From the author: About a case from practice A patient recently came in with doubts. Like, he can’t deal with his feelings. It seems that, according to understanding, one should feel one thing, but feels another. Otherwise he doesn’t feel anything. Here I will lift the veil of secrecy: the man spoke about shame. The experience was that it seemed like he had found himself in a situation in which he should be ashamed, maybe even very ashamed, but he wasn’t even a bit ashamed. And we began to figure it out. What kind of feeling is shame? What does it give? And does it give anything at all? Shame is very close to pride, and here’s why. When do we say “I’m ashamed”? When we commit some unseemly act and admit to ourselves that we should not have done such a thing. They shouldn't have. That is, we put ourselves in any case above this act, they say, I’m good! How could I do such stupidity/meanness/disgusting! I'm not like that, I'm better! And I'm ashamed. Don’t judge strictly, I’m good, I’m so ashamed! Or, on the contrary, judge more strictly, so that it becomes even more shameful, so that you understand that I am even better, since no one expected this from me. Well, it’s a shame. What's next? They were ashamed and forgot. And we can continue to do such things, because now we know that, in principle, it is possible to pay for them with shame, we are actually good, and then again we will be ashamed and forget. Is this constructive? Completely unconstructive without the following addition. It makes sense to talk about this offense under one condition - repentance. That is, sincere acceptance of this act and the intention not to do it again. Not an excuse in the style of “I won’t do this again,” but actually finding the strength within oneself not to do anything like that again. And, it turns out, there is no need for arrogant self-torture expressed in shame. It disappears due to its meaninglessness. But here the following difficulty arises: am I capable of realizing my action and sincerely repenting? It's good if yes. And if not? The patient honestly admitted that he was not ready yet. Boldly. Well, for now, we decided to be aware, try not to be categorical about our “shameful” action (thought), try not to give it any assessment. Just live with it. Bye. While this is part of his life, not shame, but the act itself. But the time will come, and he will repent and will definitely no longer act/think like that, etc. Only this time must come. The main thing here is not to forget about your intention to repent, not to inadvertently shift responsibility to time and circumstances. The main thing is not to put yourself above this, to admit your imperfection, to come to terms with it. The patient has something to repent for. He knows it. But don't be ashamed. And he will have time to repent. Maybe. But I hope that I will no longer torment myself with thoughts. But he won’t dare forget about it. Everything has its time. In the meantime, you can, with full awareness of your imperfections in at least one aspect, get down to really important and necessary things. So we decided after an hour. Why all this? Don’t fool yourself for nothing! A fragment of a painting by F.P. is used as an illustration. Reshetnikov "A deuce again"".