Table Of Content

The Shame of Death, Grief, and Trauma RT22098.indb 1 1/25/10 11:06:29 AM RT22098.indb 2 1/25/10 11:06:29 AM The Shame of Death, Grief, and Trauma Edited by Jeffrey Kauffman New York London RT22098.indb 3 1/25/10 11:06:30 AM Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue 27 Church Road New York, NY 10016 Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. International Standard Book Number: 978-0-415-99748-5 (Hardback) For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this wor k, please access www. copyright.com (http://www.copyright.com/) or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organiza- tion that provides licenses and registration for a variety of users. For organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by the CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The shame of death, grief, and trauma / [edited by] Jeffrey Kauffman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-415-99748-5 (alk. paper) 1. Shame. 2. Bereavement. 3. Death. I. Kauffman, Jeffrey. II. Title. BF575.S45S54 2010 155.9’37--dc22 2009032758 Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com and the Routledge Web site at http://www.routledgementalhealth.com ISBN 0-203-88360-8 Master e-book ISBN RT22098.indb 4 1/25/10 11:06:30 AM Contents Introduction: Speaking of Shame vii About the Editor xiii About the Contributors xv Section 1 introductory eSSay Chapter 1 On the Primacy of Shame 3 Jeffrey Kauffman Section 2 a PerSonal narrative Chapter 2 Side by Side 25 Shelley Costa Section 3 PSychological reflectionS on Shame and grief Chapter 3 Between Shame, Death, and Mourning: The Predispositional Role of Early Attachments and the Sense of Self 33 Victor L. Schermer Chapter 4 Combat, Combat Stress Injuries, and Shame 59 Charles R. Figley, David L. Albright, and Kathleen Regan Figley Chapter 5 Healing the Narcissistic Injury of Death in the Context of Western Society 75 Darcy Harris v RT22098.indb 5 1/25/10 11:06:31 AM vi Contents Chapter 6 Shame: A Hospice Worker’s Reflections 87 Alex Tyree Section 4 cultural differenceS Chapter 7 Shame and Death in Cultural Context 113 Paul C. Rosenblatt Section 5 languageS of art Chapter 8 Mask of Shame, Mask of Death: Some Speculations on the Shame of Death 141 Hilary Clark Chapter 9 Using the Representation of Grief and Shame in Contemporary Literature and Film to Train Mental Health Professionals 155 Maureen M. Underwood and Laura Winters Section 6 Social conScience and the PSychology of Shame Chapter 10 The Long Road to Relevance: Disability, Chronic Sorrow, and Shame 171 Susan Roos Author Index 199 Subject Index 205 RT22098.indb 6 1/25/10 11:06:31 AM Introduction: Speaking of Shame Silence surrounds the shame of death, grief, and trauma. The presence of shame as a significant factor in grief has been basically and widely unrecognized. This book is a step in the direction of bringing the shame of death, grief, and trauma out in the open—at least, out into the open enough that shame is taken into account in our self-understanding, our clinical understanding, and our theories. We cannot, however, actually pull back the curtain and expose shame for what it is. It is not possible to bring this subject completely out into the open because there is something inherently hidden in the nature of shame. The very etymology of the word shame leads to the word hidden. Often it is taboo to speak of shame. And, beyond taboos against recognizing shame, shame and taboo have very close ties. The power of taboos to prohibit is, indeed, shame. And, while shame’s power to conceal itself is abiding, it is, nonetheless, our intent here to speak of shame. The reader may ask, “Why this fuss about speaking of shame?” The answer is, in part, that it is an expression of respect for the power of shame. And, so far as shame does disclose itself, does it not do so only in response to a healthy respect for shame? Also, I should say, that in bringing the shame of death, grief, and trauma out into the open and reflecting on it, as the reader is invited to do with this book, there is a tendency to forget what is unspoken and unspeakable, and, in so doing lose awareness of the meaning of shame. Shame is a powerful word, and talking about it is often fraught with the risk and anxiety that shame will be induced. Speaking of shame can also be redemptive and empowering, such as a person bearing witness to shame endured, in which private shame has public meaning and special sanction. Theories of shame, occurring in a more or less shame-neutral zone, are generally talked about without inducing shame, though shame injunctions may limit how deeply shame as a force in grief is understood. vii RT22098.indb 7 1/25/10 11:06:32 AM viii Introduction: Speaking of Shame And, although in a context such as this we do talk about shame in a shame-neutral space—in the wild, shame is a very great and powerful force to be reckoned with. The aim of this book is to make a case that shame is a common and pervasive feature of the human response to death and other loss, and, in this context, to give an account of some of the many meanings of shame and some of the many ways in which shame works. But the book does not aim for a unified theory of shame, for shame does not boil down to a single meaning. An odd, interesting, and significant aspect of shame is its multiplicity. The multitude of meanings hints at the hidden nature of shame, which does not disclose what it actually is. In any case, recognizing the significance of shame in grief and trauma opens new meanings and possibilities for understanding death, grief, and trauma. From the shame-hazed shadow land of grief and trau- matized consciousness to the many particular ways shame operates in grief and trauma, shame takes many forms, serves many functions, and has many causes. In this book of observations, reflections, theories, and practices related to the shame of death, grief, and trauma, freedom from shame is the constant concern. The therapeutic aim of the book is the liberation from the oppression, disruptions, devaluations, inhibitions, and other woundings of shame. Although The Shame of Death, Grief, and Trauma is a book on the psychology of shame, several authors (Darcy Harris, Susan Roos, and I) found related issues of social justice, social criticism, and morality to be integral to understanding aspects of the relation of shame and grief. This book is, in the first place, a book for clinicians about the experience and meaning of shame in grief and trauma, but concerns about stigma, disenfranchisement, exclusion, and other shame-based moral questions are also a part of the concern brought to bear here. In an introductory essay, “On the Primacy of Shame,” I make a case for the primacy of shame in the phenomenology of grief and put forward a wide range of ways in which shame is a factor in grief and especially in traumatic grief. The text includes a discussion of the shame of shame (Lewis, 1971) as a key complicating factor in grief and a discussion of mourning as an occurrence of conscience. The following chapter is written in the first-person and placed early in the book by way of nodding to the primacy of first-person narratives. Although the intention of this book is to stimulate conceptual thinking about grief and grief therapy, I wish, at the outset, to affirm a certain primacy of the individual over the general (Kierkegaard, 1992; and in the thanatology literature see Neimeyer, 2001, and Attig, 1996). The individual as an affective self-positing self is the point of reference for RT22098.indb 8 1/25/10 11:06:32 AM Introduction: Speaking of Shame ix clinical thinking, and the very isolating individuality of shame is a part of our reflection on the shame of death, grief, and trauma. In Chapter 2, shame meanings are implicit in the language and narratives of the story. Shelley Costa describes the alienation of disenfranchised grief, giving a candid and finely nuanced portrait of her experience of disenfranchised grief and the transformation of shame through strengthened autonomy and renewed self-confidence. Her narrative, “Side by Side,” seizes the reader with its vocabulary of silence and with her valor and wit in hon- oring and loving her son. In Chapter 3, Victor Schermer provides a psychoanalytic perspec- tive, examining developmental experiences that impact bereavement and loss reactions. He identifies shame as a disruptive experience of infancy that influences later mourning. In his chapter, “Between Shame, Death, and Mourning: The Predispositional Role of Early Attachments and the Sense of Self,” he examines the influence of the earliest shame “disruptions upon subsequent attitudes to death, dying, and grief.” Charles Figley, David Albright, and Kathleen Reagan Figley, in Chapter 4, “Combat, Combat Stress Injuries, and Shame,” make an important contribution to the psychological study of shame among com- batants. They develop a concept of combat stress injury (CSI) and exam- ine the complex ways that shame occurs as an aspect of CSI. They point out that shame-related CSI is embedded in symptomatic expressions (such as depression, anger, and substance abuse) and indicate specific psychological circumstances in combat stress, which give rise to shame, show- ing how deeply shame may be embedded in the stress injury experience. In Darcy Harris’s “Healing the Narcissistic Injury of Death in the Context of Western Society” (Chapter 5), Becker’s terror theory provides a conceptual framework for an account of shame being inherent in awareness of mortality and an account of death anxiety as a form of shame anxiety. She examines diverse meanings of death as “the ultimate narcissistic wound” and sheds light on “the avoidance and denial of death in Western society as a means of masking the narcissistic wound of mortality.” Harris examines these diverse shame factors in the context of a sociocultural critique of the narcissism in Western culture. Alex Tyree, in “Shame: A Hospice Worker’s Reflections” (Chapter 6), reflects on his experience as a hospice bereavement worker. With sensitive, perceptive insight, he takes note of the shame vulnerabilities of grieving persons he has companioned, and with an awareness of himself around every corner, he tells stories of grief shame. Tyree observes common ways in which shame is woven through grief and the everyday life experiences that bear upon the meaning of the loss. He blends a reflection on the meaning of shame with stories of the grieving person’s shame. He also reflects on the role of shame in the history of the hospice movement. RT22098.indb 9 1/25/10 11:06:33 AM