ABSTRACT
Shame and the threat of shame are pervasive features of human life. If shame has been a particular feature of the patient's childhood experience, then inevitably there is shame in the transference. The core of shame and vulnerability in narcissistically disturbed patients may be covered by layers of protective strategies and organizations—such as the "psychic retreats" described by John Steiner. It is important to recognize that severe shame experienced in childhood is indeed a catastrophe—a psychic devastation—and to return there would be felt to involve a descent into madness and annihilation. The shame threats perceived, consciously or unconsciously, in the psychoanalytic situation are various: the acknowledgment of need and vulnerability might be experienced as a shameful "one-down" position. There is a tendency in psychoanalytic circles to regard the search for cues regarding expected behaviour as somehow pathological—an expression of a "false self", or a chameleon-like "as if" personality.
