ABSTRACT
Adolescence is a complex time in any individual’s life. Once characterized as a period of “storm and stress” by G. Stanley Hall (1904), many teens are faced with a plethora of burning questions, confusion about identity, and a strong desire to belong. They are learning to navigate the sting of intense emotions like rejection and shame. Shame, an innate emotional experience, underlies some of the complex choices and emotional turmoil that affect most teens (Lewis, 1971; Tangney & Dearing,2002). Silvan Tomkins (1963, p. 351) described shame in this way:
If distress is the affect of suffering, shame is the affect of indignity, of defeat, of transgression and of alienation …. While terror and distress hurt, they are wounds inflicted from outside which penetrate the smooth surface of the ego; but shame is felt as an inner torment, a sickness of the soul. It does not matter whether the humiliated one has been shamed by derisive laughter or whether he mocks himself. In any event, he feels himself naked, defeated, alienated, lacking in dignity or worth.
