ABSTRACT
Whether shame is useful, organic, or universal is debatable, however, there is agreement that it has potential to harm the self and mitigating those impacts is beneficial to mental, emotional, and physical health. The approaches to treatment and its outcomes are as wide-ranging and as varied as shame theories. A theme that prevails throughout the literature is that re-owning disowned parts of the self is fundamental to healing shame. Von Franz writes that archetypes are the source of creativity by way of emotionally charged images in the collective unconscious, "if that activated content can be translated into communicable language beneficial creative inspirations may result". Analyst Ann Ulanov examines the healing function of creativity through a Jungian lens and offers another perspective. Though she does not refer to shame directly, her concept of madness shares many of shame's qualities; most notably, ruptures in the self and the attendant remoteness from community.
