Giving Shame Air and Light: How Therapy Helps Break the Silence

Shame is sticky. It clings quietly to our inner world, making us feel that we are not enough, not worthy, or not lovable. It makes us want to hide. But here’s the truth: shame cannot survive when it is spoken, witnessed, and met with compassion.

As Brown (2007, 2010) so powerfully writes:

“We all have it. Nobody wants to talk about it. Not talking about it makes it worse.” For Brown, shame “thrives in secrecy, silence, and judgment.”

One of the most healing things therapy can offer is this: a space where shame can come up for air.

Let’s get real for a moment.

So many of us walk through life trying to keep our shame neatly tucked away like a messy room we don’t want anyone to see. We push it down, cover it up with perfectionism or people-pleasing, and hope no one notices. But deep healing begins when we bring those hidden parts into the light, in the presence of someone who won’t flinch or turn away.

As Bradshaw (2005) explains, shame’s hidden nature prevents resolution. It festers in the dark, and therapy helps us shine a light on it, gently and steadily.

In a safe, attuned therapeutic relationship, we can begin to externalize shame. This doesn’t mean spilling everything in one go. It’s more like gently nudging it out of the shadows, one piece at a time. As Johnson (n.d.) puts it, this “nudging” out shameful parts with compassion allows us to integrate these aspects of ourselves rather than be dominated by them. In doing so, we begin to feel seen, not for the masks we wear, but for who we truly are.

The impact of this kind of witnessing is profound. McWilliams (1994) goes so far as to say that shame softens when someone sees your vulnerable truth and responds not with judgment, but with acceptance. The process of being seen and held in this way makes space for new stories to form. Stories that aren’t distorted by shame but rooted in more accurate ways of viewing ourselves. Especially when we are working with an emotion like shame that makes us want to disappear, this kind of relational safety can be nothing short of transformative (DeYoung, 2022).

Digging Up Shame

The question then becomes, how can we explore shame in therapy? How can we find the threads of shame when they’ve been woven so tightly into the fabric of who we think we are?

As Kaufman (1997) suggests, therapy can be a tool that helps to excavate our shame and make it conscious. Once we begin to identify our shame, we can begin to trace its roots. Often, these origins lie in early relational experiences. Particularly, moments when our needs, emotions, differences or mistakes were met with disconnection, ridicule, or rejection.

Some questions can invite us to reflect on the early roots of our shame, not in a checklist kind of way, but as gentle doorways into our memories. They are gentle invitations to attune to moments from the past that may still echo in our present.

We might ask ourselves:

What did it feel like to be at a family dinner as a child?

How were emotions expressed, or suppressed, in our family?

How were our needs responded to?

Did love feel conditional?

What happened when someone made a mistake?

 Was there room for differences?

These reflections can help uncover the subtle but powerful messages we absorbed about who we were allowed to be (DeYoung 2022). When brought into therapy, these early relational dynamics can help us understand how shame first took hold and how we might begin to loosen its grip.

 This is why therapy matters. Shame disrupts the ability to connect the dots and make meaning from experience. It scrambles the emotional signal and tells us that we are the problem, not that something difficult happened to us. A skilled therapist can help us decode the emotional signal, restore coherence, and create the safety needed to build a more integrated self-narrative.

Letting Light In

At the heart of this work is the belief that no one was born ashamed. Shame is learned. It grows in environments where emotions, needs, and differences weren’t met with empathy. But healing is possible. Therapy becomes the space where shame gets a new ending. Where the parts of us that have been silenced can finally speak.

Bringing shame out into the air and light doesn’t make us weak. It makes us human. And more than that, it moves us towards feeling a little bit lighter with each story we share.

In your therapy journey, you won’t be forced to dig into shame before you're ready. However, please know this: when you do decide to open that door, you won’t be alone. Together, we’ll turn toward the stories shame has tried to hide and begin rewriting them with compassion and care. It’s not easy work, but it is so worth it!

All of this to say:  the antidote to shame isn’t perfection, it’s connection.

To find out more, you can explore my references:

Bradshaw, J. (2005). Healing the Shame That Binds You. Health Communications.

Brown, B. (2007). I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t). Gotham.

Brown, B. (2010). The Gifts of Imperfection. Hazelden.

DeYoung, P. A. (2022). Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: A Relational/Neurobiological Approach. Routledge.

Johnson, H. (n.d.). How to Work with Shame. Online course by the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioural Medicine.

Kaufman, G. (1992). Shame: The power of caring (3rd ed.). Rochester, VT: Schenkman Books.

McWilliams, N. (1994). Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process. Guilford.