Managing shame and guilt in addiction: A pathway to recovery

A dominant view of guilt and shame is that they have opposing action tendencies: guilt- prone people are more likely to avoid or overcome dysfunctional patterns behaviour, making amends for past misdoings, whereas shame-prone persist in avoiding responsibility misdoings and/or lashing out defensive aggression. Some suggested addiction treatment should make use these insights, tailoring therapy according people’s degree guilt-proneness versus shame-proneness. In this paper, we challenge view, reviewing empirical findings from others as well our own question (1) whether can be so easily disentangled the experience with addiction, (2) tendencies standardly attributed them. We recommend a shift theoretical perspective explains main finding both emotions either destructive constructive recovery, depending on how managed. argue such management depends turn person’s quality self-blame (retributive ‘scaffolding’), impacting upon their attitude towards agency someone fixed unchanging dispositions (shame recovery) capable changing themselves productive recovery). With an eye therapeutic intervention, then explore self accomplished. Specifically, discuss empathy-driven affective narratively-driven cognitive components process allow individuals move away register retributive into scaffolding ‘reproach’, thereby enabling them manage experiences generative way.