Page 143 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

A Portrait of a Christian Psychologist: Paul C. Vitz

For example, a man who represented any man Self-acceptance and Other Issues Relevant to
who had been a contributor to the abortion Self-forgiveness
(e.g. a husband, a lover, or father) asked each Self-acceptance and shame
woman for forgiveness for his role. Additional- It is important to note that for some people re-
ly, informal conversations with a female team sidual “bad” feelings might still persist even af-
member (leader) formed part of the weekend, ter treating moralistic “shoulds” and after ade-
as did an opportunity for confession to a priest quate reparation. For example, Zechmeister &
for Catholics and confession to a lay Christian Romero (2002) mention that some of their Ss
for Protestants. Near the end of the retreat they had great difficulty dealing with their offense.
each put down their stone and left it “behind” The authors link this condition with the S’s ex-
them. perience of shame. In such cases the S “focused
After this weekend, Ms. X felt remarkably free on the self rather than the offensive behavior”.
of her previous burden. She finally felt forgi- Fisher & Exline (2006) report a shame-prone
ven by God, and understood and accepted by neurotic pattern associated with self-condem-
others. She also had begun to accept herself as nation. Something also noted in Leith & Bau-
a worthy person despite what she had done. The meister, 1998.
presence of other women whom she had gotten Shame is a feeling of being unworthy or bad not
to know and admire and who also had an ab- because of any particular action but because the
ortion made it easier to accept herself. That is, person feels or believes that he or she is simp-
their acceptance of her preceded and promoted ly bad or inadequate or unworthy intrinsically.
her self-acceptance. She felt whole. The point is It usually goes back to very early parental cri-
that Ms. X did not say that she had forgiven her- ticism, rejection and abuse. Forgiveness is not
self. In fact, the whole issue of forgiving herself relevant for those suffering under the burden
disappeared in the weekend and never surfaced of shame, at least until the shame is overcome.
again. Of course, the entire retreat acknow- “There are cases where a wrongdoer feels so full
ledged the significance of what she had done of self-disgust and so lowered in his own esti-
and facilitated a serious intellectual, interperso- mation that he cannot accept that he is worthy
nal and emotional evaluation of her abortion. of being forgiven” (North, 1998, p. 32). The
She and her abortion were not treated superfi- present interpretation is that self-forgiveness is
cially and there was no cheap forgiveness. irrelevant or even confusing to the client if the
Our interpretation is that in part her earlier residual negative feelings derive from a sense of
experience of forgiveness and of penance had shame.
been too superficial and shallow. The minimal Instead, the clinician can gradually probe by
penance required by the priest in confession identifying and processing the sources of sha-
had not been seen as an act of reparation by me, often, as noted, the result of early parental
her, but rather had seemed “cheap” or too easy. criticism or abuse. Through such “uncovering”
She also had some overly high and moralistic work, clients can be led to disclose doubts as to
“should” standards which she used to condemn their worth and dignity. Religious clients might
herself, and possibly some components of sha- be led to disclose their lack of trust in God.
me. (See below.) The original remaining nega- Some clients, for example, may have long har-
tive feelings had been incorrectly interpreted bored an ultimate doubt as to whether they are
by Ms. X as the result of not having forgiven redeemable, despite their professed belief. Trea-
herself. But, in fact, what it really meant was ting issues of self-condemnation can reveal an
that she had not actually accepted the original unknown and more serious underlying psycho-
forgiveness, because the treatment had not dealt logical disorder, the source of which needs to be
with the psychological and spiritual depth and uncovered and treated.
importance of her abortion - something which In self-forgiveness, such deeper problems easily
the special weekend retreat did in fact do. can be overlooked or even worsened. When the
source of the shame is uncovered, for example
early abuse, abandonment or repeated parental

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