ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on an analysis of self-disgust and its role in complex emotions such as shame, guilt and embarrassment, together with a discussion of the role of these disgust-derived emotions in fears and phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) and depression. It briefly examines the potential role of disgust in appetitive disorders such as bulimia, anorexia and certain sexual disorders. The chapter examines the importance of contamination reactions in obsessional disorders. It focuses on the problems of suicide and parasuicide. In the cognitive theory presented by Oatley and Johnson-Laird disgust was also given a central role as one of their five basic emotions. The chapter demonstrates that the Schematic Propositional Analogical and Associative Representational Systems (SPAARS) approach to disgust and the disgust-based complex emotions such as guilt and shame has much to offer. The complex emotions of guilt, shame and embarrassment are part of the group known as self-conscious.
