The Prison of Shame: Finding a Passage Through Dreams

In New York City, a man and his therapist talk about shame as a psychological, bodily, gendered, and social experience that pervades even the consulting room. They describe and analyze trauma and guilt against the background of a common Mediterranean culture they experienced while growing up, albeit from different gendered and class positions. The patient's modest presenting complaint of blushing opens into an exploration that results in an unexpectedly profound transformation. Ultimately, therapy helps him acknowledge and process his traumatic experience of circumcision and other traumas. It frees him from deep-seated shame, puts him in touch with new desires and needs, and helps him develop a more authentic sense of self and more balanced experience of his masculinity. The focus of this paper is on the patient's dreams as they were narrated and reexperienced in therapy: as stories within the story of therapy.