ABSTRACT
Shame is a global affect that colours the individual's core sense of self, so that the person does not just feel that they have done something bad or wrong, but rather that they are bad or wrong. P. Mollon writes that the birth of shame lies in "not being able to evoke an empathic response in the other". Shame is a key factor in the individual getting stuck in states of regression. Shame is associated with the profound threat reaction of freezing and collapse, associated with the activation of the unmyelinated dorsal polyvagal nerve, where the individual dissociates from their normal sense of self just prior to death. Shame is apparently a sophisticated social emotion whereby the individual regulates themselves to society and learns to fit in, yet it has extremely primitive roots in that the experience of social exclusion and social shaming is extreme.
