Shame silences our stories, crushes our spirits, and cuts us off from our hearts. How can we give voice to what has happened? Could we fall apart into suffering that would heal us? Might we honour desires we’ve disowned for a lifetime? How do we gather up our battered parts of self with tenderness? Could grief and love restore our hearts to us?

Having written groundbreaking theory about the developmental genesis of chronic shame and its treatment in relational psychotherapy, Patricia DeYoung returns to speak from her heart about what it’s like to inhabit a life of shame. In six essays, she writes of the essential impasses of chronic shame: silence, dissociation, isolation, the abolition of desire, the imposition of right and wrong, and ending life without meaning. Each impasse deserves a story.

DeYoung’s stories of an ordinary life start with getting born and end with getting old. They open up crucial questions: Does the shame we suffer mean we’re as worthless as we feel, marking miles on a hard road to despair? Or does the longing beneath our shame mean we may hope for true connection and a chance at grace? Her essays privilege our longing and the difficult but powerful grace of being real and being-with.

In this book, shame theory meets memoir and meditation. Therapists, patients, and self-reflective readers from many walks of life will be moved and changed by time spent with this master clinician, thoughtful mentor, and fellow traveler.

Patricia A. DeYoung, MSW, PhD, is a psychotherapist and clinical supervisor in Toronto.