Guilt can ruin life.
We have all felt guilty before. Although this feeling is unpleasant for us, it nevertheless has a role in the way we behave in society. Guilt teaches a child to feel bad when he or she has done something bad and harmed others. “Children can have a somewhat “sadistic” side because their sensitivity and empathy are not yet developed. The arrival of this feeling allows them not to exceed certain limits which are not moral” explains psychologist Laurie Hawkes. The teaching of guilt is a “civilizing influence” for which parents are responsible. “Afterwards, teachers often take over.“This is why inside us there is a parent and a child. The internal child feels guilty because the internal parent reproaches him.
“There are people who are not accessible to guilt, like psychopaths, but fortunately, most of us are” continues the clinical psychologist. Some people are also more prone to guilt than others. There is a preferred profile which in psychology is called the “empathetic personality”. “He is someone who is very inclined to please others, who is very emotional, who needs to be loved and who often has a little feeling of inferiority.” These people are more likely to be in correctional analysis and this can have consequences. If an empathetic person finds themselves in a relationship with someone who is very self-centered, for example, guilt quickly sets in. “And obviously, a manipulative person in a relationship with an empathetic personality can use guilt to get what they want, without any empathy for the other” warns Laurie Hawkes.
To unmask someone who wants to make us feel guilty, we need to be attentive to certain signals. Two precisely:
► An internal signal: it represents the way we feel around the person we suspect of wanting to make us feel guilty. We can then ask ourselves, “do I feel guilty when I am with him/her?”
► An external signal; to identify when we observe the behavior of the person we have in front of us. We can then ask ourselves, “Does he/she blame me a lot? Does he/she blame me more than others?”
If you answer “yes” to these questions, you are most likely dealing with a guilty person. You can analyze these signals and compare them to your rational analysis of yourself in order to detach yourself from this person’s words and attitudes and protect yourself. “It’s not easy to take this position but if we succeed, we can analyze the other and analyze ourselves” adds the psychologist. It is also possible to ask advice from trusted friends, preferably very empathetic people, by asking them for example, “so-and-so told me that I don’t take care of him enough, will you Did you also notice?” It is possible to no longer take refuge in guilt, but it is a journey that must be learned. To do this, we must become aware of our automatisms. “Psychotherapy can help, just like those around you and friends” concludes our interlocutor.