Healing Toxic Shame -Six Keys to Break the Cycle

John Bradshaw's book that I read in 1998 for the first time was amazing for openly talking about toxic shame where no other resources referred to at all. As if toxic shame does not exist in any kind of books or media.

As much as his book helped to enlighten the topic which is hidden and suppressed in society - he made three crucial mistakes in his book which I don't blame him, it is the zeitgeist of patriarchy system in the time when he wrote that book up until 1990s:
1) he described trauma as extreme ambient. He wrote explicit pornographic examples - which for me was detrimental because it was only in 2021 that I learned about Complex Trauma. Trauma can occur when there is food and shelter yet when parents are critical or absent and when emotions are ashamed. Without trauma information - I never learned about Fawning trauma response until 2021. Until then I was feeling ashamed for being people pleaser - since I did not know this is trauma response.
I never explored trauma - since I believed in John Bradshaw explanation - that trauma means incest/pornographic abuse as he described it his book. Where he used extreme cases explanations - I guess due to publisher to sell marketing.

2) He has done CBT mistake which may be hard to describe here.
In the first part of his book he explained toxic shame.
Then in the second part he suggested the healing of toxic shame - which I believe was a mismatch.
Toxic shame is paradox. If we apply his suggestion of stopping our thoughts - as for the goal to stop toxic shame - what we are telling ourselves is that we are ashamed. Instead of stopping toxic shame - we are solidifying it. Ironic processing theory tells us that act of stopping thoughts - makes them stronger. Jung said what you resist, persist.

3) He never mentioned cultural phenomena: that there are Shame-based culture countries versus Guilt culture countries.
In the Europe - only Balkans are shame based countries.
In general divide - the West is Guilt culture, East is Shame culture.
However there are inner divisions in each countries.
Like Southern Italy - or Southern USA - they are Shame culture or Honor ambient.
We also see that countries that are based on shame are poor and prone to authoritarian regime or religion.

There was an article in New York Times how America is turning into shame culture - as we seen Trump re-election as proof that this is happening.

He never said the crucial fact about toxic shame: that toxic shame is not real, it is operant conditioning. It is not entity. Like in the movie St Elmo fire - with the scene where Demi Moore's character is broken and then Rob Lowe tells her that her distress is like St Elmo fire - sparks in the dark that appear as real.
So there is nothing to overcome - we don't need any steps because toxic shame is a construct - created through punishment and rewards. It is a reflex. It is not cognitive distortion as CBT sees it. When we believe toxic shame is cognitive distortion which we must clean and remove and be afraid of and suppress it - we will actually hate and reject ourselves.
Just because we were conditioned in toxic shame, it does not mean it is our personality. Toxic shame is not our identity.
With the idea to remove toxic shame - we are inadvertently making it our personality, then we attack and hate it - and in the process of fighting toxic shame we are creating toxic shame.

The best example is social anxiety. Whereas social anxiety itself is toxic shame.
CBT labels social anxiety as cognitive distortion and labels our trauma as irrational and no-important.
When we hate and reject social anxiety -we are actually hating and rejecting ourselves. Instead - we need to accept our negative emotions and fear and panic as learned programmed reactions which were conditioned into us. They are not our persona or identity - so there is no need to declare civil war in our head.

Because toxic shame is operant conditioning programmed by toxic people - it is clear that healing toxic shame means removing ourselves from toxic ambient. We don't need to perform John Bradshaw steps - because that would solidify toxic shame as part of us.

Like Glasser said. I see toxic shame as mental illness that is spread through abuse and coercive control and it is found in NPD personalities where dark triad personalities use toxic shame as tool to control and manipulate others, especially traumatized people.


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Young American explained why she left Croatia:
"In Croatia people constantly express intrusive opinion about matters which are none of their business. The most irritating things were rude people."
(poslovni hr)

Young American explained why she escaped from Croatia:
"Often I heard Croats intruding why am I eating something, or commenting about what I wore. There is no such thing in America, we allow people to be what they want to be."
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Improving our relationships is improving our mental health.
William Glasser

Interpersonal strife with those close to us leads to rifts and resentments that produce symptoms of mental illness; these problems are, in fact, the logical consequence of troubled relationships.
Glasser emphasizes that lasting psychological problems are usually caused by problems in our personal relationships (rather than signifying a biochemical abnormality in the brain), and distress can be remedied through repairing these relationships without recourse to psych drugs.
WILLIAM GLASSER

Controlling Habits:
Blaming
Criticizing
Complaining
Nagging
Rewarding To Control
Threatening
Punishing
William Glasser

William Glasser "What's my Choice" Connecting Habits:
Listening
Supporting
Encouraging
Negotiating
Respecting
Accepting
Trusting