Shame-Less Lives, Grace-Full Congregations

Shame-Less Lives, Grace-Full Congregations. By Karen A. McClintock. Herndon, Va. : Alban Institute, 2012. 194 pp. $18.00 (paper). Karen McClintock has written a profound and very readable book on the effect of shame in the lives of individuals and congregations today. She begins by making an important distinction between guilt and shame. She says "guilt is the moral compass and corrective function in the psyche that leads us to notice when we have harmed others with our behavior. Shame, however, is the emotion of self-recrimination that is more likely to weigh us down than spur us to action" (p. 20). According to McClintock, the purpose of guilt is to restore us to right relationship with another or others, and with oneself. Shame, on the other hand, is a tricky word in English. It has an intrapersonal meaning: I have a sense of shame, disgust, or remorse, when I feel I have done something wrong, harmed another person or myself. It is about a word, thought, or action that I regret. In this sense, intrapersonal shame is similar to guilt, and it is about my own self-awareness and is usually used with the phrase "I have a sense of shame. " Shame also has an interpersonal meaning. When we shame others or are shamed by them, the injury moves beyond behavior toward one's very being. McClintock puts it this way: "While guilt says, ? made a mistake,' shame says ? am a mistake. ' Shame takes a behavior and slaps it onto my core personhood. I become my mistakes" (p. 22). Here, and for the most part throughout her book, McClintock is speaking about interpersonal shame, which isolates and stigmatizes. Shame in this sense has no redeeming qualities. McClintock's book is a treasury of personal stories from her experience as a pastor and a psychologist specializing in "shame recovery. " She devotes chapters to the dynamics of the shame-blame game, the debilitating effects of "comparison shame" and "perfection shame," mitigating "chronic illness shame," and reducing "individual sexual shame. " She describes how shame operates in congregations and how they can move toward becoming "gracefull" communities. On the individual level, she offers new scripts for those who live with shame and alternatives for using shaming language with others. On the corporate level, she talks about how secrets lead to shame and how churches can offer "do overs" as a way of healing shame (p. 175). As a consultant and trainer working to promote a multicultural approach to reducing oppressive behaviors and practices by individuals and within communities, I have used this guideline for recognizing and valuing differences: "It's okay to disagree; it's not okay to shame, blame, or attack self or others. " Speaking of shame when setting guidelines for interaction draws attention to the fact that shame is related to the way we think about differences. Whether the differences have to do with race, class, age, gender, sexual identity or orientation, or any other variable, shame is about seeing the difference of the other as less than or seeing my own difference as less than. In its extreme form, we speak or act as though the other persons very being is not okay Relational cultural theory, and other schools of psychology, talk about shame and guilt. …