Feelings of guilt, how to get rid of constant guilt. Guilt: spiritual or destructive feeling

Often people do not even realize that guilt is a negative emotion, a negative experience that does not cleanse (as many used to think) a person, but drives him into a corner. Guilt is not a sign of high spirituality, but a sign of a person's immaturity.

Dealing with what it is - a sense of guilt is not at all easy. Some consider it socially useful and even a necessary internal regulator of behavior, while others argue that it is a painful complex.

The word guilt itself is often used as a synonym for feeling guilty, while the original meaning of this word is different. “Guilt is a fault, an offense, a transgression, a sin, any unlawful, reprehensible act.” (Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language" by V. Dahl).

Initially, the word fault meant either the actual damage itself or the material compensation for the damage caused. Guilty - the one who violated laws or agreements and must compensate for the damage.

There is a big difference between being "guilty" and "feeling guilty". A person is guilty when he knows in advance that he can harm or harm someone or himself by action or word and, nevertheless, does it. Guilt is usually attributed to those who caused the damage intentionally or due to gross negligence.

There are quite a few people who tend to feel guilty, even though there was no actual intentional damage. They decide that they are guilty, because they listen to that "inner voice" that condemns and accuses them, based on those, often false, beliefs and beliefs that, as a rule, were learned in childhood.

Guilt is an unproductive and even destructive emotional reaction of a person to self-accusation and self-condemnation. The feeling of Guilt is essentially an aggression directed at oneself - it is self-abasement, self-flagellation, the desire for self-punishment.

Influenced by the voice of the “internal Prosecutor”, who pronounces the sentence “it’s all because of you”, such people lose sight of the fact that they had no intention to cause harm in reality, and by the way, they “forget” to find out if they caused damage at all.

A person experiences a feeling of guilt much more often for what he did not do or could not change than for what he did or could change and did not do it. The accumulation of unnecessary and destructive feelings of guilt based on nothing can and should be avoided. Neurotic guilt must and can be disposed of.

But even when the transgression actually took place, the feeling of guilt remains destructive.

Meanwhile, as a result of realizing the fact of actually inflicted damage, people are able to experience various experiences.

An alternative to guilt is the experience of conscience and responsibility.

The difference between guilt on the one hand and conscience and responsibility on the other, in our opinion, is cardinal. And although these are fundamentally different things, many people do not see and do not understand the difference between them and often confuse these concepts with each other.

Conscience- an internal authority that exercises moral self-control and evaluates one's own views, feelings, actions, their compliance with one's own self-identity, one's basic life values and goals.

Conscience manifests itself as an internal, often unconscious ban on unapproved actions (including internal ones), as well as a feeling of inner pain, which signals to a person about the protest of the internal moral authority against the actions taken that contradict their own deep system of values and self-identity.

Torments, "remorse" of conscience relate to the situation when a person, for some reason, has violated his own moral principle and are designed to keep him from similar actions in the future.

Conscience is closely related to a sense of responsibility. Conscience causes a powerful inner impulse to fulfill moral standards, including the norms of responsibility.

Responsibility is a sincere and voluntary recognition of the need to take care of yourself and others. A sense of responsibility is the desire to fulfill the obligations assumed and, if they are not fulfilled, the willingness to admit a mistake and compensate for the damage caused, to take those actions that are necessary to correct the mistake.

Moreover, responsibility is usually recognized regardless of intention: whoever did it is responsible.

Feeling guilty, a person says to himself: “I am bad, I deserve punishment, there is no forgiveness for me, I give up.” Metaphorically, it is described as a "heavy load" or as "that which gnaws."

When a person plunges into his guilt, scolds himself for his mistakes, it is very difficult - in fact impossible - for him to analyze his mistakes, think about how to improve the situation, find the right solution, do something really to correct the situation.

Sprinkling ashes on his head (“If I didn’t do this or did this .... then everything would be different”), he looks into the past and gets stuck there. While responsibility directs the eye to the future and encourages movement forward.

Taking a position of responsibility is a necessary prerequisite for the development of personality. The higher a person's level of personality development, the less likely he is to use such a negative regulator of behavior as guilt.

Feelings of guilt cause the deepest harm to a person. The feeling of guilt, in contrast to the feeling of responsibility, is unrealistic, vague, vague. It is cruel and unfair, deprives a person of self-confidence, reduces self-esteem. It brings a feeling of heaviness and pain, causes discomfort, tension, fears, confusion, disappointment, despondency, pessimism, longing. Guilt devastates and takes away energy, weakens, reduces the activity of a person.

The experience of guilt is accompanied by a painful feeling of one’s own wrongness in relation to another person and, in general, one’s own “badness”.

Chronic guilt turns into a way of perceiving the world, which is reflected even on the bodily level, literally changing the body, and primarily posture. Such people have a downcast posture, bent shoulders, as if they are carrying the usual “load” on their “hump”. Diseases of the spine in the area of the seventh cervical vertebra in many cases (except for obvious injuries) are associated with chronic guilt.

People who carry chronic guilt in themselves since childhood, as if they want to take up less space, they have a special constrained gait, they never have a wide light step, free gestures, a loud voice. It is often difficult for them to look a person in the eye, they constantly bow their heads low and look down, and there is a mask of guilt on their faces.

For a morally mature and psychologically healthy person, guilt does not exist. There is only a conscience and a sense of responsibility for every step you take in this world, for the agreements you make, for the choices you make and for not choosing.

Negative experiences associated with conscience and responsibility cease with the elimination of the cause that caused them. And making any mistake does not lead such a person to an exhausting internal conflict, he does not feel “bad” - he simply corrects the mistake and lives on. And if a specific mistake cannot be corrected, he learns a lesson for the future and the memory of it helps him not to make such mistakes.

I would like to emphasize that the feeling of guilt, based on self-punishment and self-abasement, is directed at oneself. A person consumed by guilt and self-flagellation is not up to the real feelings and needs of another.

While the feelings caused by conscience include regret about the deed and empathy for the victim. They, in their essence, are focused on the state of another person - "his pain hurts in me."

The willingness to admit one's real guilt is one of the indicators of responsibility, but insufficient in itself.

Feelings of guilt can also (although not always) prompt her confession. However, the very fact of admitting one's guilt is often presented as a sufficient expiation. You can often hear bewilderment: - "Well, I admitted that I was to blame and apologized - what else do you want from me?".

But this, as a rule, is not enough for the victim, and if he does not feel the inner truth in this, he does not need it at all. He wants to hear about specific measures to correct the mistake or compensate for the damage caused.

It is even more necessary, especially if it is impossible to correct it, to sincerely express empathy and regret to another, as well as (if the action was deliberate) also honest repentance. All this is not only necessary for the victim, but also brings relief to the one who caused the real damage.

Where does guilt come from and why is it so widespread?

Why do people hold on to self-blame so much in situations where they are not to blame for anything? The fact is that guilt covers helplessness.

The feeling of guilt is laid in early childhood under the influence of the characteristics of the child's mental development, on the one hand, and parental influences, on the other.

The age of 3-5 years is the age when a persistent feeling of guilt can form as a negative internal regulator of behavior, since it is at this age that the child has the very ability to experience it, which his parents quickly discover and use.

This age period provides suitable soil for this. "Creative initiative or guilt" - this is how Erik Erikson calls this period and the corresponding main dilemma of child development.

Guilt naturally arises in a child at this age as a psychological defense against a terrifying sense of helplessness and shame associated with the collapse of his sense of omnipotence experienced during this period.

The child unconsciously chooses guilt as the lesser of two evils. As if he unconsciously said to himself, “I already feel that I can’t do everything, it’s unbearable, no, it just didn’t work out this time, but actually I can do it. I could, but I did. So, it's my fault. I will suffer, and next time I will succeed if I try.”

With the favorable influence of parents, the child gradually accepts his not omnipotence, overcomes the feeling of guilt, and the dilemma is resolved in favor of the successful development of creative initiative.

With the adverse effects of parents, the child for many years, and sometimes for the rest of his life, has a tendency to experience guilt and restrictions on the manifestation of creative initiative. The “burden” of guilt that a person has been carrying since childhood, and in adulthood continues to prevent him from living and communicating with people.

Thus, the feeling of guilt is one of the obligatory manifestations of the protest phase in the process of experiencing a significant loss, including a serious illness and death of loved ones. Protesting against the enormity of what happened, before coming to terms with what happened, accepting their helplessness and beginning to mourn bitterly, people blame themselves for not doing something to save them, despite the fact that it was objectively absolutely impossible.

With a favorable childhood, this feeling of guilt soon passes. If a person has a child's guilt complex, non-existent guilt for the loss can remain in the person's soul for many years, and the process of experiencing the trauma of the loss does not end.

Those adverse effects of parents that induce and form a constant feeling of guilt, in fact, come down to direct accusations and censures, as well as reproaches and reproaches. Such pressure on guilt is one of the main levers that parents use both to form an internal regulator of behavior in him (which they confuse with conscience and responsibility), and to quickly control the child in specific situations.

Induced guilt becomes a kind of whip, spurring on to the actions that parents seek to induce the child to, moreover, a whip that replaces the upbringing of a sense of responsibility. And parents resort to it, as a rule, because they themselves were brought up in exactly the same way and still have not been able to get rid of their eternal guilt.

Blaming the child is, in fact, wrong. In principle, he cannot be to blame for what his parents accuse him of, because he generally does not bear responsibility for his actions and is not able to bear it. And adults easily shift their responsibility to the child.

For example: a child is scolded or reproached for breaking a crystal vase. However, it is obvious that when there is a small child in the house, the parents must remove valuable items, this is their responsibility. If anyone is responsible for the broken vase, then the parents, since the child is not yet able to measure his efforts, control his motor skills, his feelings and impulses, and, of course, is not yet able to track cause-and-effect relationships and the consequences of his actions.

Adults who do not understand the psychological characteristics of the child first attribute to him abilities that he does not have, and then blame him for actions committed due to absence, as if they were supposedly deliberate. For example: “You purposely don’t fall asleep and don’t feel sorry for me, don’t let me rest, but I’m so tired” or “Couldn’t you play neatly in the street, now I have to wash your jacket, and I’m already tired.”

Worse, often parents and other adults give the child an unfair ultimatum: "If you do not admit your guilt, I will not talk to you." And the child is forced to admit non-existent guilt under the threat of a boycott (which is unbearable for a child) or under pain of physical punishment.

The pressure on guilt is a manipulative effect, which is, of course, destructive for the psyche.

For the time being, for the time being, the child is not able to critically evaluate what is happening to him, therefore he takes all the actions of his parents at face value and, instead of resisting the destructive effects of parental manipulations, obediently obeys them.

And as a result of all this, he learns to believe that he is guilty, to feel his guilt for non-existent sins and, as a result, to feel himself always and everyone should.

Such unreasonable, usually unconscious and inconsistent pressure from parents and other significant adults on guilt leads to confusion in the child's head. He ceases to understand what is required of him - a sense of guilt or the correction of an error.

And although according to the educational plan, it is assumed that, having done something bad, the child should experience a sense of guilt and immediately rush to correct his mistake, the child, on the contrary, learns that to experience and demonstrate his guilt is a sufficient payment for a committed misconduct. .

And now, instead of correcting mistakes, parents receive only a guilty look, a plea for forgiveness - “Well, please forgive me, I won’t do it again” - and his heavy, painful, self-destructive experiences of his guilt. And the feeling of guilt thus replaces responsibility.

Forming conscience and responsibility is much more difficult than a sense of guilt and requires not situational, but strategic efforts.

Reproaches and censures - “how not ashamed of you!” "How could you, this is irresponsible!" - can only cause a feeling of guilt.

Conscience and responsibility require not censure, but a patient and sympathetic explanation to the child of the inevitable consequences for those around him and for himself of his really wrong actions. Including, on the one hand, about their pain, awakening not guilt, but empathy, and on the other hand, about the inevitable emotional distance from him of other people, if he continues to behave this way. And of course, there should be no unfair criticism of the child for something that he could not control.

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Everyone knows the feeling is an unpleasant and pressured state, so the psychology of guilt has been well studied by psychologists. It should be noted that this is a very painful sensation, it constantly depresses, gives a lot of inconvenience. At the same time, the feeling of guilt differs not only in negative functions. It is thanks to this feeling that we distinguish such opposites as good and evil, we empathize with others. Sometimes, for some reason, we did not fulfill the promise, and at the same time let the person down. In this case, feelings of guilt cannot be avoided. In addition, there is a reason for other unwanted emotions, there is tension, anxiety, self-flagellation and awkwardness.

Psychologists are sure that guilt should be considered a sign of a person's mental health. Experiencing this feeling, a person is able to become better. He is aware of the negative that is a consequence of his act, he realizes that he has betrayed his own moral values. Guilt makes us apologize to other people, offer our help.

Thanks to the psychology of guilt, we become more attentive to others, we show sensitivity. Therefore, relationships with colleagues and relatives are greatly improved, communication becomes more humane.

This feeling is completely dependent on the characteristics of the character. If you are demanding of yourself, always meeting high set standards and goals, then more frequent appearance of guilt is typical. It is like a pointer or a sign that leads in the right direction, not allowing you to deviate. The feeling of guilt, although extremely unpleasant, is useful for the development of the personality.

According to researchers in the field of psychology, if people were not familiar with this feeling, but life in our society would simply become dangerous. However, tension and anxiety in real life can have a negative effect on our actions, because they are an occasion for senseless self-flagellation.

The main feature in the psychology of feeling guilty is the state when a person condemns himself. Everyone has their own moral rules, such as not to lie, not to take someone else's, not to break one's word, and so on. If suddenly, for various reasons, in imagination or in reality, a person stumbled, did not act in accordance with his own rules, he seeks to correct the state of affairs.

Feelings of shame are social feelings, and basically fear is due to the fact that society will reject or condemn certain actions. As a result, a person will be excluded from a certain social group. Under the influence of a sense of shame, complexes develop, so a person begins to think that he is worse than others. For example, there are doubts about the conformity to society on various grounds.

Because of the feeling of guilt, tension and anxiety appear, there is regret that a certain act was committed. In such a situation, everyone realizes that there was an opportunity to do otherwise. Despite the severity of the burden of guilt, it also has positive qualities. An image of an act is recreated, which is correct, as it should have been done in a certain case.

It is through regret that there is an opportunity to repent. This topic is widely discussed by existentialist philosophers. According to them, a person is able to choose his own path thanks to guilt. This is hard spiritual work on yourself, but in the end you can find yourself and get forgiveness.

Emotions that are considered universal, including guilt, are highlighted. Many scientists emphasize that a person may have an innate sense of guilt. It is indicative that people with mental illness often do not feel guilty, they do not have it. That is why there is a claim that this emotion confirms mental health. You should not force yourself to look for ways to get rid of guilt. It is more important to distinguish a real feeling from an invented one. It is known that the feeling of guilt is often manipulated, this emotion is quite easily cultivated, and it is often used.

For example, elderly relatives complain that we rarely visit them. Moreover, as a decisive argument, they remind that they will soon die, and there will be no one to visit. Of course, such words can exert strong pressure. Therefore, you begin to feel acute guilt, and worry that you do not meet moral standards.

Having come up with an ideal image for themselves, people blame themselves for imperfection. In addition, guilt acts in such a way that a person can punish himself. He gives up his interests, and begins to intensely pay attention to the problems of other people.

Considering various situations, in order to understand how to do the right thing, you should pay attention to what you don’t need to do. This means that you should never solve a problem with alcohol. In this case, you will only increase the feeling. Of course, it makes no sense to make excuses, it does not work, but it is also impossible to completely forget about guilt, as if nothing had happened.

The correct way to solve this situation is to adequately rethink your actions and motivations. It is important to understand your own desires, to understand at what stage you made a mistake. Don't be afraid of your aspirations. If you try to hide from them, the psychology of guilt will make you even more nervous.

Often people do not realize that guilt- this is a negative emotion, a negative experience that does not cleanse (as many used to think) a person, but drives him into a corner. The feeling of guilt is not a sign of high spirituality, but a sign of a person's immaturity. So thinks the remarkable psychologist, the most prominent representative of the psychodramatic approach in psychotherapy, Elena Vladimirovna Lopykhina.

Lopukhina Elena Vladimirovna - psychologist, psychotherapist, organizational development consultant, business coach and coach, director of the Institute of Psychodrama and Role Training, Member Member of the Federation of European Psychodramatic Training Organizations, Lecturer at the Department of Organizational Development and Human Resources Management and the School of Management Consultants of the Academy national economy with Government of the Russian Federation:

Dealing with what it is - a sense of guilt is not at all easy. Some consider it socially useful and even a necessary internal regulator of behavior, while others argue that it is a painful complex.

The word wine itself is often used as a synonym for feelings of guilt, while the original meaning of this word is different. “Guilt is a fault, a transgression, a transgression, a sin, any unlawful, prejudicial act.” (Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language "B. Dahl). Initially, the word of guilt meant either the actual damage caused or material compensation for the damage caused. Guilty - the one who violated the laws or agreements and must compensate for the damage.

There is a big difference between being "guilty" and "feeling guilty." A person is guilty when he knows in advance that he can harm or harm someone or himself by action or word and, nevertheless, does it. Blame is usually recognized for those who caused damage intentionally or due to criminal negligence.

There are many people who tend to consider themselves guilty, although there was no actual intentional damage in reality. They decide that they are guilty, because they listen to that "inner voice" that judges and accuses them, based on those, often false, beliefs and beliefs, to which, as a rule, were learned in childhood.

Guilt- a non-productive and even destructive emotional reaction of a person to self-blame and self-deprecation. The feeling of guilt, in essence, is aggression directed at oneself - this is self-abasement, self-flagellation, the desire for self-punishment.

Under the influence of the voice of the “inner Prokypop”, which passes the sentence “it’s all because of you”, such people lose sight of the fact that they had no intention to do evil in reality, and by the way “ forget” to find out if they caused damage at all.

A person experiences a sense of guilt much more often for what he did not do or could not change than for what he did or could change and did not do it. The accumulation of unfounded, unnecessary and destructive guilt can and should be avoided. From neurotic guilt it is necessary and possible to get rid of.

But even when the transgression actually took place, the feeling of guilt remains destructive.

Meanwhile, as a result of the recognition of the fact of actually inflicted damage, people are able to experience various experiences.

An alternative to guilt is the experience of conscience and responsibility. The difference between guilt on the one hand and conscience and responsibility on the other, in our opinion, is cardinal. And although these are fundamentally different things, many people do not see and do not understand the difference between them and often confuse these concepts with each other.

Conscience is an internal authority that exercises moral self-control and assessment of one’s own views, feelings, actions taken, their correspondence with one’s own self-identity, about their basic life values and goals.

Conscience manifests itself as an internal, often unconscious ban on unapproved actions (including internal ones), as well as a feeling of internal pain that signals h a man about the protest of the internal moral authority against the committed actions that contradict their own deep system of values and self-identity. Myki, the “angries” of conscience relate to the situation when a person, due to some reasons, violated his own moral principle and are called upon to keep him from similar actions in everyday life shem.

Conscience is closely related to the sense of responsibility. Conscience causes a powerful internal impulse to fulfill moral standards, including the standards of responsibility.

Responsibility is a sincere and voluntary recognition of the need to take care of yourself and others. A sense of responsibility is the desire to fulfill the obligations assumed and, if they are not fulfilled, the readiness to admit mistakes and compensate for the damage caused, sew those actions that are needed to correct the error. Moreover, responsibility is usually recognized regardless of intent: whoever did it is the one who answers.

Feeling guilty, a person says to himself: “I am bad, I deserve punishment, I have no forgiveness, my hands are dropping.” Metaphorically, it is described as a "heavy load" or as "that which gnaws."

When a person plunges into his own guilt, scolds himself for the mistakes he has made, it is very difficult - in fact, impossible - to analyze his mistakes, think like a charm sew the situation, find the right solution, do something really to fix the situation.

Sprinkling ashes on his head (“If I hadn’t done this or done this .... then everything would have been different”), he looks into the past and gets stuck there. While responsibility directs the eye to the future and encourages movement forward.

Taking a position of responsibility is a necessary precondition for personal development. The higher a person's level of personality development, the less he tends to use such a negative regulator of behavior as a sense of guilt.

The feeling of guilt does the deepest harm to a person. The feeling of guilt, in contrast to the feeling of responsibility, is unrealistic, vague, blurry. It is cruel and unfair, deprives a person of self-confidence, lowers self-esteem. It brings a feeling of heaviness and pain, causes discomfort, tension, fears, confusion, disappointment, despondency, pessimism, melancholy. Guilt empties and takes away energy, weakens, reduces the activity of a person.

The experience of guilt is accompanied by a painful feeling of one’s own wrongness in relation to another person and, in general, one’s own “badness”.

Chronic guilt turns into a way of perceiving the world, which is reflected even at the bodily level, literally changing the body, and first of all, the eye. Such people have a drooping posture, bent shoulders, as if they are carrying the usual “load” on their “hump”. Diseases of the spine in the zone of the seventh cervical vertebra in many cases (except for obvious injuries) are associated with chronic guilt.

People who carry chronic guilt in themselves since childhood, as if they want to take up less space, they have a special constrained gait, they never have a wide lung step, free gesture, loud voice. It is often difficult for them to look a person in the eye, they constantly bow their heads low and lower their eyes, and on their faces there is a mask of guilt.

For a morally mature and psychologically healthy person, feelings of guilt do not exist. There is only conscience and a sense of responsibility for every step in this world, for the agreements made, for the choice made and for the refusal to choose

Negative experiences associated with conscience and responsibility cease with the elimination of the cause that caused them. And making any mistake does not lead such a person to an exhausting internal conflict, he does not feel “bad” - he simply corrects the mistakes and lives on . And if a specific mistake cannot be corrected, he learns a lesson for the future and the memory of it helps him not to make such mistakes.

I would like to emphasize that the feeling of guilt, based on self-punishment and self-abasement, is directed at oneself. A person absorbed by feelings of guilt and self-flagellation is not up to the real feelings and needs of another.

At the same time, the feelings caused by conscience include regret for the deed and empathy for the victim. They, by their very nature, are oriented to the state of another person - “his pain hurts in me.”

The readiness to admit one's real guilt is one of the indicators of responsibility, but not sufficient on its own. Feelings of guilt can also (although not always) prompt her confession. However, the very fact of admitting one's guilt is often presented as a sufficient atonement. You can often hear bewilderment: - “Hy, I admitted that I was guilty and apologized - what else do you want from me?”. But for the victim, this, as a rule, is not enough, and if he does not feel the inner truth in this, he does not need it at all. He wants to hear about specific measures to correct the error or compensate for the damage. It is even more necessary, especially if it is impossible to correct it, to sincerely express empathy and regret to another, also (if the action was intentional) also honest no repentance. All this is not only necessary for the injured, but also for the one who caused the real damage, brings relief.

Where does our sense of guilt come from, and why, despite its destructiveness, is it so widespread?

Why do people hold on to self-blame in situations when they are not to blame for anything? The fact is that guilt covers helplessness.

The feeling of guilt is laid in early childhood under the influence of the features of the mental development of the child on the one hand and parental influences on the other.

The age of 3-5 years is the age when a strong sense of guilt can form as a negative internal regulator of behavior, since it is at this age in a child the very ability of him to experience arises, which his parents quickly discover and use.

This age period provides suitable soil for this. “Creative initiative or guilt” is what Erik Erickson calls this period and the corresponding main dilemma of child development.

A sense of guilt naturally arises in a child at this age as a psychological defense against the terrifying feeling of helplessness and shame associated with what he is experiencing in this period. iodine the collapse of the feeling of his omnipotence. The child unconsciously chooses guilt as the lesser of two evils. As if he unconsciously said to himself “I already feel that I can’t do everything, it’s unbearable, no, it just didn’t work out this time, but in general I can do it. I could, but I did. So - I'm guilty. I will rush, and next time I will succeed if I try.

With the favorable effects of parents, the child gradually accepts his own incompetence, overcomes feelings of guilt and the dilemma is resolved in favor of the successful development of TV opchesky initiative.

With the adverse effects of parents on the child for many years, and sometimes for the rest of his life, there remains a tendency to experience feelings of guilt and restrictions on the manifestation creative initiative. The “burden” of guilt that a person has been carrying since childhood, and in adulthood continues to prevent him from living and communicating with people.

Note that although the origins of chronic feelings of guilt lie mainly at the age of 3-5 years, the tendency to experience feelings of guilt as a protective mechanism can also turn on in adulthood. over age, even with a relatively favorable childhood. So, the feeling of guilt is one of the obligatory forms of manifestation of the phase of protest in the process of experiencing a significant loss, including a serious illness and death of loved ones. Protesting against the enormity of what happened, before coming to terms with what happened, accepting their helplessness and starting mournful lamentation, people blame themselves for not doing something then for salvation, despite the fact that it was objectively absolutely impossible. With a favorable childhood, such a sense of guilt soon passes. If a person has a childish guilt complex, non-existent guilt for a loss can remain in a person’s soul for many years, and the process of experiencing trauma is lost and does not end.

Thus, instead of experiencing helplessness and shame in situations where we are weak and cannot change anything, people "prefer" guilt, which is illusory hope that everything can still be fixed.

There is a good use of the use of the laundry, which they indulge and fuel with the guilt of guilty, fake up to the same Opam. Such pressure on guilt is one of the main levers that parents use as to form an internal regulator of behavior in him (which they confuse with conscience and responsibility), and for the quick management of the child in specific situations. Inducible guilt becomes a kind of whip, spurring on to the actions that parents are trying to induce the child to, moreover, a whip that replaces the upbringing of the sense of answer responsibility. And parents resort to it, as a rule, because they themselves were brought up in exactly the same way and still have not been able to get rid of their eternal guilt.

Blaming a child is, in fact, wrong. In principle, he cannot be guilty of what his parents accuse him of, because he generally does not bear responsibility for his actions and is not able to bear it. And adults easily shift their responsibility to the child.

For example: a child is scolded or reproached for breaking a crystal vase. However, it is obvious that when there is a small child in the house, parents must remove valuable items, this is their responsibility. If someone is responsible for the broken vase, then the parents, since the child still cannot measure his efforts, control his motor skills, his feelings and impulses, and, of course, oh, not yet able to track the cause-and-effect relationships and the consequences of their actions. Adult people who do not understand the psychological characteristics of the child first attribute to him abilities that he does not have, and then they blame him for the actions taken because of absences, as for supposedly deliberate. For example: “You don’t fall asleep on purpose and don’t feel sorry for me, don’t let me rest, but I’m so tired” or “Couldn’t you play neatly on the street, now I’ll come I wash your jacket, and I'm already tired.

Even worse, often parents and other adults give the child an unfair ultimatum: “If you don’t admit your guilt, I won’t talk to you.” And the child is forced to admit non-existent guilt under the threat of a boycott (which is unbearable for a child) or under fear of physical punishment.

Pressure on guilt is a manipulative effect, which is, of course, destructive for the psyche.

For the time being, for the time being, the child is not able to critically evaluate what is happening to him, therefore, he takes all the actions of his parents at face value and, instead, th to resist the destructive impact of parental manipulation, obediently obeys them.

And as a result of all this, he begins to believe that he is guilty, to feel his guilt for non-existent sins and, as a result, to feel himself always and everything must nym.

Such unjustified, as a rule, unconscious and inconsistent pressure of parents and other significant adults on guilt leads to confusion in the head of the child. He ceases to understand what is required of him - feelings of guilt or correction of an error. And although according to the educational plan, it is assumed that, having done something bad, the child should experience a sense of guilt and immediately rush to correct his mistake, pe a bean, on the contrary, learns what to experience and demonstrate his guilt - this is a sufficient payment for a committed offense . And now, instead of correcting mistakes, parents get only a guilty look, a plea for forgiveness - “No, please, forgive me, I won’t be like that anymore” - and his heavy, painful, ca devastating feelings of guilt. And the feeling of guilt, in this way, replaces responsibility.

Forming conscience and responsibility is much more difficult than a sense of guilt and requires not situative, but strategic efforts.

Reproaches and censures - “how embarrassing you are!” “How could you, this is irresponsible!” - are able to cause only a feeling of guilt.

Conscience and responsibility do not require censure, but a patient and sympathetic explanation to the child of the inevitable consequences for those around him and for him himself. correct actions. Including, on the one hand, about their pain, awakening not guilt, but empathy, and on the other hand, about the inevitable emotional estrangement from him of other people, if he is far away we will behave like this. And of course there should be no unfair criticism of the child for what he could not control.

It's no secret that preventing a disease is much easier than curing it. Prevention of many diseases is not difficult, but only if a person takes care of his health and considers it as the most important strategic resource of his life. In the entire civilized world, there is a completely different attitude to one's own health than in our country. In our country, medicine is predominantly curative, and often people go to the doctor when the disease is already running.

In this section, we will try to give some recommendations for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and preventing certain diseases. Remember: following a number of simple and easy rules can protect against serious problems in the future.

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Guilt

Guilt- fault, misdemeanor, responsibility for committed misconduct before others. Guilt- in a general sense - a subjective or social characteristic that determines the presence of responsibility for committed acts. Depending on the moral attitudes of certain social groups or individuals under the same conditions guilt may or may not be present. IN psychology guilt is a complex feeling, namely, to be bad, or to be indebted to someone. A person, refraining from committing evil deeds, is more afraid of his own conscience than of being condemned by other people. Often guilt pursues someone for whom, in fact, there is no guilt.

Figure out what is guilt difficult. Some consider it an internal regulator of behavior, while others argue that it is a painful complex. Guilt is manifested in situations where the individual does not want to see or correct his mistake; does not want to take responsibility for anything, while trying to convince others of his good intentions. Guilt helps you keep believing in what you wanted to do the best, trying to justify yourself by showing how much you blame yourself. When you feel guilty, you feel inferior. When a person makes attempts to correct himself and his situation, the feeling of guilt disappears. If you live and act in accordance with your soul and desires, then guilt will help in life.

It is common for a large number of people to feel guilty, but in fact there was no intentional harm. Such people think that they are guilty, based on often false beliefs and beliefs that have been hammered into their heads since childhood.

Guilt- destructive emotional reaction of the individual to self-accusation and self-condemnation. The feeling of guilt is equated with aggression directed at oneself, makes a person self-deprecate himself, engage in self-flagellation and seeks self-punishment.

A person experiences a feeling of guilt much more often for what he did not do or could not change than for what he did or could change and did not do it. Neurotic guilt must and can be disposed of. But even when the transgression actually took place, the feeling of guilt remains destructive. Meanwhile, as a result of realizing the fact of actually inflicted damage, people are able to experience various experiences.

Guilt causes the deepest harm. The feeling of guilt, in contrast to the feeling of responsibility, is unrealistic, vague, vague. It is cruel and unfair, deprives a person of self-confidence, reduces self-esteem. It brings a feeling of heaviness and pain, causes discomfort, tension, confusion, disappointment, despondency, pessimism, longing. Guilt devastates and takes away energy, weakens, reduces the activity of a person.

For a morally mature and psychologically healthy person, guilt does not exist. There is only a sense of responsibility for every step you take in this world, for the agreements you make, for the choice you make, and for the refusal to choose. Negative experiences, Related conscience and liability cease with the elimination of the cause that caused them. And making any mistake does not lead such a person to an exhausting internal conflict, he does not feel “bad” - he simply corrects the mistake and lives on. And if a specific mistake cannot be corrected, he learns a lesson for the future and the memory of it helps him not to make such mistakes.

I would like to emphasize that guilt based on self-punishment And self-abasement, - is directed at itself. A person consumed by guilt and self-flagellation is not up to the real feelings and needs of another. While the feelings caused by conscience include regret about the deed and empathy for the victim. They, in their essence, are focused on the state of another person - "his pain hurts in me."

Willingness to admit real guilt- one of the indicators of responsibility, but insufficient in itself. Feelings of guilt can also (although not always) prompt her confession. However, the very fact of admitting one's guilt is often presented as a sufficient expiation. You can often hear bewilderment: - "Well, I admitted that I was to blame and apologized - what else do you want from me?". But this, as a rule, is not enough for the victim, and if he does not feel the inner truth in this, he does not need it at all. He wants to hear about specific measures to correct the mistake or compensate for the damage caused. It is even more necessary, especially if it is impossible to correct it, to sincerely express empathy and regret to another, as well as (if the action was deliberate) also honest repentance. All this is not only necessary for the victim, but also brings relief to the one who caused the real damage. Where does our sense of guilt come from, and why, despite its destructiveness, is it so widespread?

Why do people hold on to self-blame so much in situations where they are not to blame for anything? The point is that guilt covers helplessness. The feeling of guilt is laid in early childhood under the influence of features of the mental development of the child on the one hand, and parental influences on the other.

Feelings of guilt naturally arise in a child at this age. psychological protection from a terrible feeling helplessness And shame associated with the collapse of the sense of his omnipotence experienced by him during this period. The child unconsciously chooses guilt as the lesser of two evils. As if he unconsciously said to himself, “I already feel that I can’t do everything, it’s unbearable, no, it just didn’t work out this time, but actually I can do it. I could, but I did. So, it's my fault. I will suffer, and next time I will succeed if I try.”

With the favorable influences of parents, the child gradually accepts his not omnipotence, overcomes guilt and the dilemma is resolved in favor of the successful development of the creative initiative. With the adverse effects of parents, the child for many years, and sometimes for the rest of his life, has a tendency to experience guilt and restrictions on the manifestation of creative initiative. The "burden" of guilt that a person carries from childhood, and in adulthood continues interfere with his life And to communicate with people.

Note that although the origins of chronic guilt lie mainly at the age of 3-5 years, the tendency to feel guilty as a defense mechanism can also turn on in adulthood, even with a relatively favorable childhood. Thus, the feeling of guilt is one of the obligatory manifestations of the protest phase in the process of experiencing a significant loss, including a serious illness and death of loved ones. Protesting against the enormity of what happened, before coming to terms with what happened, accepting their helplessness and beginning to mourn bitterly, people blame themselves for not doing something to save them, despite the fact that it was objectively absolutely impossible. With a favorable childhood, this feeling of guilt soon passes. If a person has children's guilt complex, non-existent guilt for the loss can remain in the soul of a person for many years, and the process of experiencing the trauma of loss does not end.

Thus, instead of experiencing helplessness and shame in situations where we are weak and cannot change anything, people “prefer” guilt, which is an illusory hope that everything can still be fixed. Those adverse effects of parents that induce and form a permanent guilt, are actually reduced to direct accusations And censure, as well as to reproaches And reproaches. Such pressure on guilt is one of the main levers that parents use both to form an internal regulator of behavior in him (which they confuse with conscience and responsibility), and to quickly control the child in specific situations. Induced guilt becomes a kind of whip, spurring on to the actions that parents seek to induce the child to, moreover, a whip that replaces the upbringing of a sense of responsibility. And parents resort to it, as a rule, because they themselves were brought up in exactly the same way and still have not been able to get rid of their eternal guilt.

Blame the child, in fact, wrong. In principle, he cannot be to blame for what his parents accuse him of, because he generally does not bear responsibility for his actions and is not able to bear it. And adults easily shift their responsibility to the child. For example: a child is scolded or reproached for breaking a crystal vase. However, it is obvious that when there is a small child in the house, the parents must remove valuable items, this is their responsibility. If anyone is responsible for the broken vase, then the parents, since the child is not yet able to measure his efforts, control his motor skills, his feelings and impulses, and, of course, is not yet able to track cause-and-effect relationships and the consequences of his actions. Adults who do not understand the psychological characteristics of the child first attribute to him abilities that he does not have, and then blame him for actions committed due to absence, as if they were supposedly deliberate. For example: “You purposely don’t fall asleep and don’t feel sorry for me, don’t let me rest, but I’m so tired” or “Couldn’t you play neatly in the street, now I have to wash your jacket, and I’m already tired.”

Guilt pressure- this is a manipulative influence, which is, of course, destructive for the psyche. For the time being, for the time being, the child is not able to critically evaluate what is happening to him, therefore he takes all the actions of his parents at face value and, instead of resisting the destructive effects of parental manipulations, obediently obeys them. And as a result of all this, he learns to believe that he is guilty, feel guilty for non-existent sins and, as a result, feel like you belong all the time.

Such unreasonable, usually unconscious and inconsistent parental pressure and other significant adults on guilt leads to confusion in the child's head. He ceases to understand what is required of him - a sense of guilt or the correction of an error. And although according to the educational plan, it is assumed that, having done something bad, the child should experience a sense of guilt and immediately rush to correct his mistake, the child, on the contrary, learns that to experience and demonstrate his guilt is a sufficient payment for a committed misconduct. . And now, instead of correcting mistakes, parents receive only a guilty look, a plea for forgiveness - “Well, please forgive me, I won’t do it again” - and his heavy, painful, self-destructive experiences of his guilt. And the feeling of guilt thus replaces responsibility. form conscience And responsibility much more difficult than guilt and requires not situational, but strategic efforts. Reproaches and censures - “how not ashamed of you!” "How could you, this is irresponsible!" - can only cause a feeling of guilt.

Conscience And responsibility do not demand censure, but a patient and sympathetic explanations to the child the inevitable consequences for others and for himself of his really wrong actions. Including, on the one hand, about their pain, awakening not guilt, but empathy, and on the other hand, about the inevitable emotional distance from him of other people, if he continues to behave this way. And of course, there should be no unfair criticism of the child for something that he could not control.

Mental disorders feeling of guilt

Guilt. Causes of guilt and ways to get rid of it

The feeling of guilt from all living beings is inherent only to man. But you should always decide whether you are really to blame, or just feel like one. Quite often, this feeling arises for no real reasons and it only seems to us that we are to blame for something. In this situation, you must try to get rid of such a spiritual burden. There is not a single person who is unfamiliar with the feeling of guilt for some actions or words. But people react differently: some look for positive moments in their condition, which helps them learn from their own mistakes, while others experience such mental anguish that does not go away for years. A sense of guilt can thoroughly ruin the life of people, especially responsible and conscientious ones.

Causes of guilt.

There are a great many varieties of this feeling, depending on the situation and the psychological reasons by which it is caused. Let's look at some of them next.

1. You feel guilty about getting angry at other people. You are convinced that anger is alien to good people. Feelings of guilt are aggravated especially in those situations in which anger is caused by very close people. For example, parents get angry at a child for his bad behavior, they feel anger, but they do not show it outwardly, because they believe that a good mother and father should not be angry with their own children. And the fact that this, nevertheless, is happening, is the cause of the feeling of guilt. In fact, the belief that love and anger cannot exist together is erroneous, they are not mutually exclusive. You may be angry with your loved one. But you shouldn't be indifferent. Feeling guilty, parents do not want to punish the child for misconduct, which results in permissiveness.

Children sometimes feel guilty when they get angry at their parents. We are accustomed to the fact that it is wrong to experience negative emotions in relation to the people who raised and cared for us. But life knows many examples when the reasons for anger in this situation, nevertheless, arise. Living with such a sense of guilt, a person does not dare to be independent and do something against the parental will. This happens because the matured child is convinced that going against the opinion of the parents will be dishonorable towards them. As a result, the feeling of guilt develops into dependence on them. If a break with the parents occurred, then this also leaves a feeling of guilt for life.

2. You feel guilty about negative emotions. One example of such emotions is jealousy. Again, the misconception that jealousy is humiliating, that an intelligent and civilized person should not experience such a feeling. But, jealousy and love always go hand in hand. If your beloved or beloved pays great attention to another person, while experiencing the pleasure of communicating with him, how can you not be jealous. Jealousy does not depend on education, on the sex of a person, on nationality, on intelligence. But we can definitely say that the more a person loves, the more painful his jealousy. And also, the more paranoid a person is, the more likely he is to experience jealousy.

Another example of negative emotions that cause guilt is envy. The reason for the feeling of guilt in this case is similar to the previous one. Envy is considered dishonorable and stupid. However, this is again an erroneous statement, this is a completely natural emotion that we feel when we see that someone has achieved something or has something that we also would like. And it doesn't matter if it's material wealth or career, or talent, or marital status, but there are many things that can be envied. As long as envy exists within reason, it can even serve as an impetus for development. But, exceeding the permissible threshold, it becomes "black" and destructive to the psyche.

You must understand that any negative emotion up to a certain limit is creative, and after it begins to corrode the soul. Do not be afraid of negative feelings, if they are not too intense.

3. You feel guilty about your actions and deeds. You have committed some act, knowing that it is wrong and bad. An example would be treason. If a person is a believer or conscientious, then the feeling of guilt for betrayal will haunt him for a long time, sometimes, and all his life. But cheating is not always unjustified.

To help you cope with the situation, try to figure out if your act is so bad that it interferes with your normal life. What if this is just public opinion, and you should learn not to depend on it.

4. You feel guilty about being indifferent to people. An example is family relationships, when one of the spouses has cooled off towards the other, who continues to love him. Or, for example, a good person shows increased attention to you, and you cannot reciprocate.

This is a false sense of guilt, since you cannot force yourself to love someone at the order of reason, as well as stop loving too.

5. You feel guilty about the lack of results of some of your actions. This is especially true for people who make high demands on themselves. For such people, the word “should” is important: they must enter a university, must earn a lot of money, must reach heights in creativity, etc. Having not reached the bar that they have set for themselves, these people begin to feel guilty and consider themselves to be losers, despite the fact that on the general background they look successful.

Getting rid of guilt in this case can only come with the skills to receive satisfaction not only from what has been achieved, but also from the very process of achieving it.

6. You feel guilty about not doing everything you could for another person. This is typical for people with a good character. They strive to do everything so that everyone is happy, especially their loved ones. Seeing the suffering of another, these people begin to delve into themselves, looking for what exactly they did wrong or said the wrong thing, or were not attentive enough to other people's problems and did not do everything possible to prevent them. The reason for the feeling of guilt in this case is the erroneous belief that they and only they can make another person happy.

Getting rid of this is again in the understanding that one cannot take all the responsibility for the lives of others onto oneself. Everyone is the master of his own life.

7. You only assume to do something wrong, but already feel guilty for the act. For example, a person, entering into a relationship, already thinks about the options for parting in advance, and how dishonorable he will feel after that. This leads to abandoning the relationship altogether. Such a person always calculates what troubles his actions will bring to other people, and comes to disappointing conclusions, thereby blocking any actions for himself.

You can get rid of such a feeling of guilt only by learning to do things at will and not think about the consequences, especially since they are most often unpredictable.

8. You fell short of someone's expectations and feel guilty. This is typical for people on whom parents had high hopes in childhood. However, they were not justified.

Getting rid of guilt will come with the understanding that this is only your life and you are doing everything not for the sake of someone else's expectations, but for yourself.

The destructive effect of guilt.

It is impossible to say unequivocally that guilt has a negative effect on us. There are some positives. Guilt, if you like, can be called a person's conscience, his responsibility and ability to admit he was wrong. In addition, this is a certain self-control, because if you feel this feeling, it means that something in your life is going wrong, that somewhere there has been a discrepancy with your inner beliefs and outlook on life. Perhaps a sense of guilt will help to avoid some wrong actions and deeds. But there is another side of the coin. You begin to engage in self-digging, fully believing in your guilt before someone. This cannot but lead to a loss of faith in oneself, to doubting the correctness of one's actions, and, as a result, to the emergence of apathy and despondency. A person who has lost confidence gradually begins to give up physically and lose interest in life. Which, again, entails severe depressive states and neuroses. If the feeling of guilt has settled down deeply and firmly, then even mental disorders and even bodily ailments can arise. Such, as a rule, appear after the loss of loved ones, when a person is convinced that he did not do something for salvation that he could have done. However, most of the time nothing could be fixed. The psyche cannot cope with such a feeling of guilt and a person lives with it all his life, without even feeling the need to shed this burden.

Ways to get rid of guilt.

1. Try to understand whether your guilt really exists, or is it a figment of your imagination. If you come to the conclusion that guilt is illusory, it will be easier for you to overcome it in yourself.

2. If, nevertheless, there is guilt, you need to ask for forgiveness for what you have done from the one before whom you are guilty. If that's no longer possible, just say your apology out loud while imagining that person standing in front of you.

3. Talk about your feelings of guilt with someone close to you. Sometimes it is enough to speak out to remove a stone from the soul.

4. If you do not like to be frank, try to put down on paper for yourself what torments you. Lay out your feelings of guilt on the shelves, as detailed as possible. Then read everything carefully and destroy what is written.

5. Remember and analyze the reasons why you committed an act that caused you to feel guilty. Find excuses for yourself. For example, this: you could not anticipate the results of your act in advance.

6. Make a promise to yourself that this will never happen again in your life.

7. If none of the above has reduced the feeling of guilt, contact a specialist for psychological help.

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