“I have been guilty of wrong thinking.” – Anne Hutchinson

Guilt and shame are similar but also dissimilar.  Guilt arises when we think that we have done damage to something or someone.  Shame arises when we believe that we are damaged in some way (for example, unlovable, unkind, inferior, incompetent) ⁽¹⁾.  However, guilt may lead us ultimately down the pathway to shame, which has the potential to damage our self-esteem and our identity. 

Guilt

We may experience guilt when feelings or emotions lead to regret as a result of a perceived bad decision or action. The key phrase here is “perceived bad”, which may emanate from hindsight bias. Are we guilty of something bad or just guilty of hindsight bias? This distinction could be salient to dealing with guilt and avoiding any subsequent shame.

Hindsight Bias

It is sometimes said that “hindsight is 20/20”, which implies it is really accurate. Perhaps, but maybe not! Daniel Kahneman describes the fallibility and bias of hindsight as follows:

“Hindsight bias has pernicious effects on the evaluations of decision makers. It leads observers to assess the quality of a decision not by whether the process was sound but by whether its outcome was good or bad.” ⁽²⁾

The refutation of eye-witness testimony is just one example of the hit-and-miss reliability of our hindsight. Psychologists as expert witnesses in court have been demonstrating the idea that hindsight bias negates reliable eye-witness testimony for years.

The concept of hindsight bias may help us understand some of the core issues contributing to our inappropriate emotional reactions to guilt.  Judging oneself may not be based on one’s perceived bad decision, but rather only on the adverse outcome of that decision.

As we know, outcomes are not always within our control. Any feelings of guilt in these cases may be unwarranted and unnecessary. Guilt could always evolve into a burden that has not been earned or deserved. There is a need to re-evaluate these feelings of guilt that have no useful purpose and that can create other contraindicated issues that are problematic, like depression, anxiety or shame.

Separating the quality of our decisions from the outcome of our decisions seems paramount to dealing with an inappropriate decision to feel guilt. Maybe the emotion of guilt needs further clarification. Should guilt be something we hang onto and long-lasting or is guilt more of a warning emotion that gives us useful information so we can learn and move on?

When we go against our values the feelings of guilt are more than likely to surface for most of us. But do these feelings have to last a lifetime? Obviously, a life riddled with guilt has some negative repercussions.

Our functionality is compromised mainly due to our lowered self-esteem. We are more likely to feel unworthy or undeserving more often than we should primarily because of our feelings of guilt and shame. This seems counterproductive to our identity long-term.

Conversely, some feelings of guilt and shame are perfectly normal. We know that the total absence of guilt and shame could lead to sociopathic behaviour. We obviously need guilt but the question is how much?

“Every guilty person is his own hangman.” – Lucius A. Seneca

Shame

When feeling shame, we judge ourselves as having violated some societal norm or personal value.  Violations of societal norms might include stealing, lying, cheating or hurting someone. 

Personal value violations might include a loss of emotional control, a failure to achieve, or a loss of personal respect. Increased levels of shame have been related to various mental disorders including social phobia, major depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, psychosis, and posttraumatic stress disorder ^{(3, 4)}. 

What About a Time-Limited Guilt?

What about allowing guilt but adjusting it to be time-limited? We all realise when we feel guilty but does it have to be long lasting or could we establish an end-point for our guilt? This would not be dissimilar to a so-called “statute of limitations”.  

What if the endpoint of guilt could be the outcome of our learning rather than just retaining another negative emotion. We would then be evaluating ourselves through our increased knowledge of ourselves rather than adding another impediment to our psyche.

We would then be supporting our self-esteem by learning from our mistakes rather than continuing to punish ourselves for the mistake. I like to call this self-punishment of our mistakes “the second mistake”, which is really still being focused on the first mistake.

Why get stuck on the negative when we have the potential to benefit rather than restrict ourselves through our acceptance of our natural human fallibility rather than feed blame, shame, and regret? We would need to be more self-accepting of our feelings in general, without self-judgement.  

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

Jack Kornfield

Self-Compassion

Being our best supporter rather than our worst critic could help extinguish many of our distorted feelings of guilt and shame before they become toxic.  Through this self-acceptance and self-compassion strategy we could learn to help nurture rather than denigrate our self-esteem and our identity.

^References

^{1-Paul Gilbert. (2010). The Compassionate Mind.}

^{2-Tversky, A.; Kahneman, D. (1973). "Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability". Cognitive Psychology. 5 (2): 207–232.} 

^{3- Fossum, Merle A.; Mason, Marilyn J. (1986), Facing Shame: Families in Recovery, W.W. Norton, p.5.}

^{4- Herman, Judith Lewis (2007), “Shattered Shame States and their Repair”.}