What is the difference between guilt and shame?

David and Marva Coombs

Guilt is the feeling people have when they have done something wrong and feel bad about it. Shame goes much deeper: people feel they are bad. They feel rotten to the core and think they have little or no redeeming value. Guilt is relieved by repenting, forsaking past sins, asking for forgiveness, seeking actively to live a better life. Shame is that overwhelming dark feeling that afflicts certain people and they refuse to let it go. They believe they will never be worthy to receive forgiveness from God, from others and certainly not from themselves.

Guilt plays a healthy role in helping people repent. Such feelings keep them on track, let them know when they have crossed lines and motivates them to make course corrections. But shame is another matter. It presents a difficult challenge of preventing those who love them from convincing those steeped in shame to let it go.

I was counseling with a young single pregnant woman who had purposely aborted her baby, even after her family and friends tried so hard to convince her not to do it. But she could see no way out of her predicament except to abort. Immediately after the operation, she felt she had committed an unforgivable sin and fell into a deep state of depression. She made several attempts at suicide and was admitted to a treatment center. 

She allowed me to meet with her in private sessions but refused to attend group therapy. She remained distant and uncooperative but, paradoxically, wanted to continue our sessions. Apparently, she sensed me as someone who hadn’t judged her and maybe I was her link to the outside world. Six months had passed when I began to wonder if she was ever going to come out of her dark, self-imposed prison. 

Her shame was impervious to medication, counseling and encouragement offered by family and friends. She came from a deeply religious home. Regardless of efforts to explain the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ and how she could be forgiven, nothing worked. She had built an impregnable wall around herself, preventing anything or anyone to get in. In her shame, she was convinced she was worthless and unredeemable.

But then a ray of hope began to shine upon our sessions. She gave herself permission to smile and began to take better care of herself. She bathed more often and cut her long hair which she had used to cover much of her face. She enjoyed her food. She opened up in her sessions and began attending group therapy. It was like watching a person being reborn. It wasn’t long till she was able and willing to leave the facility and live a normal life.

I asked her what the turning point was in her therapy that began her healing. She told me she felt she had simply suffered long enough for her sin. She was ready to let go of the need of further punishment. It was as if she believed she had to atone for her own sin before she could accept love from others and particularly love from her Heavenly Father. 

This is an example of those who suffer from shame. They have to hit bottom before they can begin to move up. They have so developed the inner language of self-destruction that learning the language of self-support is slow to come. Because of their negative self-talk, they have trouble accepting the truth about their self-worth. 

As they come to believe that all sins are forgivable, as they realize that God still loves them and always has, as they realize there is no exception to the word “all” and no matter what they have done, they finally believe in the atonement of Jesus Christ and that it applies to them. 

Through the process of repentance, the Lord’s love heals all of us from all of our past sins. Our God is big enough to deal with all of our guilt and with all of our shame.

Dr. Coombs is a professional marriage, family and individual counselor. Call 435-705-3579 or email to dmcoombs@gmail.com or visit drcoombsmarriageandfamily.blogspot.com.