In this enlightening and gracefully written study, Susan Miller
examines shame in a variety of clinical contexts en route to a
richer understanding of shame dynamics. Miller attends especially
to the role of shame in creating and maintaining character
pathology and devotes separate sections of the book to shame in the
context of obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic, and masochistic
personality organizations. Within each of these clinical contexts,
a chapter of theoretical discussion is followed by a chapter of
engaging case examples.
Integral to Shame in Context is Miller's informed and thoughtful
critique of current theories about shame, including those of
Broucek, Morrison, Schore, Wurmser, Nathanson, and Kinston. In
reviewing the contributions of these and other writers, she is most
concerned with achieving a balanced comprehension of shame that
incorporates the insights of different theoretical perspectives
without embracing the selective emphases of any one investigator or
school of thought. Like Freud, she appreciates the defensive
utility of shame, but she attends equally to the painful and at
times pathogenic acpects of shame experiences. In line with more
recent shame literature, she emphasizes the pathogenicity of early
shaming, but she is equally sensitive to the role of shame in
sustaining character defenses. And she goes beyond the purview of
other shame researchers in examining the ways in which individuals
unconsciously seek to maintain shame experiences when these
experiences sustain their personality organizations.
Offering a critical evaluation and synthesis of contemporary
shame theories, and culminating in a balanced clinical
understanding of shame in its various contexts, Shame in Context
takes its place as, in the words of Frances Broucek, "the most
sophisticated and definitive clinical study of shame to date."
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