When Shame Finds a Language
A meeting between human experience, responsibility, and the quiet work of social practice
There are experiences that cannot be told.
Not at once.
Not because words are missing.
But because something in us holds them back.
Shame is one of them.
I have encountered it many times.
Not always in words.
More often in silence.
In a gaze that falls.
In hands that find each other—
and remain there.
As if holding something in place.
My doctoral work grew out of this landscape.
Not as an answer.
But as a question:
What is shame—
when we meet it in a human life?
Not as a concept.
But as an experience.
Shame is not something we have.
It is something that happens to us.
And once it has happened,
there is no simple way
back.
Some spoke.
Others tried.
And some stopped—
just where the words were about to begin.
Not because they did not want to speak.
But because there was no space
that could hold what they carried.
Shame does not arise within us alone.
It arises between us.
In a gaze that turns away.
In a silence that lingers too long.
In a moment where something that should have held,
did not.
And when that happens,
it is not only the relationship that breaks.
Something in us follows.
We often distinguish between guilt and shame.
Guilt—something we have done.
Shame—something we are.
But in lived experience,
this distinction dissolves.
“It was my fault.”
The words may try to explain.
But they may also judge.
Not the act.
But the self.
What hurts most
is not always what happened.
But what remains.
A quiet shift
in how a person sees themselves.
Not only violated.
But diminished.
Shame settles.
In the body.
In the voice.
In the way one sits.
In the hands.
Folded.
Still.
But not at rest.
Sometimes, this is where we must begin.
Not with questions.
Not with explanations.
But by staying.
It is easy to believe that helping means doing something.
But often, it means something else.
To endure.
To remain
when things become difficult.
To resist the urge
to fill the silence.
Here we approach what Martin Buber called a meeting.
Not between roles.
But between human beings.
A moment in which the other
is not reduced.
Not explained.
Not evaluated.
Simply met.
In such moments, something may shift.
Not visibly.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
Shame cannot be removed.
It does not yield
to method.
But it may carry within it
a movement.
When it finds a language,
gently,
in its own time,
something may begin to open.
Not a solution.
But a possibility.
Here, Axel Honneth becomes important.
We become ourselves
through recognition.
Not as theory.
But as experience.
That someone sees us
without turning away.
I have often returned to a thought inspired by Søren Kierkegaard:
To help another,
I must first find them where they are.
And begin there.
It sounds simple.
But it asks something of us.
That we let go
of the need to know.
That we endure
what is unresolved.
That we do not finish
too quickly.
Perhaps this is where social work begins.
Not as method.
But as presence.
Shame will always carry something dark.
But it also carries a trace of something else.
A need.
To be seen.
To be met.
To belong.
When shame finds a language,
it does not disappear.
But it is no longer entirely alone.
And sometimes,
that is enough.
References
Buber, M. (2004). I and Thou. Continuum.
Honneth, A. (1995). The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. MIT Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The Sickness Unto Death. Princeton University Press.
Pettersen, K. T. (2009). An exploration into the concept and phenomenon of shame within the context of child sexual abuse: An existential-dialogical perspective of social work within the settings of a Norwegian incest centre (Doctoral dissertation, Norwegian University of Science and Technology).
Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and Guilt. Guilford Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment