Shame and the Making of Art: A Depth Psychological Perspective

139 Pages·2017·5.912 MB·English

by  Deborah Cluff

Shame and the Making of Art
Shame remains at the core of much psychological distress and can eventu-
ate as physical symptoms, yet experiential approaches to healing shame are
sparse. Links between shame and art making have been felt, intuited, and
examined, but have not been sufficiently documented by depth psycholo-
gists. Shame and the Making of Art addresses this lacuna by surveying
depth psychological conceptions of shame, art, and the role of creativity in
healing, contemporary and historical shame ideologies, as well as recent
psychobiological studies on shame.
Drawing on research conducted with participants in three different
countries, the book includes candid discussions of shame experiences.
These experiences are accompanied by Cluff ’s heuristic inquiry into shame
with an interpretative phenomenological analysis that focuses on how
participants negotiate the relationship between shame and the making of
art. Cluff ’s movement through archetypal dimensions, especially Diony-
sian, is developed and discussed throughout the book. The results of the
research are further explicated in terms of comparative studies, wherein
the psychological processes and impacts observed by other researchers and
effects on self- conscious maladaptive emotions are described.
Shame and the Making of Art should be essential reading for academics,
researchers, and postgraduate students engaged in the study of psychology
and the arts. It will be of particular interest to psychologists, Jungian psy-
chotherapists, psychiatrists, social workers, creativity researchers, and
anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of this shame and self-
expression.
Deborah E. Cluff completed her PhD in Depth Psychology at the Pacifica
Graduate Institute, USA, in 2015.
Research in Analytical Psychology and Jungian Studies
Series Advisor: Andrew Samuels
Professor of Analytical Psychology, Essex University, UK.
For more information about this series please visit: www.routledge.com/Research-
in-Analytical-P sychology-and-J ungian-Studies/book-s eries/JUNGIANSTUDIES.
The Research in Analytical Psychology and Jungian Studies series features
research- focused volumes involving qualitative and quantitative research,
historical/archival research, theoretical developments, heuristic research,
grounded theory, narrative approaches, collaborative research, practitioner-l ed
research, and self-s tudy. The series also includes focused works by clinical prac-
titioners, and provides new research informed by explorations of the work of
C. G. Jung that will appeal to researchers, academics, and scholars alike.
Books in this series:
Symptom, Symbol, and the A Japanese Jungian Perspective
Other of Language on Mental Health and Culture
A Jungian Interpretation of the Wandering Madness
Linguistic Turn Iwao Akita
Bret Alderman Translated by Waka Shibata and
Kittredge Stephenson
Post- Jungian Psychology
and the Short Stories of Ray Jung and Kierkegaard
Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut Researching a Kindred Spirit in the
Golden Apples of the Monkey House Shadows
Steve Gronert Ellerhoff Amy Cook
Eros and Economy Consciousness in Jung and
Jung, Deleuze, Sexual Difference Patañjali
Barbara Jenkins Leanne Whitney
Towards a Jungian Theory of Shame and the Making of Art
the Ego A Depth Psychological Perspective
Karen Evers- Fahey Deborah E. Cluff
Shame and the Making
of Art
A Depth Psychological Perspective
Deborah E. Cluff
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Deborah E. Cluff
The right of Deborah E. Cluff to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-09660-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-10524-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
This work is dedicated to my family for all that has happened and all that will
be. My father died while I was conducting this research. I hoped that he would
live long enough to see it completed since I was doing it with the fantasy of
gaining his ultimate approval. For some time his death took away my
“something to prove” and I was left wondering what the point was, who would
care? After two years of struggle to find meaning, I came back to the deeper,
broader purpose: to make a difference for someone else who battles the
demons of shame. The sincerest hope I have is that this confrontation with
shame disrupts this generations- old tradition. To Chloe: your angel soul saved
my life. I would not have the heart I do without you to love. May you know
freedom and joy and let your beautiful inside out; this world needs your unique
expression.

Contents
List of figures viii
Introduction 1
1 Research approach 13
2 Defining shame and its impacts 18
3 The art of assemblage 42
4 Approaching shame 51
5 Shame and self- expression: a heuristic study 61
6 Interpretive phenomenological analysis 96
7 Conclusions 116
References 120
Index 128
Figures
5.1 Dissertation Council Curious Cat 72
5.2 Dissertation Council Floating Female 73
5.3 Dissertation Council Primitive Mask 74
5.4 Active Imagination Corseted Woman 77
5.5 Active Imagination Hats 82
5.6 Wigs for Dionysus 83
5.7 The Dummy and the Dancer 90
5.8 Reassembled Music Box 91
5.9 Master or Servant? 94
Introduction
Links between shame and the making of art have been felt, intuited, and
even examined, but have not been sufficiently documented by depth psy-
chologists, leaving us with a lack of robust research data to draw on for
self- directed study or clinical application. This research represents a unique
contribution to the body of understanding shame and the making of art.
Through a combination of literature review and phenomenological ana-
lyses, the book examines whether the making of assemblage art can help to
re- assemble the parts of self that have been lost to shame. A theoretical
framework is provided to orient the reader to various definitions of shame.
This framework is fleshed out by way of subjective experiments including
a heuristic inquiry into shame, through encountering the archetypal Diony-
sus and the making of assemblage art. The primary aim of a heuristic
investigation is to translate the researcher’s personal experiences into “a
story that portrays the qualities, meanings, and essences of universally
unique experiences” (Moustakas, 1990, p. 13). To accomplish this, the
heuristic study is validated by a brief Interpretative Phenomenological Ana-
lysis (IPA), consisting of a participant-b ased assemblage art workshop. The
IPA focused on how the relationship between shame and art making is
negotiated in a group setting. The participant population included a diverse
group of males and females from three different countries representing a
range of ages between 20 and 56. Jungian Erich Neumann writes that
though individual wounds reside in the personal unconscious, they reso-
nate throughout the collective unconscious, implicating the resolution of
one’s complexes in communal transformation (1959/1966, p. 157).
No unified depth psychotherapeutic theory of shame, its sources and
impacts, or a model of how to treat it exists. In 1992, affect theory pioneer
Silvan Tompkins wrote that “scientific psychology and the mental health
field” had failed to articulate the shame experience (Kaufman, 1992, p. ix).
Since the time that was written, various psychological and neuroscientific
studies have been conducted on shame, expanding our understanding of
shame and confirming what many have long observed: shame is positively
correlated to myriad psychological symptoms. This book views shame not