Shame 2011 Quotes

Brené Brown writes: In a 2011 study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, researchers found that, as far as the brain is concerned, physical pain and intense experiences of social rejection hurt in the same way…Neuroscience advances confirm what we’ve known all along: emotions can hurt and cause pain. And just as we often struggle to define physical pain, describing emotional pain is difficult. Shame is particularly hard because it hates having words wrapped around it. It hates being spoken.

The Aussies have spent so much time basking in the glory of the last generation that they have forgotten to plan for this one. It's just like the West Indies again; once their great names from the 1970s and 80s retired, the whole thing fell apart. The way things are going, the next Ashes series cannot come too quickly for England. What a shame that we have to wait until 2013 to play this lot again.

Thus polyvictimization or complex trauma are "developmentally adverse interpersonal traumas" (Ford, 2005) because they place the victim at risk not only for recurrent stress and psychophysiological arousal (e.g., PTSD, other anxiety disorders, depression) but also for interruptions and breakdowns in healthy psychobiological, psychological, and social development. Complex trauma not only involves shock, fear, terror, or powerlessness (either short or long term) but also, more fundamentally, constitutes a violation of the immature self and the challenge to the development of a positive and secure self, as major psychic energy is directed toward survival and defense rather than toward learning and personal development (Ford, 2009b, 2009c). Moreover, it may influence the brain's very development, structure, and functioning in both the short and long term (Lanius et al., 2010; Schore, 2009). Complex trauma often forces the child victim to substitute automatic survival tactics for adaptive self-regulation, starting at the most basic level of physical reactions (e.g., intense states of hyperarousal/agitation or hypoarousal/immobility) and behavioral (e.g., aggressive or passive/avoidant responses) that can become so automatic and habitual that the child's emotional and cognitive development are derailed or distorted. What is more, self-integrity is profoundly shaken, as the child victim incorporates the "lessons of abuse" into a view of him or herself as bad, inadequate, disgusting, contaminated and deserving of mistreatment and neglect. Such misattributions and related schema about self and others are some of the most common and robust cognitive and assumptive consequences of chronic childhood abuse (as well as other forms of interpersonal trauma) and are especially debilitating to healthy development and relationships (Cole & Putnam, 1992; McCann & Pearlman, 1992). Because the violation occurs in an interpersonal context that carries profound significance for personal development, relationships become suspect and a source of threat and fear rather than of safety and nurturance. In vulnerable children, complex trauma causes compromised attachment security, self-integrity and ultimately self-regulation. Thus it constitutes a threat not only to physical but also to psychological survival - to the development of the self and the capacity to regulate emotions (Arnold & Fisch, 2011). For example, emotional abuse by an adult caregiver that involves systematic disparagement, blame and shame of a child ("You worthless piece of s-t"; "You shouldn't have been born"; "You are the source of all of my problems"; "I should have aborted you"; "If you don't like what I tell you, you can go hang yourself") but does not involve sexual or physical violation or life threat is nevertheless psychologically damaging. Such bullying and antipathy on the part of a primary caregiver or other family members, in addition to maltreatment and role reversals that are found in many dysfunctional families, lead to severe psychobiological dysregulation and reactivity (Teicher, Samson, Polcari, & McGreenery, 2006).

Teachers sometimes view students with disabilities who act out because of their disorder as oppositional and defiant. Teachers who understand the cycle of fear, avoidance, stress, and escape (FASE) understand what “saving FASE” means. Teachers learn not to react to the behavior but to the underlying cause of the behavior. Teachers who understand FASE recognize that all human behavior sends a message. By looking for the message and reframing the behavior as a way of communicating, teachers can see the oppositional behaviors, frequent trips to the nurse, being unprepared for class, and frequent absences as attempts to avoid the shame of underperforming in the classroom (Schultz, 2011, pp. 137-142). For teachers to have success with managing their classrooms, it is imperative for them to understand that the students are not unmotivated or oppositional, but are sending a message about their need for help.

Named and shamed In December 2011 the main opposition party in Germany forced Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration to commission a parliamentary inquiry to investigate the political affiliations of former members of the West German government. It revealed the fact that one former premier, a chancellor and 25 cabinet ministers all had something to hide, namely that they had actively implemented Nazi policy during the Hitler years. Moreover, after the war these former Nazis had sought to cover their tracks by aligning themselves with parties which were not necessarily right-wing, nationalist or even conservative. The 85-page report became a bestseller and the furore prompted further searches into the archives held by other ministries, the police and also the West German intelligence agencies. The disclosures raised uncomfortable questions regarding the degree to which former Nazis might have influenced the post-war democratic government and its foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.

Switzerland also dragged its feet in prosecuting bribery of foreign government officials. Its first foreign corruption case against a company in Switzerland came only in 2011.15 And the penalties, beyond public shame, remained very low. For companies whose employees bribe a foreign official, the maximum penalty is five million Swiss francs, plus forfeiture of profit. The IMF has described the fines as ‘not effective, proportionate or dissuasive’.16