Areas of Focus
Guilt
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“Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.”
Guilt commonly arises from having done something we believe we should not have done, or from having failed to do something we should have. It can also arise from surviving when others did not, from feelings or thoughts we judge as wrong, or from belonging to a group or family whose history weighs on us. True guilt is a constructive force, encouraging accountability and repair. False guilt, by contrast, has no basis in actual wrongdoing. It operates on the assumption that if we feel guilty, we must be guilty.
Not all thoughts and feelings reflect reality. Paranoid thoughts, for instance, have no basis in fact. The same holds for guilt: we may sometimes believe ourselves to be guilty simply because we feel guilty.
Two strategies can help moderate false guilt. Delaying a response to the feeling creates time to work out what action, if any, is warranted. Compartmentalisation holds the guilt in check, although it requires tolerating the discomfort the feeling brings.
Guilt that points to real wrongdoing calls for acknowledgement and, where possible, repair. Guilt that arises from temperament or from experiences that have left their mark is worked with over time, as its origins are understood and its hold gradually loosens.
References
Buber, M. (1957). Guilt and guilt feelings. Psychiatry, 20(2): 114–29.
Cryder C., Springer S., Morewedge, C. (2012). Guilty feelings, targeted actions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(5), 607–618