Like any negative emotion, guilt causes great discomfort. It creates clamps in the body and this interferes with normal blood circulation. This is how diseases of internal organs and systems can appear. Any negative emotion that gnaws at a person must be eliminated. This is important for physical health and psychological comfort.
What is guilt: definition in psychology
First, let's understand the terminology. Psychology characterizes guilt as deep regrets about what one has done due to the negative consequences for oneself and others. It is inherent in everyone. Only people with mental disorders may not experience it at all.
It is normal for a person to feel guilty about his actions for a short time. Regrets lead to the thought: “We need to fix this as much as possible.” At this point the emotion begins to fade. Feelings switch to correcting mistakes and compensating for damage. But if guilt gnaws at you 24 hours a day and doesn’t give you peace, psychology recognizes such a feeling of guilt as pathological.
Causes of feelings of guilt
A painful feeling of guilt often occurs in people who find themselves in a difficult situation. For example, a person who survived an accident may feel guilty towards the deceased. And this is a distorted, wrong emotion, because such things happen by chance, they cannot be controlled.
A similar situation will occur with a child who has been taught to feel guilty before his parents. For example, a single mother who shows her son that she did not marry because of him will instill in the child a huge inferiority complex. The child will grow up and move away from his mother, because he will subconsciously feel shame in front of her. And this feeling does not contribute to rapprochement. Only if the mother does not manipulate it to control his life. Then another painful extreme arises: unjustified attachment, which should have outlived itself when the child was 5 years old.
The reason could be any other situation, there are thousands of examples.
Mechanism of occurrence
Let's look at a simple example. A child is constantly scolded as a child. Parents try to be strict or show intemperance towards their young son. He realizes that they stop scolding him when he starts to apologize. This is embedded in the fundamental ideas of the child, in his psyche. And then comes the distortion. The boy begins to perceive the imposed feeling of guilt as a way to get away from difficulties, as something that saves him and protects him. This mechanism will be activated constantly, in any situations, even those that do not require this emotion. The child will grow up and will constantly blame himself for all sins. This gives rise to self-doubt and complexes.
Ability to refuse
The habit of always agreeing with your interlocutor on everything can have a detrimental effect on self-esteem. If we get used to pleasing others at all costs, we will definitely lose our sense of self-worth. This happens completely unconsciously. By sacrificing yourself, it is impossible to remain satisfied with life. Full self-realization also becomes impossible. Developing a new behavior strategy is never easy, but you have to try. It is necessary to learn to say “no” to proposals that do not have a pleasant prospect. Think about it, is there always a need to pay attention to all the requests of your distant relatives, work colleagues or just acquaintances? If you are seriously afraid that people will stop communicating with you, then you are in vain. Those who are confident are respected, but those who are indecisive are taken advantage of. Make the right decision for yourself and you can free yourself from a heavy burden.
Guilt complex in psychology
A child’s guilt complex is expressed in his inability to live normally and feel happy. This feeling is constantly present in his life, bringing negativity into it. It is very important to recognize the complex and begin to eliminate it.
In psychology, strict upbringing is often recognized as the cause of guilt in men and women. Parents use a reward system, instill in the child that he is obliged to meet their expectations. Such individuals do not live their own lives: the complex pushes them to constantly try to please their parents’ will. Children do not go where they want, but where their parents say. Guilt haunts them throughout life. They always feel like they are not good enough at what they do.
Another reason for a guilt complex lies in insecurity. A person becomes withdrawn and takes personally all the mistakes and failures that happen to him in life.
How is pathological feeling expressed?
Here are some signs that a person has developed this complex.
- excessive touchiness;
- tendency to self-flagellation;
- lack of self-confidence;
- giving up prospects and aspirations;
- desire to punish oneself, a person does not love himself;
- the desire to be led;
These signs indicate that the complex is fundamentally embedded in the individual. In most cases, this happens in childhood.
It is worth noting that the feeling of guilt is closely related to psychosomatics. Sometimes a person experiences a number of unpleasant symptoms:
- frequent colds;
- disturbances in the functioning of the heart and blood vessels;
- problems with the musculoskeletal system;
- frequent injuries.
In especially severe cases, self-harm and auto-aggression (conscious or unconscious self-harm) occur.
How to find a Loving Mother and make peace with the Accuser
Find someone to love
But you shouldn’t rush to the first person you meet in search of unearthly feelings and love until the end of time. Start with yourself.
A Loving Mom is acceptance and approval of oneself in different ways, support for any oneself; this is the ability to rely on your resources - not to demand and expect care and love from others, but to give it to yourself.
Naomi Raine
That is why the one who will fall in love is, first of all, yourself. You need to find within yourself that very Loving Mother who will come into contact with the Inner Child and protect you from the Accuser. To do this, learn to listen to the Child and respond to him. Take time for yourself, ask yourself about feelings, console, support, wrap yourself in a blanket and give yourself tea if the Child needs it.
One of the methods that Naomi Raine gives in her book is as follows. A person is asked to remember when the most terrible and painful shock happened to him in childhood. After this, you need to write a letter from yourself at that age to your adult self. You can also write a response letter: from the elder to the baby. After this, it is necessary to analyze the feelings that these letters express. This brings a person closer to dialogue with his Inner Child.
Calm the Accuser
When the contact between the Loving Mother and the Child is established, proceed to action. Having learned to separate and hear these two figures, you will easily identify the third one - that same Accuser. And you can neutralize it only by clearly understanding when its voice is heard inside you.
“It’s all my own fault! You should have guessed it right away! Why didn't you think about it? What a clueless one!” - typical phrases of the inner Accuser. Sounds familiar?
Having heard something like this, you need to immediately connect with the same Loving Mother who wrapped you in a blanket. Only now she should no longer communicate with the Child. Make it clear to the raging inner Accuser that the Child cannot be touched, and explain to him who is really to blame and whether he is to blame (analysis of the questions from the first point will help with this). It will take a long time before you learn to pacify the Accuser in no time, but Moscow was not built in a day.
How to get rid of guilt
The basis of almost any complex is fear. Guilt is also anger. The degree of development of the complex, the reaction to it, and the consequences depend on the concentration of fear and anger in the cocktail of human emotions. Anger comes from judgment.
Fear is the basis. A person is always afraid of something:
- lose the respect and approval of others;
- lose a relationship, a loved one;
- lose self-respect.
All this forces us to go to the roots of the problem. You need to understand yourself, imagine the most undesirable outcome of events. Most likely, nothing bad will happen. You will receive the disapproval of someone very important. So what?
How to deal with feelings of guilt? Understand simple truths:
- You don't have to live up to anyone's expectations.
- You are a complete person, a separate unit.
- Relatives should not control you. You may be a completely different person.
- Love is not built on meeting expectations. This is already manipulation using feelings. You must be loved for who you are, because you will not be anyone else. People are born with a ready-made set of personality traits. Education makes only a small contribution. “The aspen tree will not produce oranges.” "An apple from an apple tree."
And further. You don't owe anyone anything. Don't exaggerate your sense of duty. Everyone has their own frames and ideas.
Decreased self-esteem
A guilt complex necessarily changes your attitude towards yourself. The personality suffers, desires and aspirations begin to be perceived as unimportant and not deserving of special attention. There is a significant decrease in self-esteem. Against the backdrop of strong experiences, a person begins to doubt his own capabilities. Any undertakings seem dubious to him and the prospects are vague. This state can be explained quite logically: when we feel guilty about something, the desire to achieve something and make certain efforts disappears.
Guilt: Gestalt psychology
Pathology is often based on an unfinished gestalt. In psychology, this means that a person experiences a strong feeling of guilt due to the inability to return to the past and correct the situation.
Remorse can be so powerful that a person simply cannot cope with it on his own. The person is aware of the problem and strives to eliminate it. To do this, you will need the help of a psychotherapist or productive work on yourself.
Method of public repentance
How to deal with guilt in this way? Psychology offers a method of public repentance. A person is ashamed of his actions and keeps problems to himself. It is necessary to select a group of people to whom you can tell about them. The fear of condemnation will be overcome. Instead of condemnation, a person will receive sympathy and understanding. This is how they work in groups during psychological sessions. You can tell your friends who can listen and understand.
It is very important to talk about the problem. Fear, which serves as the foundation of feeling, will be destroyed.
Working with introjects
How to remove guilt? Let's master a psychological technique that allows us to get rid of false attitudes that we accepted and internalized in childhood.
Write down on a piece of paper all the requirements that you place on yourself.
- I owe others;
- I have to;
- morality and duty oblige me;
All thoughts that you think are true regarding these points need to be written down and rethought.
If you write: “Must study well” or “Must earn well,” then no, you shouldn’t. School performance evaluation has nothing to do with you personally. This is an assessment of how much you have mastered the material, taking into account specific life circumstances. Earnings are also not at all an indicator of human nature. Many famous people: politicians, inventors, actors once started working as a pizza delivery boy. Such things should not affect an individual’s self-esteem or make him feel guilty. All this is temporary and can change at any moment. Saving a drowning person is the work of the drowning person himself. All in your hands.
“I should be slim” is a common female attitude. Constant feeling of guilt before everyone: “I owe them.” No, you shouldn't. A woman doesn't owe anyone anything. A woman can look the way she feels comfortable. A man who forces a woman to conform to his ideas of beauty is stupid, short-sighted, unfair, and selfish. It's not a good idea to spend your whole life wondering whether you will be loved if you gain weight. A woman should not feel guilty for not meeting someone's expectations.
Useful materials on the topic
I have prepared a selection of several courses that will help you get rid of guilt and other negative experiences.
Brain fitness
Description. A very unusual course on getting rid of negativity. It's not cheap, but the price is worth it. By purchasing a course, you first of all receive theoretical material, tests and exercises to work with any negative thoughts. After 1-2 weeks, you receive a device by mail for more effective development of the program - a neural interface.
If you look at the guy in the picture, you will just see the neural interface on his head. This little machine analyzes the waves your brain constantly emits. Naturally, depending on the emotions you experience, these waves will be different. From the neural interface, bluetooth information can be uploaded to your personal Wikium account, where it will be analyzed, after which you will receive specific recommendations on how to get out of an oppressive state.
I have never seen such programs on the Internet before. Wikium experts recommend using the neural interface for only 15 minutes a day, although you can do this more often, especially to see the amplitudes of fluctuations in different emotional states.
Authors: practicing psychologists from Wikium.
Cost: 17,990 rub.
Start studying
Brain Detoxification
Description. This is a cheap training course that will help you quickly remove all negativity from your head and start living a full life. There are ten lessons with theory, but they are accompanied by many exercises, techniques, tests, tables and diagrams.
Of course, not only guilt is analyzed, but also other emotional experiences. Remember, have you ever had a time when an unpleasant situation or memory just wouldn’t leave your head - you constantly replayed thoughts and images in your mind that oppressed you, and you felt more and more depressed? It is these conditions that an expert teacher will help you get out of. No pills or other medications.
Authors: Victor Shiryaev.
Cost: 990 rub.
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Emotional intellect
Description. We need emotional intelligence not only to better understand the emotions of others and communicate more effectively with them. It also helps to control our own emotions and not give them the opportunity to take over our mind.
There are twenty lessons in this course, they are accompanied by tests, exercises and many, many simulators. According to the teacher, every student who undergoes training here gains a sense of calm, self-confidence, and can easily stop any negative experiences. After completing the first ten lessons, you will notice that you begin to concentrate better on the tasks at hand and fall asleep calmly at night.
Author: Oleg Kalinichev.
Cost: 990 rub.
Start studying
Be sure to check out the free materials that Wikium offers. First of all, webinars. They are held weekly and the topics change periodically. Most often, the topic of the webinar is the human brain, its secrets and features of work. There are also purely psychological topics - on communication, emotions, interaction with other people.
The second interesting thing is free exercise equipment. There are one hundred of them, they are divided into groups according to the skills they develop. Most simulators are aimed at memory and thinking, but there are, for example, an emotional intelligence simulator and other programs on psychological topics. There is no need to pay for anything.
Mental self-regulation from 4Brain
Description . Another high-quality material that will help you calm down and start living a full life, despite the stress and negativity around you. You will undergo training for 5 weeks, the total number of lessons here is 25, the duration of one lesson is only 20-30 minutes.
The authors try to give as little theoretical information as possible and focus on practice. You will practice your skills through games, exercises, and tests. The course contains the most popular and modern techniques from domestic and foreign sources.
You can study from a tablet computer or phone, because the 4Brain interface is well optimized for mobile devices. The summary of materials with test results remains with you after complete completion of the training.
The course is not suitable for those who have been experiencing very deep depression for several months or years. To get out of it, it is better to contact a professional psychotherapist.
Authors : Alena Luneva, Dmitry Radin, Evgeny Buyanov, Kirill Nogales.
Cost : 1,990 rub.
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How to get rid of guilt: simple psychological techniques
How to overcome feelings of guilt on your own? Psychology has the answers. These techniques are suitable for independent practice.
To apologize
How to overcome feelings of guilt? If you are guilty of someone, talk to that person and ask for forgiveness. Tell me how you are suffering. Perhaps you will find understanding and sympathy. And if not, you did what was in your power. Your job is to admit your mistake and ask for forgiveness. And what the recipient of the apology should do with this is already the responsibility of his conscience.
All people make mistakes. Life is given to us without instructions. Forgive yourself for being only human.
Imaginary moral judgment
How to overcome feelings of guilt? When you are mentally judging yourself, don't forget to give your line of defense the floor. Otherwise it's unfair. Yes, you are to blame. But you must defend yourself. Give arguments, explain your action. Perhaps the prosecution will lose if the defense works. The verdict can always be appealed.
Confrontation with the Accuser
When another person accuses you, defend yourself. Not all situations are clear cut. To stop the accuser from punishing you with words, immediately apologize. This will disarm the enemy. Then tell your point of view. Say you understand the person. Such confrontation is better than empty accusations and shouting. The main thing is that you do not reproach yourself. This feeling is not helpful. Don't let others use this technique for manipulation.
Desire to please in everything
The guilt complex most seriously affects relationships with the outside world. A person ceases to feel capable of great achievements and is afraid to act in accordance with his inner convictions. He unconsciously develops a desire to please everyone. This is done in order not to anger the interlocutor or provoke the development of a quarrel. However, the habit of meeting other people's expectations does no good to anyone. Soon a person loses his individuality and ceases to understand what he needs in life. This is the case when the feeling of guilt can be so overwhelming from within that there is no strength left for active action.
Individual aspirations
In order for the result to ultimately be positive, you need to know what you should move towards in life. Your individual aspirations should be as clear as possible. Some people suffer from not knowing where to direct their efforts. This is a big mistake. To free yourself from the oppressive feeling of guilt, it is worth delving into the process of self-realization. By constantly looking for new opportunities, you will not miss your chance. Respect your desires and try to follow them.
Error correction
If you are tormented by feelings of guilt for a very specific reason, think about whether you can try to change something. After all, there are no hopeless situations. It can be very helpful to look for ways to feel better. Some mistakes in life can be easily corrected. The main thing is that a person has a sincere desire to perform a good deed. In this case, self-awareness, behavior and even some personal characteristics completely change. The mistakes of the past cease to weigh on us when we let go of grievances and disappointments. Forgive yourself and find the strength to apologize to those you once made suffer.
