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No place to hide: the group leader's moments of shame.

Livingston LR

Postgraduate Center for Mental Health Group Department, New York, NY 10016, USA. l-livingston@nyc.rr.com

Shame is a powerful, universal experience; yet because of its painful, secretive nature, it often remains an underground affect for many therapists. On behalf of our patients and ourselves, we must de-stigmatize it. My aim is to further a dialogue among group therapists about processing our own shame, by openly discussing the phenomenology and dynamics of shame. Such discussion is not easy, as shame by its nature seems almost unspeakable; yet leaders, due to the group setting, are especially at risk of having shame activated. Using a self-psychological/intersubjective approach, this paper suggests how we as therapists can become cognizant of and work with our own shame. Given the dearth of experience-near accounts of the group therapist's own shame, the author provides detailed vignettes of her own experiences with shame in the clinical setting.

Published 6 July 2006 in Int J Group Psychother, 56(3): 307-23.
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