The Role of shame and guilt in mental health: Review Study

As self-conscious emotions, shame and guilt, are at the heart of pathology and developmental psychology. Numerous studies have acknowledged their importance and developmental psychologists, especially psychoanalysts, explained their critical role in etiology of mental disorders. Despite the fundamental effects of these emotions in human life, few studies have explored them objectively.  Most people, even mental health professionals, have not been able to clearly discriminate between shame and guilt. In this article, we have reviewed the studies on shame and guilt in order to explain their distinct role in human development and sociability. We have also investigated their relationships with mental health variables. Shame is often associated with violence, hurt and avoidance but guilt is a more mature emotion and its focus is usually on faults and compensation. Compensation leads to admitting that certain behaviors were not proper and motivates appropriate ones. However, there are uncongenial evidence which show that guilt not only does not result in compensation in every case, but also could have adverse effects on individual’s mental health and success.