> Nothing good comes from shame.

While this may seem harsh at a surface level, are you really sure nothing good comes from shame? Is shame always an unhealthy emotion to experience? It seems to me that it is effective in focusing attention on potential personal misjudgement or misbehavior, and can strengthen resolve to break bad habits or otherwise ensure a better outcome for oneself going forward.

Early this year, I attended the funeral of a somebody from the office. She was overweight, and for many years avoided seeing a doctor because she was embarrassed to be so heavy. The bad news was delivered by a heart attack at age 60 or so.

Yes, my experience with CBT very much leads me to believe that shame is a highly destructive emotion, more likely to cause someone to withdraw and disengage from life than to promote lasting positive change in behavior.

This is probably because you were shamed for things that were actually harmless. There is definitely a problem with the level to which shame is used indiscriminately to control people.

But no emotion is inherently destructive. We should feel shame at certain things. If you tripped an old lady and didn’t feel shame, I’d say you were a psychopath, or if you simply threatened to kill anyone who you didn’t like.

It’s also notable that absence of shame is characteristic of psychopathy, and even Buddhist psychology states that an absence of shame is an impediment to enlightenment.

I completely support the idea that excessive or inappropriate shame is a major part of many if not most psychological disorders. Nothing supports the idea that all shame is destructive.

On the topic of obesity, I do agree that shame is unlikely to help. In fact I suspect that shame is more likely to be part of the cause.

Shame/guilt appears to exist in other species too - Many pet dogs for example will act very differently after it's just eaten something it knows it shouldn't have...

For a behaviour trait to exist in species far from each other in the evolutionary tree suggests there is a real survival benefit to having it.

Doesn't mean it is beneficial in all cases, or that it doesn't feel shit though!

This is far from universal. Many people simply lack any motivation to change when not confronted with shame.

>We surely don't want people to be shamed or ashamed for being overweight. Nothing good comes from shame.

Do we? Society as a whole benefits from shaming alcoholics, smokers, people who beat their kids etc.

Yeah, uh, let's not lump in child abuse with addiction. I'm also going to call bullshit on shaming addicts benefits society.

There is no contradiction. You can tell obese people that their condition will cause them various troubles that they wouldn't have otherwise. You don't have to resort to shaming them for that. Beauty is subjective.

> You can tell obese people that their condition will cause them various troubles that they wouldn't have otherwise. You don't have to resort to shaming them for that.

Many people call that shaming. This distinction isn't as clear as you suggest.

These days, I wouldn't even broach the topic unless I knew the person intimately.

The whole stop smoking campaign was based on shame. It's highly addictive, its the only way to make people stop. We need to start heavily shaming. It's a very useful tool in behavior change of the resistant.

I agree that shame can be a powerful tool, but I believe there's ways to have more impact than shaming individuals for being addicted etc. Crazy idea: why don't we shame the people creating addictive products for profit at the cost of their customer's health, instead of their victims? I saw a campaign in Paris last year shaming people who throw away packaging with pictures of stuff that didn't feel like it was necessary packaging in the first place, why not shame the companies that sell unnecessary packaging instead? Poeple who create and maintain these systems are who I think should feel ashamed at least.