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At a time when the cognitive trend prevails in therapy as well as in scientific endeavours within and outside psychoanalysis, it is a relief to welcome two independent psychoanalytic publications on the subject of emotions. The Swedish psychoanalysts Else-Britt Kjellqvist and Johan Beck-Friis have, apparently independently of each other, investigated one of the most hidden and inaccessible emotions, that of shame. Moreover, they have both shown that the most fruitful approach to this fundamental affect takes the form of a dialogue between, on the one hand, personal and professional experiences and, on the other, poetic as well as other forms of artistic creations.
A previous work, Rött och vitt. Om skam och skam-löshet [Red and white: On shame and shamelessness], introduced Else-Britt Kjellqvist (1993) as a pre-eminent explorer of the subject of shame. The first book focused on what Kjellqvist refers to, respectively, as red and white shame: red shame is a healthy signal that helps us sustain limits and use empathy to respect others' boundaries. This kind of shame is a precondition for morality and, together with guilt feelings, a necessary regulator of social life. White shame on the other hand is destructive and interferes with giving and receiving love as well as with self-respect and healthy narcissism.
Kjellqvist's new book takes over where the first ends and explores the ways we live with shame, both when we defend ourselves against it and when we confront and accept it. In our effort to embrace shame -whether we fight or flee — we go through what Kjellqvist describes as important existential experiences such as
mourning, longing, holding on to or losing illusions, breaking down, and gaining self-knowledge.
The book has three parts, starting with an introduction to the manifestations of shame. Going directly to the roots of white shame, Kjellqvist argues that this kind of shame arises when an infant is not wanted, not mirrored, and not met with love. She supports