ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the guilt that women in the 1970s said they felt about saying no and ended with a police superintendent refusing to blame another in order to exonerate himself. Though it was not so intended, it serves as another illustration of the developmental line from the type of guilt that develops during toddlerhood to the guilt associated with well-developed adolescents. Certainly temporary-state guilt usually has a positive function: it facilitates social communication, helps attune behaviour and is part of emotion regulation. Precursors to the capacity to feel guilt probably emerge around the second year of life, after the child's empathic capacity and cognitive abilities have already developed somewhat. Mild guilt-proneness as a character trait, just like temporary-state guilt, is not so bad, as guilt does not readily acquire the toxic intensity that shame potentially has. However, adolescents can most certainly suffer greatly from neurotic guilt, especially when there is stagnation in development, and thinking.
