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Speech : Shame And Disclosure Essay

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Shame Therapy and Disclosure

The importance of this sub-section is to demonstrate how shame can have an impact on the amount of disclosure in therapy. It has been suggested that a lack of disclosure can influence therapeutic outcome. Based on research, participants have identified one of the reasons that they are unwilling to disclose is due to fear of the reaction of the therapist. The purpose of discussing shame and disclosure in therapy is to highlight how non-disclosure can be problematic with clients who feel shame in therapy. This is further emphasized by Lewis’ (1971) findings that in the therapeutic relationship, patients may not be aware of their feelings as shame (unidentified shame) and as such, will use other words to point to the shame experience. This means that therapists must be aware of the impact that the relational context has on clients who feel shame.

Key components of enabling a client to reveal shame seems to rely on the observations and experience of the therapist in recognizing a client who may be experiencing shame. This study has a role to play in this regard, it is hoped that the colleceted and analysed experiences of what it is like to feel shame, relationally, could act as signposts for therapist to recognize unspoken (and subtlties of spoken) shame. Therefore, one of the aims of this study is to product descriptive accounts that have good theoretical transferability to help the therapist in practice with other individuals.

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