Assessing the Impact of Shame and Guilt in Recovery
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Women with breast cancer may experience guilt and shame in ways that affect their recovery. Shame is a kind of negative evaluation of oneself as a whole person. Guilt, however, is defined as a feeling that one has acted in a way that is different from a social or moral expectation. Shame and unresolved guilt are associated with greater distress and could also impact physiology in ways that might weaken a body’s ability to respond well to stress. Women recovering from breast cancer treatment may experience shame due to the loss of their breasts, disruption of social contacts, changes in the way they view themselves, or in response to changes in their sexuality. Women may also feel guilt because they have not been able to spend as much time with their children or families, mistakenly believe that they have caused their cancer, think that their children may be at greater risk for cancer, or fear dying prematurely, thereby abandoning children and family members.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Our study has two goals. 1. To use recently developed methods to measure shame and guilt, as well as embarrassment and pride in women with breast cancer. We will be the first researchers to bring these methods to breast cancer research. One approach involves questionnaires, and another involves viewing videotapes of women and coding head and body movements that indicate that they are likely feeling shame. 2. To examine whether these feelings are common during recovery, and in what context these feelings are important. Because no one has examined these questions, we are proposing a pilot study in which women will tell us about their experiences with these emotions and give us feedback on our study methods. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 For the first goal, we will learn how to recognize head and body movements from local experts knowledgeable in this field. We will use these techniques to code videotape in our own lab in order to insure that we can do this accurately. We will also look at whether this method of coding is similar to other methods we have used in previous research. For the second goal, we will recruit 10-12 women with non-metastatic breast cancer (within one year of diagnosis) who will complete surveys and participate in interviews. Their responses will provide us with information about the context and importance of shame, guilt, pride, and embarrassment in recovery from breast cancer. These women will also advise us in a final focus group by discussing the role of these emotions in recovery. Their feedback will also assist us in generating future ideas and research questions. Our long-term goals are to use a similar method but with a large group of women with breast cancer to understand the extent to which shame, guilt, embarrassment and pride matter to recovery and physical health.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 We are concerned that women may suffer unnecessarily from increases in shame and guilt following breast cancer treatment, and that these feelings may impair their view of themselves, their relationships with family and friends, and their interactions with health care professionals. We want to study whether this is true. We also want to develop methods for helping women to understand these feelings in themselves and to help doctors and therapists notice when women are feeling shame and guilt so that they can more effectively help them to talk about these feelings. We believe the time has come to use these new methods for the study of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride to benefit women with breast cancer.