other words, science is now telling us that having compassion for others is actually good for us.

In the last 30 years we have seen the science of psychology and studies of the human brain begin to put compassion, caring, and prosocial behavior center stage in the development of well-being, mental health and our capacity to foster harmonious relationships with each other and the world we live in.

In recent years in particular, the work of many researchers has revealed, among other insights, that the kindness, support, encouragement, and compassion from others have a huge impact on how our brains, bodies, and general sense of well-being develop. Love and kindness, especially in early life, even affect how some of our genes are expressed (Gilbert 2009, Cozolino 2007).

Compassion is especially effective when it comes to healing substance abuse problems, especially the issue of shame.  Addiction and shame are closely connected. In fact, most, if not all who have substance abuse problems have been shamed, both by their childhood experiences and by their behavior surrounding their addiction. Like a poison, toxic shame needs to be neutralized by another substance—an antidote—if the patient is to be saved. And as it turns out, compassion is the only thing that can counteract the isolating, stigmatizing, debilitating poison of shame.

Creating a Compassionate Environment

It can be difficult to join your loved one in his suffering if he does not share it with you. Often those who are substance or activity dependent act as if they are fine and deny they have a problem. They even tell you that the problem is yours—not theirs. So how can you provide compassion if your loved one does not share his suffering with you?

First of all, assume your loved one is suffering whether she admits it or not. While those who are substance dependent are notorious for being in denial about their addiction and the problems it creates, no one has a substance dependency without suffering from pain and shame—the pain that comes when the substance or activity “wears off” and they come crashing down, the pain they feel when they look in the eyes of the people they disappoint, hurt and anger, the shame that comes from being so out of control, the shame that comes when they embarrass themselves in front of others.

Second, create a compassionate environment around your loved one—one that supports her emotionally and encourages her to come out of denial. You can do this in several ways:

Soothe your partner’s hurts and comfort her pain with compassion.

Even if you partner does not share her suffering with you, or denies she is even suffering,   you can still provide it for her.  Even an understanding look, a sigh, or a comforting touch can communicate that you are with her in her pain. Contrast this with the dirty looks, eye rolling or looks of contempt you often give your loved one.

  
Work on being more empathetic toward your partner.

In other words, put yourself in his place and imagine how he must feel. As impatient, disappointed and angry at your partner as you can feel, imagine how he must feel about himself. Yes, he may act like he doesn’t care, he may become defensive and deny he has a problem, but you need to know that under that hard shell, beneath that defensive wall he has built up, he is feeling deeply impatient, disappointed and angry with himself. And he is feeling deeply ashamed of himself. (This is why it is important for you to not continue shaming him—we’ll discuss this later).
Provide the space for your partner to share his suffering with you.

Don’t continue to constantly complain to him about how much you suffer because of him and his substance abuse. He can’t very well feel open to admitting to you how much he suffers if he has to constantly ward off your attacks.
Work on understanding your partner’s substance dependence.

This includes what causes it and why it is so difficult to break. Often we cannot have compassion for someone if we don’t understand why they behave as they do. In a follow-up article I will provide important information to help you better understand your partner and his addiction.
Provide compassion for yourself. 

The more compassionate you are with yourself about how you are suffering, the more compassionate you will be able to be with your partner. I’ll offer you suggestions for how to go about this at the end of this article.

By following these guidelines you can begin to provide for your loved one (and yourself) the kind of compassionate environment that will act as a safe and secure place for her or him to be in. This safety and security will, in turn, help her or him to take the steps and the risks he or she will need to take in order to recover.

Common Obstacles in the Way of You Creating a Compassionate Environment

You no doubt feel relieved to learn that there is actually something you can do to help your loved one in his recovery. You like the idea of creating a compassionate environment and you are eager to begin doing so. But it is very likely that there will be some obstacles in your way. These obstacles can include:

Your anger toward your loved one
Your tendency to shame your loved one
Your tendency to feel sorry for yourself

Let’s discuss each of these obstacles in more detail.

Your anger toward your loved one

The first and probably most powerful obstacle is your anger and resentment toward your partner. After all, it is highly likely that you have been deeply hurt by your loved one’s behavior. There are probably things he has done (or left undone) that have significantly affected your life and if you have children, your children’s lives. And you may feel deeply disappointed and betrayed. After all, this is not what you signed up for. If the addicted person in your life is your partner, it is likely that you got involved with a man you admired and looked up to and this man let you down in very painful ways.

So while you may be willing and even eager to create a compassionate environment (and to become your loved one’s collaborator) these feelings of resentment, anger, hurt and betrayal may get in your way of doing so. You may recognize that in spite of your love for your partner or family member, in spite of your desire to help him, these feelings may get in your way of experiencing compassion for him. For this reason it is important for you to take responsibility for finding a way to release your anger over your loved one’s using so that you can focus on being his supporter or collaborator.

Your habit of shaming your partner

One of the most powerful things you can do to support your loved one in his recovery is to stop shaming him. There is scientific evidence that shaming doesn’t work when it comes to changing someone’s behavior. In fact, shaming causes more harm than good. Your work on ridding yourself of your anger toward your partner will help you to begin to break what may have become a habit to shame him.

Few people are actually changed by shaming them. Instead, what is created is an angry person who feels terrible about himself and has little motivation to change his behavior. In addition, when we shame someone we alienate and isolate him, which tends to make him feel disconnected from others. This angry person who now hates himself and consequently has little motivation to change and who also feels disconnected from others is far more likely to continue his addictive behavior.

For more than half a century, those in the addiction field used what was considered high-confrontation treatment aimed at “breaking through” an addict’s supposed “denial” or resistance to treatment. But many in the field now understand, and studies have proven—that this kind of confrontation increases resistance.

It’s also important that you realize that your partner is likely to be overwhelmed with shame already. Whether your partner admits it or not, he is carrying around a heavy load of shame because of his behavior. Substance abusers usually have a great deal of shame about the things they have done as a result of their addiction (getting sloppy drunk at an office party and telling off his boss, causing his family to lose their house because of hiscompulsive gambling, being arrested for soliciting a prostitute because of his sexual addiction). Humiliating him further, making him out to be a selfish monster will only cause him to remain defensive

There are many reasons why shame is at the core of most addictions and dependencies (including codependency) including:

Shame and addiction are deeply intertwined. For example, alcoholics may be prone to shame by disposition and they may drink, in part, to cope with chronic shame and low self-worth. In addition, drinking can, in turn, cause shame, creating a vicious cycle.

Jessica Tracy and Daniel Randles at the University of British Columbia conducted a study to discover whether alcoholics’ feelings of shame about their addictions might actually interfere with their attempts to get sober. They recruited about 100 women and men from the rooms of AA—all with less than six months of sobriety. They measured their levels of shame and other emotions, along with personality traits, and then 4 months later they checked on how they were doing in recovery.

One reason shame has gone unstudied is that it is a very difficult emotion to capture. People who are experiencing shame tend to hide it and escape it, not talk about it openly. Tracy and Randles decided to measure the level of shame and access its effect on behavior by noting their body language. They asked the volunteers to describe the last time they drank and “felt badly about it.’ They then videotaped their responses. Later, they analyzed and coded their body movements and postures as a measure of their shameful feelings. People who were ashamed act very much like submissive animals, slumping their shoulders and narrowing their chest, the opposite of proud chest beating. This physical display of shame may be universal: It has been observed in a range of species and in both adults and children in many cultures.

The scientists wanted to see if shameful body language correlated with mental and physical health and especially with successful sobriety four months later. This is the window of time when most newly recovered alcoholics will relapse, and indeed more than ½ the volunteers never made it back to the lab. But with those who did, there was an unmistakable connection between shame and relapse. The alcoholics who were most ashamed about their last drink—typically a humiliating experience—were more likely to relapse. Their relapses were also more severe, involving much more drinking, and they were more likely to suffer other declines in health. In short, feelings of shame do not appear to promote sobriety or protect against future problematic drinking—indeed the opposite. (Study in journal of Clinical Psychological Sciences)

This is the first scientific evidence to bolster what alcoholism counselors and recovering alcoholics have long known: Shame is a core emotion underlying chronic heavy drinking. Shame is what gets people into the rooms of AA—it defines the alcoholic “bottom”—but it’s not a good motivator for staying in recovery. The power of AA is that it offers something that replaces the negative emotion that most alcoholics know all too intimately. (The Shame of the Alcoholic by Wrey Herbert, author of “On Second Thought: Outsmarting the Mind’s Hard-Wired Habits”)

Those who work in substance abuse recovery have found that almost everyone with an addiction has some level of trauma. In addition to feeling shame about his behavior due to his substance use or activity compulsion your partner is likely to have shame related to previous trauma, namely childhood abuse or neglect. Trauma, especially child abuse, causes a victim to feel shame.

As a counselor, my specialty for thirty-five years has been working with adults who were abused as children. I have found that most of my clients suffer from debilitating shame:shame so all-consuming that it negatively affects every aspect of a person’s life—his perception of himself, his relationships with others, his ability to be intimate with a romantic partner, his ability to risk and achieve success in his career, and his overall physical and emotional health. While everyone experiences shame from time to time, and many have issues related to shame, adult victims of childhood abuse suffer from shame more often and have far more issues related to shame than any other group of people.

Victims of childhood abuse tend to feel shame because, as human beings, we want to believe that we have control over what happens to us. When that is challenged by a victimization of any kind, we feel humiliated. We believe we should have been able to defend ourselves. And because we weren’t able to do so, we feel helpless and powerless. This powerlessness leads to humiliation and to shame.

Stop adding to his stockpile of shame

Because substance abusers are already filled with shame it is very important that you do not add to that stockpile of shame if you can help it. Shaming your partner only serves to make him feel worse about himself. Since your goal is to support him, you want to do everything you can to help him feel better about himself, not the opposite.

Letting go of shaming behavior can be difficult because it probably has become a habit. It has also likely become a way for you to release your frustration and anger at his behavior. Once you take responsibility for releasing your anger in constructive ways (it is an ongoing process, not a one-time thing) you will find that you are less likely to want to shame your partner.

In order to break your habit of shaming your partner, begin to notice how often you shame him with statements such as:

“I can’t believe you did it again. You promised me you wouldn’t. You have absolutely no will power do you?”

“When are you going to grow up and start acting like a man?

“You’re such a loser.”

“You’re just a hopeless case. I feel sorry for you.”

“I don’t know why I stay with you. God knows no other woman would put up with this kind of crap!”

“What’s wrong with you? You’re so pathetic! Can’t you control yourself for even one day?”

Your tendency to feel sorry for yourself

One reason for your anger with your partner and your tendency to shame your partner is that you desire validation and appreciation for all you have suffered because of his substance abuse. Unfortunately, you are not likely to get this kind of validation from your partner. First of all, he probably feels too defensive or too ashamed to give it to you. Secondly, it is likely that your partner did not receive compassion or validation as a child and therefore, doesn’t know how to give these things to others. So it comes down to this: you need to begin to provide for yourself the self-compassion and validation you so desperately need.

As well as being the most powerful way you can support your partner, compassion is also the most powerful tool you have for helping yourself as you take the role of supporter or collaborator. Self-compassion will help you to remain strong even in the most difficult of times. It will help you to bounce back (be resilient) as your partner’s inappropriate, embarrassing, hurtful or abusive behavior takes its toll. Most important, self-compassion will help motivate you to take care of yourself.

Self-Compassion Defined

If compassion is the ability to feel and connect with the suffering of another human being, self-compassion is the ability to feel and connect with one’s own suffering. Kristin Neff, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, is the leading researcher in the growing field of self-compassion. In her book Self-Compassion (2011), she defines self-compassion as “being open to and moved by one’s own suffering, experiencing feelings of caring and kindness toward oneself, taking an understanding, nonjudgmental attitude toward one’s inadequacies and failures, and recognizing that one’s experience is part of the common human experience.”

If we are to be self-compassionate, we need to give ourselves the same five gifts we offer to another person toward whom we are feeling compassionate. In other words, we need to offer ourselves the recognition, validation, and support we would offer a loved one who is suffering.

There’s no denying that you’ve been hurt and embarrassed and angered by your partner’s behavior. You may have lost friends and money, your career may have suffered or you may have even lost a job because you have been so devastated by his actions. Certainly your health has been affected since you have likely suffered both emotionally and physically. But anger and self-pity doesn’t really help you and it won’t get you anywhere. And it can also prevent you from being a compassionate collaborator for your partner.

While self-pity doesn’t help, self-compassion does. If you are a partner of someone who has a substance abuse problem you have suffered. And you deserve compassion for your suffering. Unfortunately, other people may not be very forthcoming when it comes to offering you this compassion. Instead they may have advised you to leave your partner and since you haven’t done so they might have grown impatient with you, much like friends and family do with battered women who do not leave their abusive partner. On the other hand, friends and family may have chosen to stay in denial about just how serious your partner’s problems are and may expect you to stay with him no matter how bad it gets, offering no compassion for how much you have suffered. And so the only compassion you may receive is the compassion you give yourself.

Thinking and acting with self-compassion has been shown to have advantageous psychological benefits, including reduced distress, pathology, and negative affect, and increased well-being, optimism, and happiness (MacBeth & Gumley, 2012; Neff, 2003a, 2003b; Neff, 2004; Neff, Kirkpatrick, & Rude, 2007; Van Dam, Sheppard, Forsyth, & Earleywine, 2011).

A recent meta-analysis showed self-compassion to have a positive effect on depression, anxiety, and stress across twenty studies (MacBeth and Gumley 2012). Self-compassion also appears to facilitate resilience by moderating people’s reactions to negative events—trauma in particular. Gilbert and Procter (2001) suggest that self-compassion provides emotional resilience because it deactivates the threat system.

Stopping to acknowledge your suffering with self-compassion is not the same as whining, experiencing self-pity, or feeling sorry for yourself. When we are experiencing self-pity we tend to complain to ourselves (and others) about how bad a situation is and see ourselves as helpless to change it. There is often a bitter tone to our thoughts and feelings. While being angry about our situation or about what someone did to hurt us is fine, and even healing; it is when we start to dwell, in bitterness and helplessness, on how we’ve been victimized that we get stuck in self-pity. Self-compassion comes from a more nurturing place inside us and can be comforting and validating.

Self-compassion can lead to proactive behavior. Once you’ve validated your feelings and your experience, you may feel more motivated to improve your situation. I often find this to be the case with people who are currently being either emotionally or physically abused. Once they acknowledge their suffering and allow themselves to feel and express their emotions because of it, they often feel more impetus to leave the relationship.

Most of us were raised to just keep going in spite of difficulties. That is all well and good—it’s important to persevere—but instead of ignoring our feelings about how difficult something is, it’s important to acknowledge the difficulty and have compassion for the fact we’re having it.

Self-compassion encourages us to begin to treat ourselves and talk to ourselves with the same kindness, caring, and compassion we would show a good friend or a beloved child. Just as connecting with the suffering of others has been shown to comfort and heal, connecting with our own suffering will do the same. If you are able to feel compassion toward others, you can learn to feel it for yourself; the following exercise will show you how.

Exercise: Becoming Compassionate Toward Yourself

Think about the most compassionate person you have known—someone kind, understanding, and supportive of you. It may have been a teacher, a friend, a friend’sparent, a relative. Think about how this person conveyed his or her compassion toward you and how you felt in this person’s presence. Notice the feelings and sensations that come up with this memory. If you can’t think of someone in your life who has been compassionate toward you, think of a compassionate public figure, or even a fictional character from a book, film, or television.
Now imagine that you have the ability to become as compassionate toward yourself as this person has been toward you (or you imagine this person would be toward you). How would you treat yourself if you were feeling overwhelmed with sadness or shame? What kinds of words would you use to talk to yourself?

This is the goal of self-compassion: to treat yourself the same way the most compassionate person you know would treat you—to talk to yourself in the same loving, kind, supportive ways this compassionate person would talk to you. In the following chapters we will offer you more in-depth self-compassion tools and strategies.

The more you work on releasing your stockpile of anger and the more you provide for yourself the compassion you so desperately need, the less you will need to bring things up from the past. And hopefully, the more you come to understand how damaging shaming a person can be, you will be less inclined to do so. The less inclined you will be to continually remind him of how much he has disappointed you, embarrassed you and hurt you and how he has ruined his life. The chances are you have already told him these things so he doesn’t need to hear it again and you don’t need to say it again.

Research has shown that the more you criticize someone, even in an attempt to “get through” to him, the more defensive he will become. On the other hand, the more you treat your partner with compassion, the less defensive he will become. Respect and optimism have proven to lower defenses and get you on the same side, working together against the problem.  He will then feel this more compassionate attitude and whether he understands it or not—he will feel more accepted and loved. He’ll have less of a need to defend himself or to make excuses for his behavior. He’ll have less of a need to lie to you or push you away with criticisms of his own.

The Compassion Chronicles

From anger to compassion and forgiveness.
Beverly Engel L.M.F.T.
Beverly Engel has been a psychotherapist for over 30 years and is the author of 20 books, including The Emotionally Abusive Relationship and The Right to Innocence.

The Psychological Impact of Victim-Blaming – and How to Stop It

By Michael O. Schroeder | Staff Writer US News and World Report Wellness

April 19, 2016, at 11:20 a.m.
Many victims of abuse suffer secondary trauma from being blamed for the harm they endured.

Simply talking about it can be hard enough.

Almost without fail, when a person has been the victim of abuse, psychological experts say that individual experiences shame – internalizing some of the emotional and mental injury perpetrated; that’s in addition to how the abuse, such as physical or sexual, may mark a person physically. “Children, in particular, always see themselves to blame for whatever happens,” says Beverly Engel, a marriage and family therapist based in Los Osos, California. “They blame themselves for things they had nothing to do with. That’s just a child mentality.”

However, adults often self-blame, too, and many who have been abused find themselves being blamed by others for the hurt they endured, in subtle or overt ways. While it usually begins with the perpetrator, experts say victim-blaming is a cultural phenomenon that can have a debilitating psychological impact on a person already struggling to recover from abuse.

[See: How to Find the Best Mental Health Professional for You.]

“We are a culture of victim-blamers,” Engel says, adding that those who suffer sexual abuse – from young children to predominantly female students on college campuses – are frequently blamed for what happened to them. “The core of victim-blaming is that we don’t want to feel out of control,” she says, since being victimized – or learning that someone else was victimized – threatens to shatter the illusion that we’re always in control of what happens to us; and it runs counter to a notion rooted deeply in our society, Engel says. “Fighting for our freedom, being independent, fighting against someone controlling us – we have a whole history of that.”

Heroics aside, experts say the problem with such a mentality is that it often sparks a knee-jerk reaction to either quiet a person who has been abused or “fix” the abuse (going after a perpetrator, but leaving the person who was abused without support). That makes it difficult for a person to talk openly about what happened to them, to be supported in his or her recovery and to process myriad emotions, from anger to grief. It can also make it less likely a person will seek psychological treatment to address issues such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder that may result from being abused.

“Victim-blaming is actually something that comes up all the time in sessions,” says Dr. Anju Hurria, a psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at University of California–Irvine. “It’s really considered a secondary trauma or a secondary assault.” She says those who are blamed for abuse they experienced “report greater distress, increased amounts of depression; [it] usually complicates their post-traumatic stress disorder, if they’re experiencing that, because they’re dealing with two different assaults. Often we’ll see an increase in suicidal ideation, and then it often decreases people’s chances of reporting future abuses, because there is a fear they won’t be believed, or that they’ll have to deal with the negative feedback of reporting it.”

Hurria adds that victim-blaming can also worsen symptoms of anxiety. And experts say it can increase shame, leave a person more disconnected from their own feelings as well as make it harder to connect with other people and ultimately stand in the way of recovery.

Where in some abuse cases the facts may be legitimately disputed, experts say frequently a plain truth is obscured by murky intentions – such as when family of a victim seeks to keep the issue quiet, because the perpetrator is a family member. “No one ever deserves to be hurt,” no matter the circumstances, says Jen Marsh, vice president of victim services for RAINN, or Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, an anti-sexual violence organization that partners with local sexual assault service providers across the country.

[See: 9 Things to Do or Say When a Loved One Talks About Taking Their Life.]

Abuse is commonly perpetrated by someone the person who is abused knows, which can make it harder for that person to get the help they need. However, supportive family and friends who are committed to helping a person in their road to recovery can start by really listening as a person recounts what happened, or their trauma narrative, Hurria says. That means not just jumping to act. If it was a recent assault and medical attention is required, then let that person know you’re there to hold a hand during a forensic exam or to take care of other things, Marsh says. “But it’s really ultimately that survivor’s choice how they seek help and when they choose to do that.”

In talking with a person who has been sexually abused, or otherwise victimized, don’t fixate on questions and refrain from qualifying statements, experts say, like pointing out if a person was drinking when abuse occurred, which implicitly make excuses for the perpetrator. “The survivor is already in a place where they will interpret questions – particularly questions that begin with ‘why’ – ‘Why were you’ – as blaming them for what happened,” Marsh says. And don’t be afraid to intervene if others victim-blame. “It’s OK to speak up in those situations and reiterate publicly and loudly that nothing anybody ever does warrants them to be hurt, and that’s the bottom line,” she says.

At a most basic level, experts say a person needs to be free to feel the way they do, and affirmed by those who love them, so they can process those feelings. “We need to be validated,” Engel says. It’s also important for a person seeking help to find a mental health professional they trust. “Find a therapist you feel really comfortable with, because it’s an extremely personal thing,” Hurria says. She notes that may involve interviewing multipletherapists, before selecting one; treatment, like trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, should be tailored to the type of mental health issues one faces as a result of the abuse. “But the idea is to form a relationship with the therapist to be able to work through the trauma and then all the subsequent results of the trauma,” she says.

Marsh recommends not only those who have experienced abuse but also those who wish to support them take advantage of resources, like contacting RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. “Because in order to be a good supporter, they need to be in a good place as well,” she says.

[See: Coping With Depression at Work.]

Engel adds that on a societal level, much more needs to be done not only to prevent abuse, but to better support those who have been abused in their recovery. “For the general public, we need to remember that we are not always in control, and we can all be victimized,” Engel says. Acknowledging that, she says, would allow us to be more self-compassionate when we face suffering and to be more compassionate toward people who are victimized in acknowledging their suffering. More often today, she says, “People just don’t do that.”

Michael O. Schroeder STAFF WRITER
Michael Schroeder is a health editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at mschroeder@usnews.com.

Self-Criticism Can Be Psychologically Devastating – How to Overcome It

Research finds internalized harsh treatment leads to mental health disorders and raises suicide risk.

By Michael O. Schroeder | Staff Writer

March 17, 2016, at 10:36 a.m.

From a very early age, we learn – in a manner of speaking – to nitpick ourselves. We take information from those we encounter and the world around us to fine-tune how we act and who we are, taking note of what doesn’t work in an ongoing internal dialogue that stretches back to childhood. “The healthy form of self-criticism,” says Divya Kannan, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, may involve a child evaluating his or her own behavior, like what not to do, based on cues from parents and teachers.

Constructive self-critiquing can help with proper development, plus everything from preserving relationships to toeing the line professionally. But for some, harsher self-criticism, often deeply rooted in his or her upbringing, can prove psychologically – and in certain cases, even physically – devastating. “Self-criticism is a tendency to set unrealistically high self-standards and to adopt a punitive, derogatory stance toward the self once these are not met, as invariably they are not because of their ever-raising nature,” said psychologist and researcher Golan Shahar, a professor of clinical-health and developmental-health psychology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, in an email. Shahar, the author of a new book called “Erosion: The Psychopathology of Self-Criticism,” explains this internal negative bent can have severe consequences.

[Read: Reducing Mental Health Risk for Kids in Military Families.]

“Self-criticism is a trait that has been shown to lead to numerous forms of psychopathology: depression, anxiety, eating disorders, bipolar disorder symptoms,” Shahar says. It can lead to psychosomatic symptoms, he says, whereby the mental struggles manifest in physical problems, such a chronic fatigue and pain; and under the weight of the mounting mental health burden, some take their own lives.

The Kids Need to Know They’re Alright

The seeds of self-criticism are planted early.

It’s caused by two possible factors, Shahar says: “Harsh, critical and punitive family relationships, or a very vulnerable genetics embedding the tendency to look inwardly and seek flaws.” And of course, he adds, both factors can combine to play a role. “The primary origin … [is] critical parents,” says Beverly Engel, a marriage and family therapist based in Los Osos, California. “That usually is where it starts – having overly critical parents or parents who have unreasonable expectations of their children.” Engel is the author of “It Wasn’t Your Fault,” a book about utilizing self-compassion to overcome shame and self-criticism stemming from childhood abuse.

Childhood trauma, such as sexual abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse, can cause a child to feel tremendous shame, Engel says, and that “shame is at the core of self-criticism.” The same egocentric perspective healthy children naturally have that the world revolves around them makes them feel they’re responsible for everything that happens to them – especially when it involves their parents. “But even when it isn’t a parent, the child will blame themselves – especially with sexual abuse,” Engel says, adding with physical and emotional abuse, young children also blame themselves. “They can’t even conceptualize that somebody would do this to them, if they somehow didn’t cause it,” she says. “So every time a child is traumatized, that goes hand in hand with trauma is shame – this horrible, debilitating shame. That’s more than, ‘I did something wrong.’ It’s: ‘I’m wrong, I’m bad’ – and this shame is what causes people then to be horribly self-critical.”

Parents routinely don’t recognize they’re overly critical, Engel says. She describes overly critical parents as those “who find fault in what their children do a lot more than they give encouragement; the parents’ focus is a negative focus on the child – kind of always looking for the child to do something wrong … versus encouraging or giving the child any kind of accolades whatsoever.” In so doing, parents are commonly inflicting an internal family legacy upon their children, passing on the same sort of derision they received as a child from their parents. “One of the primary forms of emotional abuse of parents to children is this horribly self-critical stance,” Engel says. Being hyper-disciplined and pushing children toward high levels of achievement alone doesn’t constitute mistreatment; still experts say demanding parents, like so-called Tiger Moms, should be cautious not to go too far. “Tiger Moms are generally more overly protective than overly critical but [the way] they can inflict damage on their children is by being perfectionists and by pushing their children beyond their limits,” Engel says.

[Read: Dolphin Parenting: Raising Kids to Be Smart and Happy.]

Shahar says parents must be very cautious about being punitive and derogatory toward their children, since children can internalize this in the way they treat themselves. “Instructing children and … pointing out and even sanctioning bad behavior is mandatory, of course,” he says. “But this never, or almost never, should be translated toward ​attacking the child’s core being, or the child will internalize it and will follow suit.” Divya, who has studied the effects of self-criticism in adolescents and adults, says ultimately many who endure bullying or abuse incorporate that in how they relate to themselves: “You might start to kind of attack yourself in the same way you’ve been attacked.”

Break the Cycle With Self-Compassion

“What is interesting, in my opinion, is that once self-criticism has developed, it spreads around like an infectious virus,” Shahar says. “Self-critical children make their parents even more self-critical toward them, and they create criticism-based relationships with siblings, peers and teachers. The process unfolds over the life span, resulting in a strong, self-critical identity.”

Engel points out this creates obstacles for the children, even while parents may think they’re helping kids get ahead in life. Those hurdles can trip them up as adults, too. “Self-critics fear that others might criticize and reject them, and inadvertently evoke these very reactions. They isolate themselves from people and refrain from engaging in pleasurable activities. The end result is emotional disorders, primarily depression and anxiety,” Shahar says, among other psychological issues. “In adolescence and young adulthood, such distress may feed back to self-criticism and bolster it: ‘I feel so bad, something must be deficient in me.’ I call this process ‘the self-critical cascade.’”

Treatment of psychological issues can be complicated by the fact that many self-critical people blame themselves for their mental health struggles, and may punish themselves by not seeking treatment, Shahar says. But it’s possible to tweak the internal dialogue and find a more positive way forward, particularly using an “antidote to shame:” self-compassion, Engel says. When a self-critical voice spirals out of control and leads to mental health issues or when a person finds, for example, that they’re self-sabotaging – not allowing successes and positive moments to stand, finding ways to create problems or undermine long-term goals – it’s important, experts say, to seek professional help. Therapy can also help parents break the cycle, so they don’t continue to pass on the harsh legacy to children.

Shahar says he teaches adolescents and young adults about the detriments of self-criticism. “I then teach them to identify their inner critic and then to cultivate other voices inside them that are not critical,” he says. He teaches patients to base their behavior on those benign/benevolent voices, rather than self-critical ones, using interpersonal, cognitive, behavioral and psychodynamic therapeutic techniques and relying on the healing power of therapeutic relationships.

[Read: Gender-Neutral Parenting: Letting Kids Choose.]

Kannan notes that psychoanalytic therapy that delves into ​negative internalized childhood experiences may help in understanding the origins of self-criticism and treating the issue, and Engel highlights compassion-focused therapy, mindful self-compassion and trauma-focused therapy as specific types of therapeutic approaches for those who are deeply shamed and self-critical. “Across approaches the idea is, you can recognize and sort of verbalize those internal attitudes – talk through what the origins were – then you may be able to separate the part of yourself that’s more balanced or more positive from the self-critical part,” Kannan says. “Then you can start to say, ‘OK, that’s maybe a part of me – it’s not all of​​ ​me.’ So it’s like the difference between saying you’ve experienced failure, versus you are a failure.”

Michael O. Schroeder STAFF WRITER
Michael Schroeder is a health editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at mschroeder@usnews.com.

Sava Brooks Interview with Beverly

Take Your Power Back Interview Summit

Sava Broooks has been on the healing journey for twenty years and is very passionate about helping survivors. Sava helps those suffering from childhood abuse and trauma to live, love and succeed. In this video Sava explores how expert professional Beverly Engel uses her unique approach in helping survivors with healing and thriving after childhood trauma.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Command Program Sequence of Events

Date: 7 October 2014, 1330

1315 – Prelude DVD by XOXOsunshinejo (3.30 min) (run 3x’s or until 1325)

1330 – 1335 Welcome

1335 – 1338 National Anthem by 434th Signal Corps Army Band

1338 – 1340 Invocation

1340 – 1355 Candle Lighting in Memory of Victims

Facilitated by Frances Maxwell and Betty Ward

US Army

US Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Henderson, Zinga

US Air Force Lt Keith-Schwartz, Amelia

US Marines GYSGT Grenz, Matthew J

1355 – 1400 Introduction of Keynote Speaker

1400 – 1420 Keynote Speaker

1420 – 1425 Presentation of Certificate of Appreciation and Token

1425 – 1430 Conclusion

Postlude Music

 

Download (PDF, 5.49MB)

Love & Sex on the Radio

Beverly will be on Devi Ward’s Better Love and Sex Show Thursday February 13th from 7-8 PM Pacific time

Live interview—call in number 1-877-230-3062

Contact Talk Radio Network

Internet Talk Radio

http://ctrnetwork.com

Subject: “Being in a Relationship with a Survivor of Childhood Sexual Abuse”

How Compassion Can Heal Shame from Childhood

The Antidote to Shame

Published on July 14, 2013 by Beverly Engel, L.M.F.T. in The Compassion Chronicles

Available at Psychology Today

Visit Psychology Today

We all experienced shame in childhood—whether it was from being teased or bullied on the playground, from always being the last one chosen to be on a team, from not knowing the answers when called upon in the classroom, or from being rejected by the girl or boy we had a crush on.

Shame is a powerful emotion. When you think back to the shaming experiences of your childhood it is likely that you are catapulted right back to those painful moments—almost as if you were experiencing them today. Shame is a feeling deep within us of being exposed and unworthy. When we feel shamed we want to hide. We hang our heads, stoop our shoulders and curve inward as if trying to make ourselves invisible

Think about the most shameful experiences of your childhood. Can you still feel the shameful feelings? The sinking feeling in your stomach, the experience of suddenly feeling very small, inadequate or “less than” other people. The feeling of wanting to hide out of embarrassment?

We don’t like to think of those shaming experiences from our past because it is so painful and because it can interfere with our concept of ourselves today—the image we have tried so hard to create of being competent, equal to, and acceptable. But it sometimes doesn’t take much for us to revisit those painful feelings when something reminds us of a shaming experience. This is called “being triggered”—the phrase often used to describe the feeling of suddenly, out of the blue, being reminded of the past so much so that it feels like it is happening in the present. It happens something like this…you have put down your credit card to pay for a meal when the waiter comes back to tell you that your card has been declined. Now, most of us have experienced this before and can remember the familiar sensation of feeling shame. We feel exposed, embarrassed. We feel like everyone is looking at us, we wish we could disappear. Even if we are certain it is a mistake, we still feel the shame. Even if we try to cover up the shame with the false bravado of, “I’m sure there has been a mistake—put it through again,” most of us still feel the shame.

Now imagine that you had the experience in childhood of your parents never having enough money to buy the things you needed. Imagine that you were with your mother at the grocery store when the cashier told her how much the items cost and she discovered that she didn’t have enough money to pay for everything. Suppose you had to stand there mortified while she told the cashier to take back several items. If anything like that happened to you in childhood that dreaded moment at the restaurant of the waiter telling you your card has been rejected would be even more mortifying than for the average person. This is because you may have been triggered by those shaming moments from your childhood. So on top of what everyone else would feel in that situation, you feel the shame you felt as a child. That’s one of the ways shame stays with us, reminding us far too often of things we wish we could forget.

If you were to ask any group of people what they think the most destructive human emotion is, most would either say it is anger or fear. But in actuality, shame is the most destructive of human emotions. It can damage a person’s image of themselves in ways that no other emotion can, causing a person to feel deeply flawed, inferior, worthless and unlovable. If someone experiences enough shame he or she can become self-loathing to the point that he or she becomes self-destructive or even suicidal. Shame is responsible for a myriad of problems, including but not limited to: Self-criticism; self-blame; self-neglect; the belief that one does not deserve good things; self-destructive behaviors (cutting, alcohol and drug abuse); self-sabotaging behavior (starting fights with loved one, sabotaging jobs); perfectionism; and most important, continuing to repeat the cycle of abuse through either victim behavior or abusive behavior.

Think of one of the most shaming experiences of your childhood—the time you got caught cheating on a test and the teacher called you out in front of the class, the time your coach called you a screw-up in front of the whole team, wetting your pants and then having to walk in front of the whole class to the bathroom. Shaming experiences like that can stay with you for a lifetime.

While anyone can suffer from lingering shame, those who were abused in childhood tend to carry the most shame. Emotional, physical and sexual child abuse can cause a victim to become so overwhelmed with shame that it can actually come to define the person and prevent her from reaching her full potential. It can cause someone to remain fixated at the age she was at the time of the victimization and it can motivate a person to repeat the abuse over and over in her lifetime.

Childhood sexual abuse is particularly shaming but it is not the only form of childhood abuse that shames a child. Many parents use shaming and humiliation to discipline their children, and emotional and physical abuse shame children as well. In fact, anytime a child is victimized in any way, he or she feels shame.

Abuse, by its very nature, is humiliating and dehumanizing. The natural reaction to abuse is a feeling of shame. Judith Herman described how childhood trauma creates a “damaged self”: “Traumatic events violate the autonomy of the person at the level of bodily integrity. The body is invaded, injured, defiled…Shame is a response to helplessness, the violation of bodily integrity, and the indignity suffered in the eyes of another person.

Another reason a person feels shame whenever he or she has been victimized is that as human beings we want to believe that we have control over what happens to us. When that personal power is challenged by a victimization of any kind, we feel humiliated. We believe we “should have” been able to defend ourselves. And because we weren’t able to do so, we feel helpless and powerless. This powerlessness causes us to feel humiliated—which leads to shame.

Many survivors of childhood abuse become what has been called “shame-bound”—meaning that shame has become a dominant factor in the formation of their personality. When this happens, their lives become characterized by shame. They live their lives in a constant state of self-criticism and self-blame or they become exquisitely sensitive to criticism from others and defend against it at every turn. Those who are prone to self-criticism often have a powerful critical inner voice that berates them constantly for imagined or real mistakes and demands that they be perfect. They set unreasonable expectations for themselves and are never satisfied with their performance or achievements. They find it impossible to take in compliments or even to take in positive expressions of love or admiration from others.

Those who defend against shame build up a protective wall with the goal of keeping any hint of criticism from others out. Strategies used for this purpose can include: being critical of others before they have a chance to criticize you, refusing to talk about any of your shortcomings, turning criticism around on the other person, accusing the other person of lying or exaggerating about their complaints about you and projecting your shame onto others.

How Do You Heal Shame?

Fortunately, there is a way of healing even our most painful shaming experiences. The answer—compassion. Compassion is the antidote to shame. As it is with most poisons, the toxicity of shame needs to be neutralized by another substance if we are truly going to save the patient. Compassion is the only thing that can neutralize shame.

In the past few years, many people have taken an increased interest in the subject of compassion. This is no doubt at least partially due to a number of recent studies that have revealed surprising results concerning compassion. Researchers have found that from the day we are born to the day we die, the kindness, support, encouragement and compassion of others has a huge impact on how our brains, bodies and general sense of well-being develop. Love and kindness, especially in early life, even affect how some of our genes are expressed.

And there has been a lot of research recently on the connection between shame and compassion. What was particularly of interest to me was the most recent research in the neurobiology of compassion as it relates to shame—namely that we now know some of the neurobiological correlates of feeling unlovable and how shame gets stuck in our neural circuitry. Moreover, I discovered that due to what we now know about the neural plasticity of the brain—the capacity of our brains to grow new neurons and new synaptic connections—we can proactively repair (and re-pair) the old shame memory with new experiences of self-empathy and self-compassion.

Until a few years ago, the subject of self-compassion had never been formally studied. But recently there has been some breakthrough research done on self-compassion by researcher and social psychologist Kristin Neff from the University of Texas at Austin. Among other things, Neff discovered that self-compassion can act as an antidote to self-criticism—a major characteristic of those who experience intense shame. It was found that self-compassion is a powerful trigger for the release of oxytocin, the hormone that increases feelings of trust, calm, safety, generosity, and connectedness. Self-criticism, on the other hand, has a very different effect on our body. The amygdala, the oldest part of the brain, is designed to quickly detect threats in the environment. When we experience a threatening situation, the fight-or-flight response is triggered and the amygdala sends signals that increase blood pressure, adrenaline, and the hormone cortisol, mobilizing the strength and energy needed to confront or avoid the treat. Although this system was designed by evolution to deal with physical attacks, it is activated just as readily by emotional attacks—from ourselves and others. Over time increased cortisol levels lead to depression by depleting the various neurotransmitters involved in the ability to experience pleasure.

Since I specialize in working with survivors of trauma, I have been particularly interested in the latest research results showing that trauma survivors, particularly those with PTSD, benefit from incorporating elements of self-compassion into treatment. The practice of self-compassion has been shown to decrease posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, including, self-criticism, thought suppression, and rumination– phenomena associated with trauma and PTSD. A large majority of both victims and abusers of intimate partner abuse and family violence were emotionally, physically, or sexually abused in childhood and consequently, many suffer from PTSD.

How Does Self-Compassion Work?

Compassion comes from the Latin roots com (with) and pati (suffer), or to “suffer with.” When we offer genuine compassion, we join a person in his or her suffering. Self-compassion then, begins with connecting with one’s own suffering. Unfortunately, most of us don’t want to do this. We want to forget about our past suffering and put it behind us. By doing so, however, we don’t heal the emotions that accompany the suffering—the pain, fear, anger, and especially, the shame. The same holds true for painful and shaming experiences in the present. Instead of stopping to acknowledge our suffering in the moment, we try to move past it as soon as possible.

Self-compassion encourages us to begin to treat ourselves and talk to ourselves with the same kindness, caring and compassion we would show a good friend or a beloved child. In addition, it helps us to feel less isolated and alienated from others. The more shame we feel, the more deficient we feel and in turn, the more separate we feel from others. But self-compassion helps us to recognize our common humanity—the fact that we have all done things that we feel ashamed about and that we all experience the same pain in difficult times.

I am currently writing a book on how compassion, especially self-compassion, can heal shame and I will be happy to share with you more information about this important subject in the future. For now, let me offer you this exercise:

1. Think of one of your most shaming experiences from childhood. Now think of what you wish someone had said to you right after that experience. What would have been the most helpful and healing for you to hear at that time? Write this statement down on a piece of paper.

2. Imagine that someone you care very much about, someone you admire, is saying those words to you now. Hear those words in your ears. Take those words into your heart. Notice how those words make you feel.

3. Now say those words out loud to yourself. Take a deep breath and really take in those words. How does hearing yourself say those words out loud make you feel?

 

If you are like most people, hearing those words of compassion can be very healing. It’s almost as good as if you heard them at the time. I’ve had clients cry when they imagined hearing the words from someone they love. In some ways it doesn’t really matter that you are hearing them now rather than at the time. What matters is that you let the words in now—that you experience both the compassion from someone else and that you provide self-compassion toward yourself.

In essence, in order to heal your shame (past and present) you need to provide for yourself nurturing, encouraging words to counter the typically self-critical words you normally tell yourself whenever you make a mistake, disappoint yourself or someone else, or in some way fall short of your own or someone else’s expectations. Self-compassion involves telling yourself what you most need to hear at the moment—words of understanding and encouragement.

There are many other aspects of self-compassion. For now, just know that practicing self-compassion can help you:

• Begin to generate compassionate feelings toward yourself and self-soothe yourself in positive ways

• Begin to replace self-criticism with self-kindness

• Begin to create a nurturing inner voice to replace your cold, critical, bullying inner voice

• Begin to generate alternatives to your self-attacking thoughts, including stimulating underdeveloped pathways of the brain—pathways that stimulate inner support and warmth

• Help you to develop appreciation for yourself, including feeling pride in your accomplishments–pride is the opposite emotion from shame

• Encourage you to practice accountability versus self-blame, self-correction versus self-criticism.

Healing Your Shame Though Compassion

Beverly Engel

 “Compassion is the radicalism of our time.”

-Dalai Lama

If you were to ask any group of people what they think the most destructive human emotion is, most would either say it is anger or fear. But in actuality, shame is the most destructive of human emotions. It is the source of cruelty, violence, and destructive relationships, and can be at the core of many addictions. It can damage a person’s image of themselves in ways that no other emotion can, causing a person to feel deeply flawed, inferior, worthless and unlovable.  If someone experiences enough shame he can become self-loathing to the point that he becomes self-destructive or even suicidal.

Shame is responsible for a myriad of problems, including but not limited to: Self-criticism; self-blame; self-neglect; the belief that one does not deserve good things; self-destructive behaviors (cutting, alcohol and drug abuse); self-sabotaging behavior (starting fights with loved one, sabotaging jobs); perfectionism; and most important, continuing to repeat the cycle of abuse through either victim behavior or abusive behavior.

While anyone can suffer from lingering shame, those who were abused in childhood tend to carry the most shame. Emotional, physical and sexual child abuse can cause a victim to become so overwhelmed with shame that it can actually come to define the person and prevent her from reaching her full potential. It can cause someone to remain fixated at the age her was at the time of the victimization and it can motivate a person to repeat the abuse over and over in her lifetime.

Typically, victims of child abuse are changed by the experience, not only because they were traumatized, but because of the loss of innocence they feel and the amount of shame they carry from that day forward. Sadly, shame from childhood abuse almost always manifests itself in one of three major ways:

It causes the person to abuse themselves in various ways such as: critical self-talk, alcohol or drug abuse, destructive eating patterns, and self-harm.
It causes the person to develop “victim-like” behavior and put up with unacceptable behavior.
It causes the person to become an abuser themselves.

Those who work to help victims of childhood abuse heal know that recovery from the abuse always involves helping their client address and decrease their shame. But this is easier said than done. While a victim may understand, on an intellectual level, that he or she did not cause the victimization, he or she will nevertheless continue to blame themselves for it.  For example, survivors of childhood sexual abuse can be told over and over that they were not to blame for the abuse and yet will continue to believe that they somehow caused the abuse to occur.

While childhood sexual abuse is particularly shaming, it is not the only form of  childhood abuse that shames a child. Many parents use shaming and humiliation to discipline their children, and emotional and physical abuse shame children as well. In fact, anytime a child is victimized in any way, he or she feels shame. This is because being victimized causes us to feel helpless, and this helplessness causes us to feel shame.

In spite of the fact that I had, at the time, been a therapist for twenty-five years, several years ago I became frustrated because I continued to struggle to find effective ways to help my clients eliminate the shame they suffered due to childhood abuse. To make matters worse, I also struggled with debilitating shame due to childhood sexual and emotional abuse, even after many years of therapy. And so I set out to find the “cure” for shame.

After extensive study and research, I found it. I discovered that compassion is the antidote to shame. As it is with most poisons, the toxicity of shame needs to be neutralized by another substance if we are truly going to save the patient. Compassion is the only thing that can neutralize shame.

The Healing Power of Compassion

The healing properties of compassion have been written about for centuries. For more than 3,000 years, compassion has been understood to be one of the most important and distinctive qualities of the human mind. The Buddhist definition of compassion is the desire to alleviate suffering and it has been a key component of the Buddhist religion.  Not only has compassion been encouraged as a spiritual and moral pursuit in many religions, but compassion has also been seen as a major healing process for our turbulent minds and relationships. In this regard, compassion has been defined as behavior that aims to nurture, look after, teach, guide, mentor, soothe, protect, offer feelings of acceptance and belonging—in order to benefit another person (Paul Gilbert).

Until relatively recently, the impetus for developing compassion and the way of doing it came primarily from spiritual and religious traditions. Although most religions recognize its power, it was within the Eastern traditions—and especially Mahayana Buddhism, the school of the Dalai Lama—that exercises and mental practices were developed to train the mind in compassion.

In the last 30 years we have seen the science of psychology and studies of the human brain begin to put compassion, caring, and pro-social behavior center stage in the development of well-being, mental health and our capacity to foster harmonious relationships with each other and the world we live in. Quite recently, the components of compassion have been looked at through the lens of Western psychological science and research (Gilbert 2000, 2005a, 2009; Davidson 2002; Neff 2003a,b). Compassion is now thought of as a skill that one can train in, with increasing evidence that focusing on and practicing compassion can influence neuro-physiological and immune systems (Davidson 2003; Lutz 2008).

It’s only been relatively recently that researchers have found out just how compassion exerts its beneficial effects. One way they’ve used to discover that compassion is good for us is by studying the brains of people who either are very well practiced at compassion or engage in compassionate thoughts and fantasies. What was found is that focusing on kindness, both to ourselves and to other people, stimulates areas of the brain and body in ways that are conducive to health and well-being.

Although I was well-versed concerning the power of compassion to heal individuals, I was unaware of some of the most recent research in the neurobiology of compassion—namely that we now know some of the neurobiological correlates of feeling unlovable and how shame gets stuck in our neural circuitry. Moreover, I discovered that due to what we now know about the neural plasticity of the brain—the capacity of our brains to grow new neurons and new synaptic connections—we can proactively repair (and re-pair) the old shame memory with new experiences of self-empathy and self-compassion.

The Importance of Self-Compassion in Healing Shame

Even more significantly, I had not recognized the importance of self-compassion in healing shame. In fact, until a few years ago, the subject of self-compassion had never been formally studied. As it turned out, as far as alleviating shame, self-compassion was the missing key. For example, I discovered research suggesting that self-compassion can act as an antidote to self-criticism—a major characteristic of those who experience intense shame. It was found that self-compassion is a powerful trigger for the release of oxytocin, the hormone that increases feelings of trust, calm, safety, generosity, and connectedness. Self-criticism, on the other hand, has a very different effect on our body. The amygdala, the oldest part of the brain, is designed to quickly detect threats in the environment. When we experience a threatening situation, the fight-or-flight response is triggered and the amygdala sends signals that increase blood pressure, adrenaline, and the hormone cortisol, mobilizing the strength and energy needed to confront or avoid the treat. Although this system was designed by evolution to deal with physical attacks, it is activated just as readily by emotional attacks—from ourselves and others. Over time increased cortisol levels lead to depression by depleting the various neurotransmitters involved in the ability to experience pleasure.

There is also neurological evidence showing that self-kindness (a major component of self-compassion) and self-criticism operate quite differently in terms of brain function. A recent study examined reactions to personal failure using fMRI (functioning magnetic resonance imaging) technology. While in a brain scanner, participants were presented with hypothetical situations such as “A third job rejection latter in a row arrives in the post.” They were then told to imagine reacting to the situation in either a kind or a self-critical way. Self-criticism was associated with activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex and dorsal anterior cingulated—areas of the brain associated with error processing and problem solving. Being kind and reassuring toward oneself was associated with left temporal pole and insula activation—areas of the brain associated with positive emotions and compassion. Instead of seeing ourselves as a problem to be fixed, therefore, self-kindness allows us to see ourselves as valuable human beings who are worthy of care.

Most important as far as I was concerned, self-compassion was found to act as a buffer against negative self-feeling following distressing events (Leary et al 2007). Gilbert and Proctor (2006) developed a program aimed at fostering compassion and decreasing shame and self-criticism in patients with personality and/or mood disorders attending a hospital day treatment program.

Through new research, it has been shown that learning and practicing self-compassion can decrease self-criticism and self-judgment, reduce depression and anxiety, decrease the tendency to ruminate, and generally increase a person’s feeling of psychological well-being. Studies have shown that self-compassion provides a feeling of greater life satisfaction and an increase in feeling interpersonally connected to others.

Research results show that trauma survivors, particularly those with PTSD, benefit from incorporating elements of self-compassion into treatment. The practice of self-compassion has been shown to decrease posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, including, self-criticism, thought suppression, and rumination– phenomena associated with trauma and PTSD. (There are three symptom clusters associated with PTSD: re-experiencing, reactions to internal or external cues of the trauma; avoidance, which includes persistent avoidance of  trauma-related stimuli and emotional numbing; and hyperarousal, which includes insomnia, anger, concentration difficulties, and an exaggerated startle response (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). A large majority of both victims and abusers of intimate partner abuse and family violence were emotionally, physically, or sexually abused in childhood and consequently, many suffer from PTSD.

In terms of continuing the cycle of abuse it has been found that early trauma, such as abuse and neglect, bullying or parental/peer criticism can cause a person to be self-critical. As a result of such early trauma, people may try to avoid harm from others by being overly submissive and non-assertive, blaming self, silencing the self, always putting the needs of others first, not trusting others and keeping them at a distance, or working excessively hard to make themselves desirable to others—all typical victim behavior. On the other hand, they may use avoidant strategies such as bullying others or keeping others at a distance and avoiding intimacy—typical behavior of abusers.

In light of all this research, I determined that in addition to offering my clients compassion for their suffering, I needed to teach them how to practice self-compassion on an ongoing basis in order to heal the layers and layers of shame they experienced.

Trading Self-Compassion for Self-Esteem

Self-compassion is so important that it will soon replace self-esteem as a focus for measuring a person’s potential for happiness and success. The truth is, all our focus on raising our self-esteem and the self-esteem of our children has not been very fruitful. Instead of helping people to genuinely feel better about themselves, “raising their self-esteem” has created a generation of kids who think they are more talented than they really are and adults who pretend to feel good about themselves when they are secretly filled with self-criticism and even self-loathing. Self-compassion, on the other hand, encourages people to accept themselves as they are, warts and all. Instead of covering up their defects with false bravado, they work on accepting themselves unconditionally. Paradoxically, once the person has accepted their defects, they actually have more strength and motivation to work on actually changing them.

  “What is the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion?” Unlike self-esteem, the good feelings associated with self-compassion do not depend on being special and above average, or on meeting ideal goals. Instead, they come from caring about ourselves—fragile and imperfect yet magnificent as we are. Rather than pitting ourselves against other people in an endless comparison game, we embrace what we share with others and feel more connected and whole in the process. And the good feelings of self-compassion don’t go away when we mess up or things go wrong. In fact, self-compassion steps in precisely where self-esteem lets us down—whenever we fail or feel inadequate.

Our focus on raising a person’s self-esteem simply has not been that successful. And it doesn’t get to the core of the problem, especially when it comes to anyone with a traumatic background. We do, however, know that low self-esteem can be problematic and in extreme cases leads to suicidal ideation. So what is the alternative? Current research suggests that self-compassion offers most of the benefits of high self-esteem, with fewer downsides. For example, Neff and Vonk (2009) found that when compared to trait levels of self-esteem, self-compassion was associated with more non-contingent and stable feelings of self worth over time, while also offering stronger protection against social comparison, public self-consciousness, self-rumination, anger and closed mindedness. And in direct contrast to self-esteem, self-compassion was found to have no association with narcissism.

How Childhood Abuse Creates Shame

As mentioned above, anytime a child is victimized in any way, they feel shamed. In fact, the very act of being victimized causes a person to feel shame for the following reasons:

Abuse, by its very nature, is humiliating and dehumanizing. The natural reaction to abuse is a feeling of shame. Judith Herman described how childhood trauma creates a “damaged self”: “Traumatic events violate the autonomy of the person at the level of bodily integrity. The body is invaded, injured, defiled…Shame is a response to helplessness, the violation of bodily integrity, and the indignity suffered in the eyes of another person.” (p.53).

As human beings we want to believe that we have control over what happens to us. When that personal power is challenged by a victimization of any kind, we feel humiliated. We believe we “should have” been able to defend ourselves. And because we weren’t able to do so, we feel helpless and powerless. This powerlessness causes us to feel humiliated—which leads to shame.

Survivor self-blame is also reinforced by our culture’s tendency to blame the victim.

 

Many survivors of childhood abuse become what has been called “shame-bound”—meaning that shame has become a dominant factor in the formation of their personality. When this happens, their lives become characterized by shame. They either live their lives in a constant state of self-criticism and self-blame or they become exquisitely sensitive to criticism from others and defend against it at every turn. Those who are prone to self-criticism often have a powerful critical inner voice that berates them constantly for imagined or real mistakes and demands that they be perfect. They set unreasonable expectations for themselves and are never satisfied with their performance or achievements. They find it impossible to take in compliments or even to take in positive expressions of love or admiration from others.

Those who defend against shame build up a protective wall with the goal of keeping any hint of criticism from others out. Strategies used for this purpose can include: being critical of others before they have a chance to criticize you, refusing to talk about any of your shortcomings, turning criticism around on the other person, accusing the other person of lying or exaggerating about their complaints about you.

How the Self-Compassion Can Remove Shame

It has been said that all abuse is a failure of compassion for self and others

Self-Compassion teaches those who are shame-bound and self-critical specific compassionate attitudes and skills that can reverse the tendency to view themselves in a blaming, condemning and self-critical way. It teaches them to develop an internal compassionate relationship with themselves.

I Start By Offering Compassion

Many victims of child abuse have never received the healing power of compassion. This is true for several reasons. First of all, abusive and neglectful families are often devoid of compassion. Because abusive parents were so often victimized themselves, they can be oblivious to their own children’s pain and suffering. Second, because of the secrecy and shame that characterizes childhood abuse, many have never told anyone about their victimization and so never had the chance of having someone feel compassion toward them for their suffering. And third, even those who have told often receive more blame than compassion.

In my work with clients I provide some of the much-needed compassion that victims so desperately need. I acknowledge their suffering and let them know that I feel badly for them. I let them know that I understand what they are going through, that they are not alone, or as the famous German psychoanalyst, Alice Miller described it, I become a “Compassionate Witness.” Last, but certainly not least, I provide unconditional support by providing compassionate, caring and encouraging statements.

Because of their overwhelming shame and self-blame, many survivors have never told their story to anyone. This is particularly true of male survivors of childhood sexual abuse who probably feel more shame than any other type of victim. Socialized to be “big and strong” and to “act like a man,” even small boys hold the belief that they should have been able to defend themselves from their abuser and that because they did not stop the abuse they are either a poor excuse for a male or a homosexual who either enticed the offender or enjoyed it.  I experience it as a great honor when a client tells me his or her story.

Teaching Self-Compassion

Fortunately, survivors don’t have to rely solely on others (not even a therapist) to help them change their view of themselves and to heal their shame. Although it is important for survivors of abuse to receive compassion from others, it is even more important that they learn how to practice self-compassion. Self-compassion will help them to give themselves the nurturance and understanding they so desperately need in order to feel worthy of care and acceptance. In fact, when survivors give themselves empathy and support, they learn to trust that help is always at hand. When they wrap themselves in the warm embrace of self-kindness, they begin to feel safe and secure.

For survivors of childhood abuse, self-compassion is in shorter supply than compassion from others—in fact, most are glaringly devoid of self-compassion. Few victims are able to feel compassion for their own pain and suffering since their shame and self-blame block them from feeling it. They continue to blame themselves for their abuse, they minimize the pain they experience, as well as the damage that the abuse created in their lives.

But encouraging survivors to practice self-compassion is easier said than done. Many survivors of childhood abuse also have a strong belief that to stop to acknowledge their pain and suffering is to “feel sorry for themselves,” or “have a pity party.” But self-compassion is radically different from self-pity is that self-pity keeps us stuck, while self-compassion leads to proactive behavior to better one’s situation.

Self-compassion encourages victims to begin to treat themselves and talk to themselves with the same kindness, caring and compassion they would show a good friend or a beloved child. In addition, it helps victims to feel less isolated and alienated due to their suffering. The more shame we feel, the more deficient we feel and in turn, the more separate we feel from others. Self-compassion, on the other hand, helps us to recognize our common humanity—the fact that we all experience the same pain in difficult times.

Self-compassion as a healing tool is a relatively new concept. Therapists have taught victims how to nurture “their inner child” and this therapeutic strategy has been  successful in many ways. But teaching self-compassion goes one step further. It helps victims to connect with their childhood suffering on a much deeper level. Most significantly, it allows them to connect with the memories of their abuse—but to do so at a distance—not actually re-experiencing the abuse but remembering it as if they have become their own compassionate witness. In other words, they can develop compassion for the child they once were without becoming the child. This method is far less traumatic and it allows the person to become the loving guardian and protector they so longed for as a child. In essence, it provides them a way to heal themselves. It also helps them to learn to treat themselves today in a more loving and kind way.

In addition to healing the shame caused by their victimization, self-compassion can help survivors to heal the shame surrounding the ways they have coped with their victimization. In fact, until they can forgive themselves for the negative ways they have coped and the people they have hurt along the way, they will not be willing or able to practice self-kindness.

By learning how to practice self-compassion survivors of child abuse become able to do the following:

Truly acknowledge the pain they suffered and in so doing, begin to heal
Begin to take in compassion from others
Reconnect with themselves, including reconnecting with their emotions
Gain an understanding as to why they have acted out in negative and/or unhealthy ways
Stop blaming themselves for their victimization
Forgive themselves for ways they attempted to cope with the abuse
Learn to be deeply kind toward themselves
Create a nurturing inner voice to replace their critical inner voice
Reconnect with others and become less isolated.

 

This is the first article in a series on Self-Compassion. If you are not already a subscriber, I encourage you to become one in order to continue receiving this e-zine.

Beverly Engel

May, 2013

I hope you enjoyed this issue of Working Together to Create an Abuse-Free Future.

Beverly Engel

Copyright, Beverly Engel. All rights reserved.

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