Shame's Value

Shame we are told is as intense as it is unrelenting. Shame we are told, further still, is as contagious as it is transmittable. By fastidiously attending to clinical reports and theoretical depictions of shame's totalizing character, I argue in this paper that we can notice something that has broadly gone unnoticed: shame assumes for itself absolute value. To bear this out, I contrast my view with that of the dominant one: that shame has an instrumental value. I show some limitations of the dominant view by reflecting on the role of shame in psychoanalytic training. The picture that emerges may seem quaintly commonsensical, and even commonplace, but it has, I think, vast clinical implications. I believe that it certainly has the potential to open some new horizons. The arguments for such a bold claim will occupy the concluding section of my paper.