The 6 types of guilt and their emotional effects

These are the main types of guilt we experience throughout life.

Human beings are social and emotional animals, something that is evidenced by our capacity for empathy. Through this ability, which is not unique to our species, we can put ourselves in other people's shoes, understanding how they feel.

But with empathy also comes the ability to feel guilt, an emotion that usually arises when, after having said or done something harmful, we regret it and begin to feel bad because we know that we have caused harm to another person, even if we did not mean to.

There are several types of guilt according to what is its cause and how it affects us on an emotional level, typologies that we will see more in depth below.

The main types of guilt (classified)

Guilt is a human feeling which, although unpleasant, is undoubtedly part of our being.. There are many things that can awaken in us the feeling of guilt, sometimes real and sometimes the product of suspicions and unfounded ideas. There are people who may feel guilt because something inside tells them that they are doing things wrong, even though they have no objective reason to believe it.

But why do we feel guilt? The guilt (redundancy aside) comes from our empathy. People are social and emotional animals. Throughout our lives we go through a maturing process in which we learn to feel and manage all kinds of emotions, allowing us to regulate our own internal states as well as to understand them and know how to see them in other people..

Empathy is that which allows us to understand others, being a fundamental aspect for our social life. By understanding how other people feel we are able to establish deep bonds, as well as knowing how to relate to them. For example, if we see someone sad, it is normal for us to try to support them, to cheer them up emotionally. On the other hand, if we see her in a bad mood, we may avoid relating to her at that moment, since it is not the right moment.

But even though we try to treat others as appropriately and prosocially as possible, sometimes we do not. Whether it is because we are in a bad mood or we are not conscious of what we do and say, it can happen that our actions hurt others. It may be hostility, aggressiveness, or simply carelessness, but whatever it was we have hurt someone's emotions. At that moment our capacity for empathy makes us feel how the other person feels and, as a consequence, the feeling of guilt appears.

1. Healthy guilt and neurotic guilt

We can say that there are two main types of guilt depending on whether the cause of the guilt is easily identifiable or not. The ideas of healthy guilt and neurotic guilt draw heavily from psychoanalytic theses, being present in the development of the first modern psychological theories.

Healthy guilt

We begin by talking about "healthy" guilt, that which we can feel on a daily basis. It is the type of guilt that arises after feeling that someone has been harmed and that, therefore, has an easily identifiable cause. It is the regret we feel when we have said or done something that our empathy has later made us see that it was wrong to do.

It is that same empathy that pushes us to repair the damage and prevent it from happening again.. It is in this idea where we can see the functionality of guilt from an evolutionary perspective, motivating us to establish compensatory behaviors, prosocial behaviors to correct the mistakes that have damaged our social relationships.

It is usually accompanied by attempts to prevent and repair what has been done, since the person knows that he/she has done wrong.This is because the person knows that he/she feels bad because he/she has done something wrong, that the emotional responsibility falls on him/her and that he/she has the moral obligation to fix the situation, even with a mere apology.

However, sometimes there is no possibility of making amends. This can be a problem, since the work of elaboration of guilt can cause these feelings to become persecutory guilt, and the impossibility of repair or elaboration can lead us to seek punishment by way of exculpation, a masochistic behavior that can aggravate our psychological state.

1.2. Neurotic guilt

From a psychoanalytic perspective we speak of neurotic guilt when the feelings associated with guilt do not seem to be connected to any causative reality. Although the cause of the feeling of guilt is not known, it is certain that guilt is still felt in the form of a heavy feeling of guilt. guilt continues to be felt in the form of a heavy burden that accompanies the person who feels guilty constantly..

Since it is not known where the guilt comes from, it is very difficult for the person to get rid of this emotion through compensatory behaviors. Who did he hurt? What did he do? Can it be solved? These questions are not answered, but he continues to feel guilty and his life can become a nightmare.

It can also happen that you do know what the cause of your guilt is, but there is no human way to compensate for it. because he feels bad about something he did in the most remote past of his existence, that is, in childhood. As children we do things that, as adults, we know are not right and that, although we are aware that children are unconscious of their actions, we feel bad for those little things that, although innocent, caused harm to other people such as our parents or siblings.

2. Types of guilt according to the cause

Now that we have discussed the two main types of guilt depending on whether the cause is identifiable or, on the contrary, is very hidden in the layers of the unconscious of the person who feels guilty. Now, let's look at the four types of guilt, we are now going to look at the four main types of guilt according to the specific thing that provokes them, commenting also on the emotions involved.

2.1. Guilt for not preventing adequately

In this type of guilt, the person who feels guilty wishes he could have avoided the circumstances as they occurred, but he could not.

Therefore, he feels very responsible for the things that happened, so much so that he he takes responsibility for problems that did not really depend on him and that, therefore, he did not have the capacity to solve or avoid at any moment..

It is the guilt of an internal locus of identity and produces a lot of anxiety, frustration, depression and a feeling of lack of control in his life.

2.2. Guilt for unresolved issues

This is the feeling of guilt that arises from issues that have not yet been resolved and that he/she does not believe it is possible to find a solution to them..

This is the typical guilt that some people suffer during the mourning of the loss of a loved one, feeling that there was unfinished business and that the death prevented them from being closed, anger and quarrels that had not yet been settled with a sincere and pleasant "I'm sorry".

This is also the guilt felt for not having been kind and loving enough to the person who is no longer with us..... The person regrets not having given more kisses, hugs, and tokens of affection to show how much he or she loved the person that death has taken away from him or her. All this brings with it a lot of sadness, melancholy and frustration.

2.3. Guilt for feeling that you do not meet expectations.

This is the guilt felt by many people raised in environments where the bar was set very high. Everyone wants to fulfill some expectations, but their degree of connection with reality makes them aware that there are certain things that cannot be achieved either because of lack of talent or because, simply, you cannot have everything in this life.

Unfortunately, there are people who demand too much of themselves, too much.. In order to satisfy the wishes of their demanding parents, they feel they have to fulfill everything and more, but they can't, and that causes them a lot of frustration. They fear rejection, the disappointment of others and, as they have not achieved everything they wanted, they feel like failures.

2.4. Guilt due to fear of rebuilding their lives

Another guilt associated with grief is the fear of rebuilding one's life. Whether you have lost someone because he or she has passed away or you have broken up with him or her, many people feel guilty for enjoying life after the relationship ended. They feel that they have no right to rebuild their lives or that, if they do, it is as if they are betraying the person..

Behaviors as positive and therapeutic as laughing, feeling happy and joyful about having a good day, meeting other people may be seen as inappropriate, something that will make them forget the good time they had with the person who is no longer with them. These beliefs are typical of a person who has a very restrictive concept of love.

• You may be interested in, "How to get over a breakup?"

And how to make the guilt go away?

The reasons behind our feeling of guilt can be very varied. What makes us feel remorse can be very varied, which implies different possibilities of solution. Sometimes this feeling cannot be completely eliminated, but it can be managed and, at least from a more rational perspective, we can understand that we have done everything in our power to correct the damage we have done (or believe we have done).

Repair

By repair we mean the series of actions focused on repairing the reality we have altered.. In other words, it consists of trying to alleviate the damage we consider we have caused, in the form of acts or words, to other people.

To do so, we use all kinds of compensatory behaviors, such as apologizing to the victims, paying for what we have broken or doing personal favors to the person or persons who have felt some kind of discomfort because of our fault. With the passage of time, our feeling of guilt will be reduced.

Elaboration

Elaboration is the phenomenon consisting of the psychological work that our mind does, reasoning, understanding, remembering and looking for the relationships between the thoughts that overwhelm us and provoke these feelings. and provoke these feelings. This strategy of guilt reduction aims at progressively transforming the unpleasant experience of guilt into an experience of growth and maturation, which leads us to convert this feeling into a less painful one.

The work of elaboration is essential in any psychological consultation. The feeling of guilt, both with an identifiable cause and when it is not so clear, can be a problem for your mental health and should therefore be worked on in the consultation as another symptom. Helping the patient to elaborate on his guilt will help him to get a faster relief, as well as to learn from what caused it.