What is guilt?

Introduction

The concept of guilt has played an important role in the development of human behavior and culture since the early days of civilization. More recently, there has been a focus on the psychological understanding of guilt. One of the first people to write extensively about the psychological meaning of guilt was the Austrian founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud
. His writings from the 1890s to the 1930s provide the basic foundation of the contemporary understanding of guilt. Guilt is the feeling of tension when one feels that one has violated a moral code by thought, action, or nonaction. It is considered to be a type of anxiety. The unpleasant feeling of guilt usually prompts the guilty person to take some type of action to relieve the tension.

Freud believed that guilt starts in early childhood as a result of the child’s fear of being punished or of losing the love of the parent through misbehavior. Freud stressed that the most significant event in establishing guilt is the Oedipus complex. At the age of four or five, Freud hypothesized, the male child wants to kill his father and have sex with his mother. In the counterpart to this, sometimes called the Electra complex, the female child wants to kill her mother and have sex with her father. The child becomes anxious with these thoughts and attempts to put them out of his or her consciousness. As a result of the Oedipus complex, the child develops a conscience, which represents inner control and morality. There is the ability to recognize right from wrong and to act on the right and refrain from doing wrong. Freud would later use the concept of the superego
to explain conscience. The superego represents the parental thoughts and wishes that have been internalized in the child. Now the internal superego can monitor the morality of the child, and guilt can be generated when the superego is displeased.

An important distinction is to be made between normal guilt and neurotic guilt. Normal guilt is experienced when one has acted in such a way as to violate one’s moral code. A person then usually takes some action to relieve the guilt. Neurotic guilt relates to thoughts or wishes that are unacceptable and cause anxiety. These thoughts are pushed out of consciousness, so that the person feels guilt-ridden but is not aware of the source of the guilt. There is no relief from the guilt. In neurotic guilt, the thought is equated with the deed.

Origin

The origin of guilt can be traced back to childhood. In human development there is a long period in which the baby is dependent on the parent. The young baby cannot survive without someone providing for its care. As the baby begins to individuate and separate from the parent, ambivalent feelings are generated. Ambivalent feelings are opposing feelings, typically love and hate, felt for the same person. The child begins to worry that these hateful feelings will cause the parents to punish him or her or remove their love. With this fear of parental retaliation, the child becomes guilty when thinking or acting in a way that might displease the parents.

The Oedipus complex dramatically changes this situation. The dynamics of this complex are based on the play by the Greek playwright Sophocles, in which Oedipus murders his father and takes his mother as his wife, unaware that they are his parents. When Oedipus finds out the truth, he blinds himself and goes into exile. Freud believed the Oedipal situation to be a common theme in literature. He also discussed the play Hamlet (1603) by the English playwright William Shakespeare. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet’s uncle has killed Hamlet’s father and married Hamlet’s mother. There is the question as to why Hamlet hesitates in killing his uncle, and Freud attributed this indecision to Hamlet’s Oedipus complex. Freud argued that Hamlet had thoughts of killing his father and having sex with his mother, and Hamlet’s uncle only put into action what Hamlet had thought. Hamlet’s guilty desires prevent him from taking any action. Freud believed that the Oedipus complex can exist throughout one’s life. People can feel guilty about separating from their parents or achieving more than their parents, as this can unconsciously represent killing them off.

Freud’s examination of neurotic guilt led him to the concept of unconscious guilt. Neurotics experience guilt but are not sure what they are guilty about. Freud first noticed this attitude in obsessive patients. These patients tended to be perfectionistic and overly conscientious, and yet they were wracked by guilt. Freud believed them to be feeling guilty about thoughts and wishes they had pushed out of consciousness, that is, Oedipal wishes. Freud observed the paradox that the more virtuous a person, the more the person experiences self-reproach and guilt as temptations increase.

Freud’s final writings on guilt highlighted its importance for civilization. He wrote that guilt enabled people to get along with others and form groups, institutions, and nations. Without the ability to curb impulses, particularly aggression, society would suffer. Freud did feel that humans pay a price for this advance in civilization, in that there is a loss of personal happiness due to the heightening of the sense of guilt.

History

Writing in the 1930s, child psychoanalyst Melanie Klein
argued that the Oedipus complex started much earlier in the child’s development than Freud had suggested. She believed that it started toward the end of the first year of life and centered primarily on the mother. The baby hates the mother for withdrawing the breast during feeding. The baby then feels guilty and worries that the mother will no longer breast-feed. Klein felt that the baby would want to relieve its guilt by making amends to the mother, causing it to show concern and care for the mother. Klein felt that this was the most crucial step in human development, the capacity to show concern for someone else. Guilt is thus seen as a critical ingredient in the ability to love.

The psychoanalyst Franz Alexander
further advanced understanding of guilt. He wrote that feeling guilty can interfere with healthy assertiveness. The guilty person may need excessive reassurance from other people. When the guilty person is assertive, he or she fears retaliation from others. Alexander also wrote about the concept of guilt projection. This term refers to situations in which people who tend to be overly critical induce guilt in other people.

The psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson
also wrote on the theme of guilt interfering with assertiveness. He formulated a theory of eight stages of human development, focusing primarily on early development. The fourth stage of development, around the age of four to five, is called guilt/initiative. The child must successfully repress Oedipal wishes to avoid feeling excessive guilt. The child can then proceed with normal initiative.

Another perspective on guilt is the concept of existential guilt, discussed by American psychiatrist James Knight. Existential guilt is the failure to live up to one’s expectations and potentialities. It can lead to questioning one’s existence and to states of despair until personal meaning can be established.

Erich Fromm
expanded the concept of guilt in order to better understand group psychology. He wrote that there are essentially two types of conscience: authoritarian and humanistic. Authoritarian conscience is the voice of internalized external authority. It is based on fear and danger. It is afraid of displeasing authority and actively seeks to please authority. Authoritarian conscience can lead to immoral acts committed as the individual conscience is given over to this higher authority. Humanistic conscience is one’s own voice expressing one’s own true self. It is the essence of one’s moral experience in life. It includes integrity and self-awareness.

Current Status

Since 1960, there has been a significant change in the views of psychoanalytic theory on guilt. The psychoanalyst Hans Loewald wrote extensively about guilt. He considered that guilt does not necessarily lead to punishment; sometimes punishment is sought to evade guilt. Bearing the burden of guilt makes it possible to master guilt by achieving a reconciliation of conflicting feelings. Guilt is thus seen not as a troublesome feeling but as one of the driving forces in the organization of the self. Guilt plays a critical part in developing self-responsibility and integrity.

The American psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell, writing in 2000, expanded on Loewald’s ideas. Mitchell concerned himself with the concept of genuine guilt. He believes it is important to tolerate, accept, and use this feeling. People need to take responsibility for the suffering they have caused others and themselves. People particularly hurt those they love, but by taking personal responsibility for their behavior, they can repair and deepen their love.

Guilt and Shame

Throughout the 1990s, there were a number of writings about the concept of shame and its relation to guilt. Shame is experienced as a feeling of inadequacy in the self. There can be physical, psychological, or emotional shame.

The American psychoanalyst Helen Lewis wrote extensively about this topic. She believed that shame includes dishonor, ridicule, humiliation, and embarrassment, while guilt includes duty, obligation, responsibility, and culpability. A person can feel both guilt and shame.

Bibliography

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