Types of guilt and how to make it go away

From classical Greece we find the theme of the guilt as a complex and repetitive element within the repertoire of stormy emotions that nourish art and that haunt human beings since they have self-awareness and have developed a moral conscience.

Guilt and empathy

Human beings are emotional and relational beings who experience a maturation process throughout life that will allow us, in turn, to develop the ability to regulate and become familiar with our own internal states, as well as those of others.

Implicit in this process is the regulation of hostile and destructive affects that will sometimes manifest themselves throughout life.

Surely all of us remember moments when we have felt the urge to destroy or harm, verbally or physically, someone or something and then we have repented. Whether we have carried it out or not, the more damage has been done and the more consequences it has had, the more intense the guilt. This is due to the fact that we have the ability to empathize and that happens because we have lived experiences where someone outside was empathic with us.

With the capacity for empathy comes the capacity to feel guilt since the fact of having internalized relational experiences that have allowed us to experience a resonance with other beings has allowed us to be aware that they can potentially be harmed just like us and therefore we are sensitive to their suffering, as we are to ours.

Two types of guilt

We are now going to talk about two basic types of guilt about which the psychoanalytic literature has spoken, with different nuances, since the development of the first theories.

• "Healthy" is the one that I have been referring to in the introduction, that is, it is the guilt that arises from an experience of overflowing the destructive impulses that entails having damaged or wishing to harm someone or something and that leads us inevitably to take action to repair the damage or to redirect or transform those impulses so that they do not cause it and the damage can be prevented. This guilt can easily be related to the causing circumstances, an anger, a fit of anger when receiving bad news, etc. It is always accompanied by attempts to prevent and / or repair, also connected with the reality of the situation. Although it is a type of guilt typical of "healthy" minds, it can vary in intensity depending on the severity of the damage caused. Sometimes when the possibility of reparation is not possible, the elaboration work can turn it into persecutory guilt and sometimes the impossibility of reparation or elaboration can lead us to seek punishment or atonement.
• Neurotic: here we are talking about a feeling of guilt that is apparently not connected with any causative reality. The origin is not identified, it is constant and constitutes a punishment in itself. The reasons for the appearance of it are unconscious and if the mental faculties of the person who suffers it allow it, it will be necessary to go to a specialist to start a psychotherapeutic treatment.

When "healthy" guilt is fixed and does not evolve, despite attempts at reparation or expiation, we will speak of persecutory guilt. It is at that time that it will be necessary for the healthy person to go to a psychotherapist for help.

Disappearance of guilt

It can be alleviated and disappear through two main processes.

• Repair By reparation we understand the series of actions aimed at actually repairing the damage caused by compensatory behaviors. Eventually these actions can lead to the disappearance of guilt.
• Elaboration When direct repair is not possible, elaboration work is the psychological work of reasoning, understanding, remembering, and weaving the links between such thoughts in a manner. The goal is to progressively transform the painful experience of guilt into an experience of growth and maturation that leads us to reintegrate this experience into our consciousness in an increasingly less painful way so that it can be experienced as an engine of growth. Ultimately, guilt can be used to grow and learn, that is the work of elaboration. If in turn this work is done by the hand of a good therapist, it can lead to relief and growth more quickly than if this elaborative work is done alone.

We can mention punishment and expiation as a third way of a moral, social or religious character and not so much a psychological one.

To conclude, I would like to emphasize the fact that guilt, although destructive and disabling, can lead us to experiences of understanding and growth that provide us with a maturational leap and allow us to develop new life experiences of greater fulfillment. It is important not to get discouraged, guilt can be used in our favor and it is important, when it appears, to be able to remember this: guilt can be an engine of change for the better.

• With the capacity for empathy comes the capacity to feel guilt, since we are sensitive to the suffering of the other, as we are to our own.
• We can carry out actions aimed at repairing the damage caused through compensatory behaviors. And these actions can lead to the disappearance of guilt.
• Guilt can be used to our advantage and it is important, when it appears, to be able to remember this: guilt can be an engine of change for the better.

Enric Artés Clinical Psychology Specialist Advance Medical Consultant Psychologist