Secret #72: Transforming Guilt and Shame with Dr. Carolyn Allard
Recommended Episodes
Guilt and shame often linger long after trauma, quietly shaping how we see ourselves and our relationships. In this episode, clinical psychologist Dr. Carolyn Allard explains why guilt and shame can be adaptive—and how they become harmful when they overstay their welcome.
Highlights:
Trauma-related guilt and shame can begin as survival strategies but become non-adaptive over time
Non-adaptive guilt and shame (NAGS) fuel avoidance, people-pleasing, and self-blame
Hindsight bias intensifies guilt by judging past actions with information we didn’t have at the time
Values-based decision making helps replace guilt-driven choices with intentional living
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro and guest background
06:51 Adaptive vs. non-adaptive guilt and shame
11:00 Trauma, attachment, and survival responses
21:00 How guilt and shame generalize across relationships
29:36 Insight vs. practice: why awareness isn’t enough
30:26 Hindsight bias and the “million-dollar question”
36:44 Values, disappointment, and self-compassion
44:21 Takeaways and closing
More about Dr. Carolyn Allard:
Purchase Carolyn’s Books:
Transform Your Guilt and Shame: Evidence-Based Strategies to Heal from Trauma and Adversity (2024) Carolyn B. Allard
Trauma Informed Guilt Reduction (TrIGR) Therapy (2019) Sonya Norman, Carolyn Allard, Kendall Browned, Christy Capone, Brittany Davis, Edward Kubany
Military Sexual Trauma: Current Knowledge and Future Directions (2014) Carolyn Allard & Melissa Platt (Editors)
Drinking Among Female Victims of Intimate Partner Violence (2010) Sonya Norman, Kendall Wilkins, Kimberly Baeressen, Steven Thorp, Regina Huelsenbeck, Erin Grimes, Carie Rodgers, Carolyn Allard
Carolyn Allard received her B.A. (Hons.) from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oregon. She is a licensed psychologist in the state of California and has her Board Certification in Clinical Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). She is Distinguished Professor and has been serving as Program Director of the Clinical Psychology PhD Program at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) of Alliant University since 2018. Before that, she served as Program Director of the Military Sexual Trauma & Interpersonal Trauma Clinic and San Diego Advanced Fellowship in Women’s Health at the Veteran’s Affairs San Diego Healthcare System for 10 years.
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Reach out and let us know you are listening and what you would like to hear on the show - email:lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast@gmail.com
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Secret #72: Transforming Guilt and Shame with Carolyn Allard
[00:00:00]
[00:00:40] Introduction and Guest Background
[00:00:40] Emma Waddington: Welcome to Life's Digital Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington.
[00:00:45] Chris McCurry: I'm Chris McCurry, and today we have the great privilege of having a conversation with Carolyn Allard, PhD abi, which for those of you who don't know, is board certified in professional psychology. It's, [00:01:00] uh. quite an honor to achieve that. She received her bachelor's degree from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. And her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon in Eugene. She has, she is a licensed and board certified clinical psychologist who has served as Director of Veterans Affairs, San Diego Healthcare System, military sexual trauma and interpersonal trauma clinic. The advanced fellowship in women's health, she is associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, clinical director of the private sector residential mental health program. She has taken the time out of her busy life to join us. She is the author or a co-author of several books most recently. 2024 transform your Guilt and Shame Evidence-based Strategies to Heal from Trauma and Adversity published by the American Psychological Association. Welcome. We're [00:02:00] gonna have an interesting conversation. I know.
[00:02:02] Carolyn Allard's Journey into Guilt and Shame Research
[00:02:02] Chris McCurry: tell us about your journey, how you got. To where you are in terms of your understanding of guilt and shame, because I know it's been a very interesting journey and you've worked very hard with your research and your clinical work to really understand it's very difficult, challenging, and all too common situation. So how did, how did you get to this point?
[00:02:22] Carolyn Allard: You're right, it's an all too common sort of phenomenon. And the, the, that's precisely why I got into this sort of area of research and treatment development. I was uh, trained to. Trauma therapist. So trained in the most evidence-based treatments we have for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, like prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, and was effectively treating lots of, uh, clients and patients but also noticing that sometimes people would sort of plateau and not recover or they wouldn't engage in therapy. [00:03:00] They would drop out early. And noticing that, um, some of the stalling was due to sort of this guilt and shame that often wasn't spoken about readily. We didn't ask about it necessarily very much in our assessments. And I had the great fortune of being also trained for a research study in a uh. Intervention specifically created, developed for women who experienced intimate partner violence that had a module. This was a, a treatment development by Edward Banney that had a module specifically targeting the guilt and shame that lots of women who experience intimate partner violence. Experience and that is a big part of their post-traumatic distress. And we were noticing amazing outcomes from that treatment. And it especially was coming around right after we did [00:04:00] that guilt module and everything else just sort of was icing on the cake. And we did in indeed find that there was a mediation effect such that the women who were getting better in that treatment. In PTSD and depression we're getting better because of, uh, the reduction in the guilt and shame they were experiencing. So the reduction in guilt and shame occurred first and then they were, experiencing if that if that happened, they were experiencing better outcomes in the PTSD and treatment. So. My colleagues and I who were trained in this thought, hmm. We're seeing kind of some guilt and shame that we're really not well equipped to address in the folks that we're treating for PTSD related to other forms of trauma, like combat, like accidents, like military sexual trauma, and other kinds of child abuse and other kinds of sexual violence. And so we started applying the skills that we [00:05:00] learned from that treatment and noticing. really wonderful effects there, but because we didn't want to assume that it was those strategies that was making people better, uh, maybe it was us, we're just great therapists and we were making people better. We wanted to start testing the intervention, and so we developed an intervention that's more generic to different types of trauma. Using the same kinds of strategies. Similar strategies, and adding a few here and there for the guilt and shame that showed up in our clients that experienced other forms of trauma. And we started testing it out and great where we were getting great outcomes. And so that's why we wrote the therapy manual, have continued to research the effectiveness of the treatment.
[00:05:48] Carolyn Allard: And then, uh, because of my commitment to. Increasing access to mental health and psychological scci science. I was compelled to write a self-help [00:06:00] version of the intervention to make sure it gets in the hands of as many people who could benefit from it. And so that's the story. I think story was a long, drawn out explanation.
[00:06:14] Chris McCurry: No, no, I, it's uh, it's, it's a path that. Has a lot of credibility to it. 'cause you worked very hard at making sure that what you were doing was solidly based in, in the science and the experiences of the people that you worked with. And then, as you say, broadening it to other, other sources of trauma, is, is fantastic.
[00:06:35] Chris McCurry: I mean, that's, that's what we hope for from psychological science. So, And the self-help book is the 2024 book, and we'll have, we'll have that book and your websites and other, other things in the show notes for this episode that people can check out.
[00:06:51] Understanding Adaptive vs. Non-Adaptive Guilt and Shame
[00:06:51] Chris McCurry: I was really taken with your idea nags non-adaptive guilt and shame, which implies that there might be adaptive guilt [00:07:00] and shame.
[00:07:00] Chris McCurry: So can you talk about that distinction?
[00:07:04] Carolyn Allard: There sure is adaptive versions of guilt and shame. Like all emotions, we have emotions. For a reason. They're adaptive reasons. We have survived and evolved as human beings in part because we have these adaptive systems, like our emotions. So you just think, basically speaking like you have fear to protect you from dangerous things, right?
[00:07:25] Carolyn Allard: So you get outta the way of the moving. Traffic or you run away from something, dangerous that's, coming your way. So, guilt and shame are not unlike the any other emotion that we have and that they have an adaptive function. Guilt and shame tend to be socially adaptive in that they help us maintain connections with groups. We know that as human beings we're more likely to survive if we have the protection and support of groups. And so you think about sort of even. about doing something [00:08:00] that might hurt somebody else that you're sort of reliant on in a group to survive. You feel guilty and it stops you from doing it.
[00:08:07] Carolyn Allard: Nevermind if you do end up hurting somebody. You take actions to make amends, to repair whatever disruption you might have caused in your relationships. Same with shame. It helps us. Maintain relationships by sort of taking a one down approach if maybe we're challenging somebody who might have some power over us so that we kind of stay under the umbrella of the, the leadership or, or the other person who feels like they need to have some power and some control. Now when we're looking at trauma and guilt I mean trauma and guilt and shame those aspects, those adaptive aspects of, of those emotions do come through and that's why they're elicited. [00:09:00] However, they sort of last beyond what's needed for the situation. So we can talk about different types of, uh, traumatic experiences and why different types of guilt and shame might show up. but I think I've, I tried to address your question about sort of the adaptiveness of guilt and shame and how that's different from what we're talking about when we talk about nags, when it's like moved beyond what's adaptive.
[00:09:31] Chris McCurry: So how do we know when we're crossing that line between adaptive or non-adaptive? 'cause I imagine it could be situational. It could be developmental. What's adaptive for an 8-year-old is not gonna be adaptive for an 18-year-old. But how, how do we, how do we sort that out in a, Too complicated way.
[00:09:52] Carolyn Allard: Yeah, I have two ways of kind of thinking about that. One way is a, a quick sort of. E turning, cheat way is to like [00:10:00] think about any emotions, right? Like they serve their pur purpose momentarily. They do not need to stay beyond what the situation calls for. So like something terrible happens, I feel a little bit of guilt and shame and I kind of, it helps me evaluate the situation.
[00:10:20] Carolyn Allard: Like what, is there anything I could have done differently? What to did I do that might've, caused this or disrupted our relationships? What can I do to repair it and then I move on and it doesn't have to linger. Right. Same with like if I'm afraid because there's something coming my way that's scary, I deal with the situation I survive.
[00:10:39] Carolyn Allard: I don't need to stay scared unless the threat continues. Right. The other way is you mentioned in terms of like contextually, yes, it will, guilt and shame plays a role differently depending on the context.
[00:10:53] The Impact of Trauma on Guilt and Shame
[00:11:00] Carolyn Allard: So one of the ways that guilt and shame shows up in trauma is if I'm being, abused or betrayed by somebody that I'm dependent on. Like the epitome example of that would be if I'm a child and my parent is abusing me, right? So I'm dependent on that adult and as children, we're generally dependent on any caregiver, any adult around and that if that. Person, that caregiver is abusing me. I have to do whatever I can to maintain, attach them attachment to them regardless, right? Because I'm dependent on them for my survival. And so it's adaptive for me to do whatever I can to maintain attachment. And one of the ways that we do that is we blame ourselves for whatever's happening. So I feel, I'm guilty of this treatment basically. That way I can maintain attachment with this caregiver because otherwise what would happen is [00:12:00] we would be allowing our betrayal detection system, which is also socially adaptive when there's not this power imbalance. Right. As in the case of the child and the parent, the cheater detection or betrayal detection system compels me to confront the person and say, Hey, stop what you're doing. You're hurting me. Or withdraw if they're not willing to stop, right? As a child dependent on this other person, I can't confront them because I'm actually going to increase the chance that I. Become abused. I can't withdraw because I can't survive without them. They're providing some kind of survival resource to me, right? Whether it's food, shelter, right? So I have to maintain attachment, so I have to turn off that cheater detection system. I have to do whatever I can to maintain attachment. In some cases it means dissociation. Like not being aware that [00:13:00] this is happening. And in some cases, and usually both is happening, I'm gonna put the blame on me. There's something wrong with me. I must have done something to deserve it. I'm gonna take a shame sort of stance, like, not, uh, threaten the other person, kind of, let them think that I am, I'm putting the blame on me, and then I can maintain attachment and survive. Totally adaptive, not accurate, but adaptive,
[00:13:31] Carolyn Allard: right
[00:13:32] Carolyn Allard: to maintain attachment. The problem is just like a lot of adaptive survival techniques that we have. They last beyond outside of the context of the trauma. So when I grow up, I become an adolescent. An adult. I'm no longer dependent on this person, but that guilt and shame is gonna come with me unless I pay attention to it. I put it on the [00:14:00] table and I have to be willing therefore, to feel it intensely. And that's a lot of the reason that people. Don't because it guilt and shame are some of the most diversive types of feelings that we can have. They're not usually seen as positive, right? We wanna stay away from them. We don't want access to them. We get really good at avoiding what we don't want. Um, and so, but by doing so, we carry it forward with us. It kind of snowballs and generalizes. We feel more guilt and shame and we act in more ways that make us feel guilt and shame. And we never allow it to sort of dissipate beyond its adaptive meat.
[00:14:44] Chris McCurry: Well, you must have encountered this in your work with folks in the military. You can see that in people in your work situations where they have an abusive boss, somebody who's a. relationship that's difficult to extricate [00:15:00] oneself from. Are probably lots of opportunities for people to, to be in this situation.
[00:15:04] Chris McCurry: It's terrible.
[00:15:06] Carolyn Allard: Absolutely. Yeah. That dependent relationship is not just child and and caregiver. That was
[00:15:11] Carolyn Allard: like sort of the epitome
[00:15:12] Carolyn Allard: example. But there are lots of examples where we have dependence in some form or or other on another person. And you mentioned a lot of really great examples.
[00:15:23] Therapeutic Approaches to Addressing Guilt and Shame
[00:15:23] Chris McCurry: Yeah, so a lot of the work in therapy then is to bring this into the room to allow people to experience it, survive experiencing it know that they're strong enough to experience it. And, and yeah, I was thinking about it in terms of, the old Freudian thing of making the unconscious conscious. Where you can be more mindful of it, you can articulate it, wrap words around it all of those things. So can you tell us a little bit more about that process of getting people to that point?
[00:15:57] Carolyn Allard: so if, if it's okay when we come, [00:16:00] can I come back to after? And if I forget, remind me
[00:16:03] Carolyn Allard: that I wanna come back to that point you made about what Freud says, like bringing the conscious the unconscious conscious because that's not sufficient.
[00:16:10] Carolyn Allard: So, so, but it is an important first part and for a lot of people it might be sufficient. So the first piece is just giving this kind of information. To people who are experiencing nags, who are stuck in non-adaptive guilt and shame is just to let them know. This is so common when we experience trauma and adversity. It's very likely that we've experienced guilt and shame. some, some of these adaptive reasons or for, evaluating what happened, learning from it for, protecting ourselves, for surviving, all these different reasons.
[00:16:47] Carolyn Allard: Very, very common. In fact, in my line of work, and I work with traumatized people ex almost exclusively, I have never seen a case of somebody who's dealing with [00:17:00] post-traumatic distress, who is not also suffering from some form of nags, some form of trauma related guilt and shame that's just lingered way beyond its need and, so just kind of telling people that, giving them that psychoeducation about the relationship built between guilt and shame and, post-traumatic distress and how, it may have come about in a for adaptive reasons, but it's kind of lingered too long and the reasons why some of those things, why that happened can be. Invaluable for people to find out because it gives them an explanation for what they're experiencing, which is very relieving, right? It's much better than like, what is wrong with me? I'm crazy. Or like the, and it also opens this door of, well, maybe that's what's going on here, and maybe. You are not, you don't have really great reason for feeling guilt and shame.
[00:17:58] Carolyn Allard: Like you have great reason in that. [00:18:00] There's an explanation why you feel it, but you don't. You don't have great reason for holding onto it because it's maybe whatever your mind has been telling you is not a hundred percent accurate. And so it gives them that sort of little opening, little wiggle room of, Hmm, maybe there's another way that I can live with this.
[00:18:17] Carolyn Allard: Maybe there's another way that I can think about these. Feelings of guilt and shame I've been having. So it just, that psychoeducation part is so important and that's why I focus on that in the book. Just give people all of the information that we have about why guilt and shame is there with trauma and adversity. But then the other piece is. Okay. For some people that can be extremely relieving. Some people, that's all they need. It's like, oh, I feel guilt and shame because I was dependent on this other person and I had to maintain attachment. I can let go of it. I've seen that happen not often. Sometimes, just knowing why I am afraid of something [00:19:00] doesn't mean I'm gonna stop being afraid of something, right? So just knowing that insight is often not sufficient, it's super helpful and a necessary step to the next step, which is, okay, well if we know why these things happen, why you have the guilt and shame, and how it might not be a hundred percent accurate. Let's see, to what extent yours is. Let's explore that.
[00:19:22] Carolyn Allard: Are you willing to sort of start maybe seeing things in a different way then that allows us to go through all of the the different ways that we might chip away at this guilt and shame and the thoughts that they have that keep reinforcing them.
[00:19:35] Chris McCurry: No, I, I think it's very helpful if people can understand that they, there's an old saying things are the way they are because they got that way. And you, you find yourself at this, in this situation in your life because you, it got that way and,
[00:19:53] Chris McCurry: and the reason it got that way is because. It was adaptive, blaming yourself, saying I shouldn't [00:20:00] have been walking down that dark alley.
[00:20:02] Chris McCurry: It's all my fault. Gives us a sense that we have some control. So, I know not, not to walk down dark alleys, as opposed to it was random, which is too frightening to consider.
[00:20:14] Chris McCurry: so yeah, we got to this point and we can, we can get out of it. But it's not easy. That's, all the vast majority of our clients can attest.
[00:20:23] Chris McCurry: We, we love, we love those ones that come in and give them those brilliant ideas and they walk out cured and
[00:20:30] Carolyn Allard: Right. Right.
[00:20:31] Chris McCurry: But mostly it's just a lot of hard work, it between therapist and client.
[00:20:36] Emma Waddington: I see a lot of clients who do have a history of, some trauma, a childhood or even sort of, the loss of a child or something that really is quite incredibly distressing and guilt and shame become a part of their narrative around it.
[00:20:54] Emma Waddington: I think the piece that is.
[00:20:56] Generalization of Guilt and Shame in Different Contexts
[00:20:58] Emma Waddington: You are alluding to and that gets them, really stuck [00:21:00] in some ways is how it sort of really generalizes to other relationships in as much as they might start to feel guilty if they. Don't say no to other people or put their needs first in another context.
[00:21:17] Emma Waddington: And often that part is confusing. Like they can understand that they feel guilty because they wish they could have done something differently to prevent, like, you hear these horrible stories of, of violence and why didn't I stop it? What's wrong with me?
[00:21:31] Emma Waddington: They can understand that that. Guilt and shame in that context made sense and it was adaptive. I think sometimes it's confusing to see how it generalizes. Suddenly you find yourself in a completely different situation where you could speak up but you don't, or you continue to feel a sense of responsibility for, you, you feel bad because you make a mistake I find that that's the piece that sometimes is very confusing to clients and even to myself. I'm like, why? [00:22:00] Why do I feel so guilty? And like you say, guilt and shame is a particularly difficult emotions to navigate. So I wondered if you had any thoughts around that piece.
[00:22:10] Carolyn Allard: Yes. So once we have guilt and shame and it kind of sets in as nags. We, we just have this general sense of guilt and shame.
[00:22:20] Carolyn Allard: So, you'll hear me always saying guilt and shame together. Right? And nags is non-adaptive guilt and shame. And that's because when it comes, when it's in the context of trauma and adversity and it sticks around in this way, that is no longer adaptive, they do tend to get fused. So guilt is, I did something wrong. Shame is more like I am wrong, right? Like, I am a bad person. So it becomes like
[00:22:45] Carolyn Allard: more globalized, right? And they, they just like, are kind of fused together when it comes to this sort of non-adaptive version of them. And so when you, if you think about it, like if I am. I have this belief right, [00:23:00] that I'm not challenging in any way to just like carry with me that I was guilty of this terrible thing and I am ashamed because like I'm a bad person or somehow I deserved it. Well then I'm gonna, that's gonna be with me. Whether it's like at the forefront of my mind or I've gotten really used to like stuffing it way back there so I never have to. I try not to ever pay attention to it. It's still there and I'm going,, it's going to, color any experience I have with that scent.
[00:23:33] Carolyn Allard: So if there's some, some other sort of negative thing happening in the world around me to people I know, or just generally, I'm gonna be more likely to think it's my fault. It's sort of like a, it's, it's like it's at the surface, even if I'm not aware of it, it's just gonna be there. I'm just sort of sensitized to it.
[00:23:54] Carolyn Allard: I'm gonna feel guilty. I'm going to be more likely to apologize if somebody bumps into [00:24:00] me, right? I'm going to be more likely to question whether I, I'm doing something right or wrong. The other piece is if we're so good at like trying to stuff it and not pay attention to it, then that means we're avoiding it and anything that we avoid. Also generalizes. We can't, we're not very good at just avoiding one little piece of ourselves, right? We're not very good at just avoiding the guilt and shame. It means we're avoiding all sorts of things. Like maybe things that are important to us and values that we might have around how we treat other people, how we treat ourselves. And so we're actually more likely to do things that continue to make us feel guilt and shame. We might disrupt relationships, we might not treat people really well, we might, uh, not treat ourselves very well. The other piece, this is like, just kind of showing how pervasive this becomes and how generalized this becomes, right? Is that if we're feeling this guilt and shame. [00:25:00] Sometimes like, so sometimes we avoid so much that we continue to do things that just lead us to feel guilt and shame. 'cause we're just doing things not in line with the values. but but at the same time, often we're trying to overcompensate for this guilt and shame so that we will sort of, put our needs last. We will try to make other people happy. It's like almost like we're making up for. This stuff that we are blaming ourselves for constantly. So it kind of works in all these different ways, how, why the guilt and the shame generalizes
[00:25:35] Carolyn Allard: did that.
[00:25:36] Carolyn Allard: Does, does that make sense? Did that answer sort of
[00:25:39] Carolyn Allard: this question that you have?
[00:25:40] Emma Waddington: Really well, yes, really well. And I was thinking that off the back of that, that sort of overcompensation we walk around.
[00:25:48] Navigating the Extremes: From Passive to Aggressive Responses
[00:25:51] Emma Waddington: It's like the default is it's my fault, I'm the badie here.
[00:25:54] Emma Waddington: And that sort of sticks. And then what sometimes happens, well, actually quite [00:26:00] often I see it, is that a clinician I used to work with, talked about the lion and the mouse. And with, with guilt and shame. So, when we have a lot of guilt and shame, we tend to act like a little mouse. So we're quiet, we sort of stay out of the way. We don't make too much noise because ultimately we think we're gonna get something wrong or we're gonna upset someone.
[00:26:24] Emma Waddington: So we lay low. But over time, we feel invisible. We get frustrated we get disappointed by people and that's where the lion comes out. Sometimes we'll get really angry and upset and it's like an overreaction. It's an overcompensation, and then the shame of the guilt kicks in again and we go back to being this little mouse.
[00:26:49] Carolyn Allard: Yeah. That's a perfect metaphor. Mm-hmm.
[00:26:51] Emma Waddington: Yeah, people really relate to that and it's such an unfortunate. Cycle because it kind of reinforces the belief that the mass is best.[00:27:00]
[00:27:00] Carolyn Allard: Right, right.
[00:27:01] Emma Waddington: see what happens when I actually speak up, see what happens when I tell people that I'm upset, I become the badie. Do you see that too?
[00:27:10] Emma Waddington: So the guilt and shame sometimes can sort of respond, lead us to respond in ways that are really, really unhelpful. Not just putting our needs well, or that is also very unhelpful, but also overreacting or reacting in, responding in ways that are not helpful as well in terms of anger and frustration that people
[00:27:27] Carolyn Allard: They're ineffective. Yeah, they're ineffective ways because they're both at either extreme of a continuum of communication, aren't they? And when we're stuck in nags, we're either at one end or the other, and often even more confusingly, both can happen in the same person at different times.
[00:27:47] Carolyn Allard: Because sometimes people start realizing, oh, I'm sort of like, I'm a passive. Doormat. I need to sort
[00:27:54] Carolyn Allard: of, maybe I'm, I'm deciding finally to like stand up for my rights and my needs. But the [00:28:00] only then it becomes like the other extreme and we forget that there's a whole like, sort of middle ground way of, of communicating needs and maintaining assertiveness because. It. It's like you said, it's like a, it's almost like a rebound effect. It's like either we're used to being here and then there, then we rebound over there, or we're used to being here and then we actually rebound over there and we think, oh, well now I'm being a doormat, so I can't, I have to maintain this sort of aggressive stance, which is the
[00:28:28] Carolyn Allard: overcompensation. Yep.
[00:28:30] Emma Waddington: yes.
[00:28:31] Chris McCurry: So do you find that you have to actually like role play that in session with people? Like how to find that assertive middle ground, if you're gonna talk, talk to your boss or something.
[00:28:42] Carolyn Allard: Sometimes yes. Sometimes we find that just sort of, having people realize this, that there's a middle ground reminds them and they're able to do it.
[00:28:51] Skills Training and Practice
[00:29:01] Carolyn Allard: But sometimes people have been at one end or the other, or just either end so long that they've either lost the skills or never had the skills. So, sort of. Skills training can be helpful in that regard.
[00:29:07] Chris McCurry: This. Going back to what you were saying before, that insight is often not enough. Just making the unconscious conscious isn't enough. Sometimes you just have to wear a groove of practicing a different repertoire. It becomes an executive skill or something at that point where
[00:29:25] Chris McCurry: you have to practice it so that it becomes maybe not. Comfortable, but accessible in those situations where you need it.
[00:29:33] Carolyn Allard: exactly.
[00:29:34] Identifying Thought Categories
[00:29:34] Emma Waddington: I was thinking if it would be useful because I really love this section in your book to really identify the categories of thoughts that maintain this problematic guilt and shame. Perhaps we could go through them and help listeners patch recognize some of these categories such as the hindsight bias.
[00:29:55] Emma Waddington: I thought that was incredibly useful because it is a real [00:30:00] problem. If you could talk us through. The, the different ones that you've identified and how they sort of reinforce the, they keep us stuck in our nags, and I love the word nags. I think it's, I'm going use 'cause it really nags at you.
[00:30:13] Carolyn Allard: really,
[00:30:14] Carolyn Allard: does. Yeah. We were so happy when we came. That just
[00:30:17] Carolyn Allard: worked so well because it
[00:30:19] Emma Waddington: yes.
[00:30:19] Carolyn Allard: just speaks to exactly what happens. It just keeps
[00:30:22] Carolyn Allard: nagging at you.
[00:30:23] Carolyn Allard: Absolutely.
[00:30:24] Understanding Hindsight Bias
[00:30:24] Carolyn Allard: I'm happy to start with hindsight bias and then just kind of throw out any other ones that you
[00:30:28] Carolyn Allard: want me to Yeah,
[00:30:29] Emma Waddington: Awesome. yes.
[00:30:31] Carolyn Allard: Bias is, yeah, it's gotta be one of my favorites. 'cause I mean, and all of these things, we are all sort of, um. Susceptible to, right, like, this is not just folks who've experienced trauma and adversity, or folks who are stuck with nags. Hindsight bias is a human condition. It's been studied in multiple cultural versus in multiple nations. Like, it's just something that about how our brains work. We find it really tough to [00:31:00] not include information we have now. When we're thinking about something in the past.
[00:31:07] Carolyn Allard: So if I am judging myself for something I did or didn't do in the past, I'm gonna use information I got along the way since then to judge my actions. That means that something does happen that's traumatic or adverse, and I I go back and, and sort of. Look to see, did I do something that contributed to that? Is my guilt and shame like accurate? It's gonna be hard for me to judge it accurately because I know what happened. I know e everything that I tried and the outcome of that. Whether it was linked to what I did or not, right? I know the outcome of the, of the trauma, of the adversity. And so I'm gonna go back and, and think, ah, well, I kind of knew it was gonna happen [00:32:00] and I didn't prevent it, and the things I did were all wrong.
[00:32:04] Carolyn Allard: They all amounted to the trauma happening anyway, or things not getting better, so I must have done something wrong. It must be my fault. I didn't prevent it. I did, I did the wrong thing. I, I didn't choose well, um, because we have the luxury of knowing what happened. So that's how it kind of plays in with, and, and sort of reinforces nags.
[00:32:27] Carolyn Allard: It creates nags and reinforces it. So part of the intervention there, part of the strategy there is to tell people about hindsight bias and how it works and it works for them, just the way it works for me. So that we have to be careful to really remember, remind ourselves exactly of what we did know and what we didn't know back then if we're judging our actions.
[00:32:54] Real-Life Example of Hindsight Bias
[00:32:54] Emma Waddington: I was just thinking of a, of an example that's small, but and not, based on any [00:33:00] trauma, but my husband went to a, a work event and he's an incredibly lucky man. He tends to win a lot of raffles and, and we always sort of think how, why or he'll win.
[00:33:15] Emma Waddington: He would just win things. And so he went to this event at work and he was sitting with all his colleagues of, 2000 people at the event and he had his 10 colleagues at the table and they all got raffles tickets. And the ticket was to get iPhones, new iPhones for everybody on your table.
[00:33:32] Emma Waddington: That was a prize. Yeah. Yeah. Phenomenal prize. And he said to everyone, just to let you know, I usually win. But he's very confident. But I need to leave early because I need to go and help, put the kids to bed so, sorry guys, but you're not gonna get the iPhones. And everybody laughed and, off, he toodle off to home and he won.
[00:33:59] Emma Waddington: He won the [00:34:00] iPhones
[00:34:00] Chris McCurry: Didn't he give his ticket to somebody at the table?
[00:34:03] Carolyn Allard: Right.
[00:34:04] Emma Waddington: N no, you couldn't do that. You couldn't do that. So the table lost these iPhones and they got given to a different table, and so he got a call from somebody on the table and said, my goodness, you did win. And we didn't get the iPhones,
[00:34:23] Emma Waddington: and he felt terrible. He felt so guilty and he came home and he told me this story. He is like, can you believe it? I did win and I knew I would win. I knew I would win. So, I should have stayed. 'cause I knew that. And that feels like the hindsight bias, right? And
[00:34:42] Carolyn Allard: Absolutely.
[00:34:43] Emma Waddington: smaller example. But it played in the same way.
[00:34:46] Emma Waddington: And we talked it through. But it took him a couple of days to shake it
[00:34:50] Emma Waddington: off cause he felt so responsible about, you know, them not getting them not getting their, iPhones
[00:34:57] Emma Waddington: and, and this piece around I knew I [00:35:00] was gonna win all along
[00:35:02] Carolyn Allard: Right.
[00:35:02] Emma Waddington: was, haunting him.
[00:35:05] Carolyn Allard: Did you use the million dollar question on him?
[00:35:09] Emma Waddington: I didn't,
[00:35:11] Chris McCurry: the million
[00:35:11] Chris McCurry: dollar question?
[00:35:12] Carolyn Allard: So the million dollar
[00:35:13] Carolyn Allard: question we like to call it that
[00:35:14] Values and Guilt
[00:35:14] Carolyn Allard: helps sort of combat this hindsight bias a little bit, right? So like, and, and,
[00:35:19] Carolyn Allard: this idea of like, I knew what was gonna happen and
[00:35:22] Carolyn Allard: because I didn't prevent it, it's my fault.
[00:35:25] Carolyn Allard: So he had this really strong sense that this was gonna happen.
[00:35:29] Carolyn Allard: But did he really know a hundred percent right? Yes. He's lucky. Maybe he's had lots of these, it's like, good chance I'm going to. But if he really knew, would a, would he have made a different. Decision. So the question is like, if you knew a hundred percent this was gonna happen, would you have done something else? Right? And often the answer is like, yes, I would've done something else. So that's proof you didn't know a hundred percent. Now,
[00:35:55] Carolyn Allard: in his case, he might have said, no, actually I stole a left 'cause I [00:36:00] have to go pick my, pick up my kids. And that was more important to me.
[00:36:03] Carolyn Allard: And that's where we get to sort of reviewing the values and how you may have different values.
[00:36:08] Carolyn Allard: Yes, it might have been nice to sort of let these young kids have this phone and you wanna be a team player and all of that, and that's an important value of yours.
[00:36:16] Carolyn Allard: But. At any given time, different values will have to take priority over others, and that doesn't mean we're doing something wrong. We're not valuing certain values.
[00:36:27] Carolyn Allard: It just means some have to take priority over others at different times for
[00:36:32] Carolyn Allard: different purposes.
[00:36:33] Emma Waddington: That's powerful. And that's the disappointment is okay.
[00:36:37] Balancing Competing Values
[00:36:37] Emma Waddington: I talk to my clients about the difference between the shame and guilt and disappointment. It can get really sort of messy between the two. Like we
[00:36:45] Emma Waddington: were disappointed that the, that our child didn't get to be picked up or we're disappointed that we didn't make it to their match.
[00:36:54] Emma Waddington: But that doesn't mean that, I'm a bad person and I'm, awful for, for this having [00:37:00] happened.
[00:37:00] Carolyn Allard: And if you use that guilt and shame adaptively, like, like your, let's come back to your husband. I love that example.
[00:37:07] Carolyn Allard: So he's feeling guilty and that to me, that's a great thing. That means he has a conscience. That means he cares about other people, right? That means he wants to know that he's doing the right thing, that he, that he's making the right choices that are in line with his values. So
[00:37:24] Carolyn Allard: feel that guilt and shame, that's
[00:37:26] Carolyn Allard: okay,
[00:37:27] Emma Waddington: Yeah.
[00:37:27] Carolyn Allard: but it doesn't mean that it's a hundred percent true that you have to hold onto it in order to be a good person, right? All of that baggage that we kind of go around it and, and it is important to sort of ask yourself these questions like, did I really know? 'cause that's where our mind goes. And does it
[00:37:44] Carolyn Allard: really mean I'm a bad team player? Like that's where our mind goes.
[00:37:48] Emma Waddington: Yeah, it was an interesting experience and he's, well, but it took a couple of days to shake it off like he kept, because they kept telling him, I can't believe you left.
[00:37:57] Carolyn Allard: Right?
[00:37:59] Emma Waddington: And so, [00:38:00] and that sort of rattled him a little bit, in a jokey way.
[00:38:03] Carolyn Allard: But yeah, when you, when you let it take its adaptive course, you let guilt and shame take their adaptive course. You kind of like evaluate like, did I do something wrong? Like, what? What really happened? What would I do something different next time? What could I do different? Why all these things. Then they sort of, you, you are experiencing them and maybe they get at the really peak and you feel really bad, but then you let them sort of take their natural course, they go away on their own and they can transform to other emotions. Like you said, disappointment, like it's too bad. Like it would've been nice if I could have stayed and you
[00:38:37] Carolyn Allard: know, that kind of thing,
[00:38:38] Carolyn Allard: then you are not stuck with nags then that's a totally different experience.
[00:38:42] Emma Waddington: Yes, totally different. And there's a little bit of that self-compassion that is so useful, isn't it? It's because I'm a caring person. I'll often say that to, to, to clients. Like, what kind of person would you need to be, not to feel like this?
[00:38:56] Carolyn Allard: right,
[00:38:57] Emma Waddington: Know what kind of parent, what kind [00:39:00] of, colleague would you need to be if you didn't feel guilty
[00:39:03] Carolyn Allard: Right.
[00:39:03] Emma Waddington: didn't feel bad?
[00:39:05] Carolyn Allard: Exactly, and also feeling the guilt and shame allows you to identify what your values are, what is important to you? What is it that you think you, what value do you think you violated? That you're
[00:39:16] Carolyn Allard: been telling yourself all these years, right? that's that points to an important value of yours that you can live by
[00:39:24] Carolyn Allard: without the guilt and shame. The
[00:39:26] Carolyn Allard: guilt and shame doesn't need to be there to be guiding you to your values. It points to them, and then you can live there. You can live your values without the guilt and shame.
[00:39:36] Emma Waddington: Without the judgment, I guess too, isn't it?
[00:39:39] Carolyn Allard: Right.
[00:39:40] Emma Waddington: the guilt and shame. If I think of, um, I felt it's like a family confession time. I felt quite guilty yesterday. I was on my way to see my daughter's. Netball game and I had a client, I overran guilty and then I hit traffic more [00:40:00] guilty.
[00:40:00] Emma Waddington: And then I get there and the game was finished. It finished early and she looked at me with daggers in her eyes and I thought, what, how could you do this to me guys? And finish early? I was gonna sneak in from the back and, be all excited. But I was caught like.
[00:40:18] Emma Waddington: Like , the light was on me as I walked through the door when the whole thing had finished.
[00:40:22] Emma Waddington: And, she came up to me, she's like, I can't believe if you didn't suit the match. I said, well, I tried to explain and sort of justify, which obviously, lands like a ton of bre, it does not work. And, and then I sort of said, yeah, I, yeah, I'm sorry. I really, really, really wanted to see you and I'm sorry.
[00:40:40] Emma Waddington: And the guilt comes in because I wanted to be there and. I hate seeing her little face in her dagger eyes. Um, And, this matters to me. That's why I sort of crossed town to, to, to do this. And so it points to the fact that this matters so [00:41:00] much, but. I have to be mindful that I don't beat myself up over it.
[00:41:05] Emma Waddington: I don't become a terrible parent that, really doesn't care. I don't start to sort of, yeah. Be incredibly hard on me.
[00:41:16] Carolyn Allard: Yeah. Beating yourself up, would what good would that do?
[00:41:20] Emma Waddington: Yeah.
[00:41:20] Carolyn Allard: that change, the situation, would it make your daughter feel better, right? Like you get to decide, okay, well, you get to feel that guilt and that points to your value, and you get to decide the, the behaviors you wanna change in order to minimize this happening.
[00:41:37] Carolyn Allard: Again, you can't control everything. You can't control traffic. But are there things you can do?
[00:41:43] Chris McCurry: Emma, You could have, cut your client off and said, okay, we're done
[00:41:47] Emma Waddington: Yeah,
[00:41:47] Chris McCurry: And,
[00:41:48] Chris McCurry: uh.
[00:41:48] Emma Waddington: That's,
[00:41:49] Emma Waddington: yeah.
[00:41:50] Chris McCurry: But you did, know, the compassionate, you know, good therapist thing and you let the session, it sounds like finish [00:42:00] naturally,
[00:42:01] Chris McCurry: uh, serving the client well. So that speaks to, some important values there.
[00:42:07] Carolyn Allard: right.
[00:42:07] Carolyn Allard: And so you had, you had two competing values there and
[00:42:11] Carolyn Allard: one had to be prioritized over the other. And that doesn't mean that has to happen every time. Sometimes you're
[00:42:17] Carolyn Allard: gonna prioritize, Other values over that. So, and, but you can't control what your clients are gonna bring to you, like at the doorknob time.
[00:42:25] Carolyn Allard: Right?
[00:42:26] Carolyn Allard: They're,
[00:42:26] Emma Waddington: know. Yes.
[00:42:27] Carolyn Allard: and,
[00:42:28] Carolyn Allard: Yeah.
[00:42:29] Carolyn Allard: Yeah.
[00:42:30] Emma Waddington: And also taking some responsibility. I mean, listeners will know that timekeeping is not my strength. So, that commitment is that commitment I keep recommitting to at the beginning of every new year to get better with timekeeping. So it's like that honesty is also important
[00:42:47] Chris McCurry: along those lines of timekeeping.
[00:42:49] Emma Waddington: yes, yes,
[00:42:51] Chris McCurry: in the interest of
[00:42:52] Carolyn Allard: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:53] Chris McCurry: um, I mean, there's so much more we could talk about. I, I, I love this idea of, [00:43:00] values-based choices rather than guilt or shame-based choices. We could spend so much more time on that and perhaps, we can at a later date any, anything. Out there.
[00:43:09] Future of Guilt and Shame Research
[00:43:09] Chris McCurry: In terms of the future of this field, anything exciting happening in the way of research or clinical work?
[00:43:17] Carolyn Allard: Well, what I'm really excited about is to, I start getting feedback about people who are using the book. so far I've only heard positive feedback, which is. Great and kind of remarkable because people are really quick at giving you native feedback. I they feel these days. I'm excited to just see more of it, more people getting their hands on it and benefiting from it.
[00:43:40] Carolyn Allard: And I'm also excited. My lab is creating a study, developing a study to sort of. Experimentally test it. As a self-help standalone book. We've tested Trigger, which is the trauma informed guilt reduction therapy that the book is based on but [00:44:00] not the self-help version. So we're developing a study to empirically test it's effectiveness just in the general population of folks who've experienced trauma and are dealing with nags. So that's exciting to me.
[00:44:12] Chris McCurry: Cool. Yeah.
[00:44:13] Emma Waddington: exciting,
[00:44:13] Carolyn Allard: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:14] Emma Waddington: super
[00:44:15] Conclusion and Final Thoughts
[00:44:15] Chris McCurry: So again, the book is Transform Your Guilt and Shame, Evidence-Based Strategies to Heal From Trauma and Adversity. And again, that'll be in the show notes. So thank you. This has been really exciting. Like I said before, all too common. Issue that I think most people on the planet are struggle, and to
[00:44:37] Chris McCurry: get this kind of reassurance that we're not alone. A lot of this is, perfectly normal in the way that it came about in our lives. But there are so many things that we could do to get some, get some relief and transform these thoughts and feelings and live a bigger values based life.
[00:44:56] Carolyn Allard: Thanks. This is lovely. I'd love to chat with you all again if you [00:45:00] ever want to have a different conversation or
[00:45:02] Chris McCurry: That'd be fabulous.
[00:45:04] Carolyn Allard: Yeah, it was really fun.
[00:45:05] Carolyn Allard: I really enjoyed it.
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