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Recently considerable attention has been devoted to the subject of self-esteem and various affective vicissitudes resulting from its impoverishment (Reich, 1960) ; (Jacobson, 1964) ; (Kernberg, 1975) ; (Kohut, 1968) ; (Sandler, 1960).
Two of these affective derivatives include humiliation and shame. I shall, first, define humiliation and differentiate it from shame; secondly, explore its phenomenology and thirdly, demonstrate its function as an affect signal analogous to anxiety, along with defensive measures employed to cope with it.
I am suggesting the following definition of humiliation: humiliation is the affect associated with the sensation of unpleasure and any idea connoting loss of self-esteem when one's self-esteem is attacked, diminished, or threatened unjustifiably either from without (external world) or from within (superego). Humiliation covers a wide range of affects varying from minor chagrin to total devastation or narcissistic mortification.
For the purpose of this paper, narcissistic rage and depression will be considered as potential vicissitudes of humiliation.
In extreme cases, the representations of the superego may be projected on to objects and events in the external world and lead to accusing and persecutory delusions that are considered unjustifiable by the individual (Niederland, 1974).
Humiliation is an affect arising in the ego and experienced in any situation in which some other individual or external event demeans the subject or threatens to demean him. While experiencing this emotion, the individual may feel belittled or slandered, lowered in the eyes of others or in his own eyes.
It is therefore inevitably experienced as an attack on one's self-esteem and, hence, a threat to the stability and/or integrity of one's self representation.1
Humiliation is an emotion that can be experienced by anyone and is therefore of universal occurrence. Those individuals who suffer from a less stable sense of self and who are more dependen