ABSTRACT
Etymologically, the word humiliation derives from humus or earth and, in language usage, it shifts to "on the ground," "of the earth," or more indirectly, "lowly" or "lowdown." In the context of this extreme of shame, our use of the word humiliation can imply death and decay in the earth rather than the alternative, the birth and growth that spring from the earth. The difference between humiliation and mortification seems therefore to rest on humiliation's more pronounced reliance on some internal or external object, one that may very well be the container of a projective identification. Dynamically, humiliation and mortification can be situated within the paranoid-schizoid position. In this position, as defined originally by Melanie Klein, emotional experience and concrete thinking take precedence over the focused concern for others, sense of responsibility, and guilt feelings that characterize the more integrated, whole object-related, superego-based, thoughtful, depressive position.
