And shame activates the ultimate fear for a child, the idea “I am bad inside, I am unworthy, I am unlovable, I am unattachable . . . I will be all alone.” Given that children’s survival is dependent on attachment, their bodies read shame as: “Ultimate danger! Ultimate danger!” There is nothing as dysregulating to a child as a set of emotions or sensations or actions that leads to the threat of abandonment; it truly is an existential danger to survival.
