The Quiet Language of Shame

On Violation, the Body, and Human Dignity

There are experiences in human life that can barely be carried into language. Not because words do not exist, but because the experience itself has taught the person to remain silent.

Shame is such an experience.

It often lives quietly.
In the lowered gaze.
In the body that folds inward.
In the voice that weakens precisely when the conversation approaches what hurts the most.

Throughout many years in social work, I met people who carried this silence within them. Children, adolescents, and adults who had been exposed to humiliation, violence, or sexual abuse. Many of them did not first speak about what had happened to them. They spoke about loneliness. About restlessness in the body. About difficulties with intimacy. About eating problems. About sleepless nights. About the feeling of being different.

Only later did I begin to understand how often shame lay beneath all of this as a hidden undertone in life itself.

Shame works in secret. It rearranges the furniture of a person’s inner life while nobody sees it happening. It determines how close one dares to stand to another human being. How loudly one dares to laugh. How much space one allows oneself to occupy in the world.

And perhaps this is precisely what makes shame so difficult to work with.

Guilt often concerns something we have done.
Shame concerns who we believe we are.

In my article A Study of Shame from Sexual Abuse Within the Context of a Norwegian Incest Center, I attempted to explore how people who had experienced sexual abuse described shame in their own lives. The study was based on focus group interviews with women and men connected to a Norwegian incest center.

But behind the language of research and categories lived human beings of flesh and blood. People who dared to put words to what had often remained hidden for an entire lifetime.

This essay is therefore not merely a presentation of research. It is also an attempt to understand something of the existential depth of shame — not only as theory, but as lived human experience.

When a Human Being Begins to Hide

The American philosopher Martha Nussbaum wrote that shame often involves the desire to hide one’s humanity. Human beings attempt to conceal what feels inadequate, contaminated, or unworthy.

This resonates deeply with experiences from social work.

I still remember some of the people I met early in my career. Not necessarily their faces. But the way they sat. How some of them almost seemed to make themselves physically smaller in the chair. How their eyes fell toward the floor when the conversation approached what was hardest to say.

Already then, I began to understand that shame is not merely an emotion.

It is a way of existing in the world.

People who carry deep shame often try to become invisible. Some withdraw from relationships. Others hide behind achievement, competence, or endless busyness. Some develop perfectionism as a way of surviving. Others turn toward addiction, self-harm, or destructive relationships.

Many live their entire lives with a silent conviction that they are unworthy of love.

Perhaps this is the most tragic aspect of shame:

It does not merely attack our actions. It attacks the self.

The Body Remembers What Language Tries to Forget

One of the strongest impressions from the study was how often the participants spoke about the body. In fact, the body was the theme mentioned most frequently in the interviews.

This is not accidental.

Trauma does not live only as memory in the mind. It also lives in the body.

Many participants described the body as “dirty,” “destroyed,” or “shameful.” Some explained that they could hardly bear to relate to their own bodies at all.

I have often thought that the body remembers what language tries to forget.

A person may say:
“It happened a long time ago.”
Yet the body may still react as if danger is near.

Some cannot tolerate touch. Others avoid mirrors. Some experience panic at the dentist or doctor’s office. Others dissociate during intimacy. Some live with constant tension in the body without fully understanding why.

The Norwegian physician and researcher Anna Luise Kirkengen has written powerfully about how violations become “inscribed” in the body. Life history leaves traces in breathing, muscles, the nervous system, and self-experience.

This is important to understand when meeting people who carry trauma.

For if the body once learned that the world was dangerous, rational explanations alone are rarely enough. The body must slowly experience safety again.

The Shame of the One Who Did Not Protect

One of the most painful findings in the study concerned the relationship to mothers. Several participants described stronger feelings of shame connected to their mothers than toward the fathers who had committed the abuse.

At first glance, this may seem paradoxical.

But when one listens more deeply, something important becomes visible.

Many of the women described not only the abuse as traumatic, but also the pain of not having been protected. The pain of a mother who saw — but did not intervene. Or perhaps could not bear to see.

A child is completely dependent upon caregivers. Because of this, shame often turns inward toward the child instead of outward toward the adult who failed them.

This creates a painful inner split.

“I am angry.”
“I am disappointed.”
“I am ashamed of her.”
“But I still need to protect her.”

I have seen this doubleness many times through the years. Adults who continue protecting their parents even after profound violations.

Not because what happened was insignificant.
But because love and attachment are so fundamental to human life.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest tragedies of shame:

The guilty often feel less shame than the innocent.

When Food Becomes a Language

Many participants also spoke about their relationship to food.

Some ate too little. Others too much. For some, food became a form of control. If the body had once been controlled by others, controlling food could become an attempt to regain ownership of oneself.

I remember a young woman I met early in my professional life. She was so thin that her face almost appeared transparent. During one conversation, she quietly said:

“When I am hungry, I feel strong.”

I have never forgotten that sentence.

Because behind the illness lived a human being trying to protect herself from helplessness and inner chaos.

Food was not merely about food.
The body was not merely about the body.

It was about dignity. About control. About the right to belong to oneself.

The Difficult Landscape of Intimacy

Many participants described sexuality and intimacy as profoundly difficult. Sexual relationships were often marked by distance, nausea, dissociation, or shame.

Some described how they “disappeared” during sex. Others avoided eye contact. Some explained that their bodies reacted with fear even when they loved their partners.

This is deeply tragic.

Sexuality should ideally be connected to trust, tenderness, and mutuality. But when sexuality is early associated with violation and abuse of power, the body becomes a place where old experiences are awakened again and again.

Here, helpers must meet people with great gentleness.

Not with demands for normality.
Not with performance-based expectations.
But with respect for how deeply such experiences can live in the body.

Human beings need time to reclaim their own bodies.

The Silence of Shame

Shame loves silence.

This is why language matters so deeply.

Many participants described how crucial it was to meet people who could listen to their stories without turning away.

This reminds me of the philosophy of Martin Buber and his understanding of the human encounter. We become ourselves in relationship. We are shaped by the way we are seen.

A person living with shame does not primarily need explanations. They need the experience of being met without contempt.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest tasks of the helping professions:

To remain close to another person’s pain without withdrawing.

I remember a woman who, after a long therapeutic process, said:

“This is the first time I have told the whole story without feeling that I had to protect the other person.”

I have carried that sentence with me for many years.

Many traumatized people spend enormous energy protecting others from their own pain. When they finally meet someone who can truly bear to listen, something may slowly begin to loosen.

Practical Philosophy and Human Dignity

Practical philosophy is not merely about theories. It concerns how we live together as human beings.

How do we meet a person who carries shame?

How do we meet someone who can no longer bear their own reflection?

I believe the deepest task of helping begins precisely there.

Not in repairing people.
Not in producing quick solutions.
But in being present in a way that makes it possible for a human being to return to themselves.

Søren Kierkegaard once wrote that the deepest form of despair is not wanting to be oneself. Shame often creates precisely such despair. A person attempts to hide from their own life.

Healing therefore may not primarily concern symptom reduction.

It may concern reconciliation.

The slow courage to say:

“What happened to me is not the whole truth about who I am.”

The Courage to Raise One’s Eyes Again

In the study, one of the women said something that has remained with me for many years. She said that working through shame required courage. The courage to stand at a crossroads without knowing what life might become if shame one day loosened its grip.

This is a profound insight.

For some people, shame becomes almost an identity. It has been present for so long that life without it feels unfamiliar.

And yet I have seen people slowly find their way back to themselves.

Not quickly.
Not without pain.
But gradually.

I have seen people who could barely raise their eyes begin to meet others openly. I have seen people who hated their bodies begin to care for themselves. I have seen people who lived in silence dare to tell their stories.

Not because the pain disappeared completely.
But because shame no longer owned their entire sense of human worth.

Closing Reflections

Perhaps this is one of the most important things we can offer another human being:

A place where they no longer need to hide.

Not to be repaired.
Not to be analyzed to pieces.
Not to become a project.

Simply to be met.

For behind the shame there is still a human being longing to be seen without fear.

And perhaps all real healing begins precisely there.

In the quiet moment when a person slowly dares to raise their eyes again.

References

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Buber, M. (1970). I and Thou (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Scribner.

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Johnson, A. (2006). Healing shame. The Humanistic Psychologist, 34(3), 223–242.

Kaufman, G. (1989). The psychology of shame: Theory and treatment of shame-based syndromes. Springer.

Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The sickness unto death (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press.

Kirkengen, A. L. (2001). Inscribed bodies: Health impact of childhood sexual abuse. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Nussbaum, M. C. (2004). Hiding from humanity: Disgust, shame, and the law. Princeton University Press.

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Pettersen, K. T. (2013). A study of shame from sexual abuse within the context of a Norwegian incest center. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 22(6), 677–694.

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Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. Guilford Press.