Humiliation

Mental Health and Public Shame

Marit F. Svindseth, Paul Crawford

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781838671006
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Psychiatry & Mental Health

There is a global appetite to humiliate or publicly shame others and this has evenbecome a source of entertainment for many. The growth and all-encompassinginfluence of social media has made the phenomenon of humiliation even moreapparent and possible. This book examines the damaging impact of humiliation in human society. The relationshipbetween humiliation and shame is explored in depth with a particular focus on the waythis relationship affects people's self-image, self-esteem and memory. By using casestudies of observed humiliation, the book discusses the power play between individuals, groups, organizations and nations. It shows how public shame can lead to damagingpsychological states and violent responses amongst vulnerable people. This topical bookpresents an important and timely discussion for today's world, not least in showing thelinks between humiliation, terrorism and poor mental health. By offering strategies for responding to feelings of humiliation in a range of contexts, this book will prove a valuable resource for professionals concerned with mental health, public health, education and social care. Importantly, this is a book for all those affectedby humiliation who want to take action and find new solutions for dealing with it.

CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS HUMILIATION?

Most people will have a good sense of what humiliation is and how it plays a memorable part in our lives. Humiliation is one of those experiences in life that we tend to want to forget about. However, perhaps that is telling us something. In this part of the book, we introduce some of the key ideas about humiliation and begin to share brief stories from people who have been humiliated. Through the stories, we learn more about the different ways that humiliation enters the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds. The common factor is that they have all experienced being humiliated. Their witness to the impact of being humiliated or shamed is our best guide to possible solutions.

Shame springs from a personal sense of failing that can arise internally from personal reflection or externally by another person’s critical comments or behaviour. What we know is that both emotions have a strong impact on individuals. However, it is the second and more intensely embarrassing part of the shame-humiliation pairing (see Tomkins, 1963) – public shaming – that concerns us in this book, that is, humiliation. Most people will have experienced some level of public shaming and intense embarrassment in their lives that provokes a blushing face, but there are several, often disturbing aspects to humiliation which can bring serious consequences for individuals and society.

Although there is only sparse empirical research into humiliation or its psychopathology or effects as noted by scholars such as Elison and Harter (2007), anecdotal or narrative evidence suggests that humiliation provokes suicide; mass murders, such as school killings; and other kinds of violence, as in terrorist acts, not least the bombing of civilians. Research also identifies a link between humiliation and depression or anxiety. Clearly, humiliation can drive people into psychologically compromised states, which, in turn, may develop into self- or other-directed violence.

We have all witnessed more than enough humiliation. While humiliation can feature in lighter aspects of society, for example, in its comedy, or as a choice integral to sado-masochism, it is more often a serious, non-consensual, and highly damaging phenomenon. Even in comedy, not least satire, the distance between laughter and offence can be very short – as in the provocative Charlie Hebdo drawings of Muhammad or Shikibu Murasaki’s ancient novel The Tale of Genji, where people are ‘laughed to shame’. It is horrible to feel the emotion of being humiliated which involves a public loss of face and shame. Multiple films and photographs have captured the devastating effects of humiliation. Our stomachs churn when looking at the many disturbing images of humans being degraded. For example, take the stark and intense images of the orange-suited victims humiliated by Jihadi John or, conversely, those imprisoned in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. There are multiple humiliations like this in the histories and works of all nations and societies. Sometimes the humiliation is more subtle but palpable, as in the images of Syrian refugees who walked from Greece through the Federal Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and into Hungary only to be corralled and thrown food packages like feeding time at a zoo.

Beyond individuals and groups, even nations can be humiliated and disrespected. Should we expect such nations to be peaceful? If nations or peoples are humiliated, as in Germany’s economic degradation after the First World War or the Palestinian allocation to the Gaza Strip and West Bank, then we will face further conflict and tumult. As we write, Western and Middle-Eastern nations and peoples are humiliating one another in a gross game of ‘pass the parcel’. Leaders of the most powerful nations on earth are bashing each other in the media, by economic warfare, cyberattack and through deadly and symbolic put-downs such as the use by the Russian state of Novichok on UK soil. Even high-profile awards can bring humiliation, as in the case of the dissident Liu Xiabo receiving the Nobel Prize in 2010. China perceived this as direct criticism and, indeed, humiliating. They responded with a trade boycott of Norway. More recently, Donald Trump mobilized the vote for him becoming president of the United States by humiliating Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, and women. He even spoke of China ‘raping’ his beloved country. These kinds of actions and slurs escalate the idea of ‘us against them’. It seems that leaders of nations do not think twice about how their symbolic actions and words will bring further conflict or violence down the line.

Often, we become insensitive to the devaluation of others or their values. We grow hardened to the humiliation that we, perhaps non-intentionally, inflict on our fellow human beings.

In humiliation, we are talking about actions that can be subtle yet painful ‘put-downs’ or in-your-face public disapproval, denunciation or ridicule. Back in 1956, Harold Garfinkel defined such phenomena as ‘status degradation ceremonies’ that mark ‘the irony between what the denounced appeared to be and what [they are] seen now really to be’ (p. 422). This ‘bringing down’ or what Gilbert (1997) identifies as an attack on the ‘social attractiveness’ of others is happening more and more across our shrinking world. We see powerful leaders trying to handshake their competitors into submission in front of the cameras. It is not enough these days to win the grip – it has to be witnessed by everyone on the planet. Celebrities are shamed by pictures of plastic surgery gone wrong or private sexual preferences revealed to the public. From our workplaces and homes to our hospitals and schools and onto our streets, humiliation is taking over.

In most cases, however, it is the weakest of citizens who are most likely to suffer at the bottom of the humiliation chain. As physical and psychological walls are erected that separate the worthy from the unworthy, the poorest among us are set for the equivalent of a full body slam.

Our society rewards the behaviour of coping in our work, private lives and social life. People who in one way or another fall outside of the lifestyle that society rewards, such as those with drug problems, the elderly, children, disabled or mentally ill, are prone to experience humiliations. For example, imagine for a moment, the humiliation experienced by a person with mental health problems forcibly removed in handcuffs from their home or the street by the police. Should we be surprised if they fight back? Consider an older person spoken to in front of family members as if they were a baby or cognitively impaired. Should we be surprised if they strike out or throw a plate of food at us? These are the common, daily humiliations experienced by people all over the world. Historically, we share the images of humiliation dealt out to individuals and large numbers of people, from a naked single girl, Kim Phuc, in the Vietnam War to the countless victims of the Holocaust and other barely imaginable devastations in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Dafur. Yet humiliation is not a simple phenomenon. We will now try to shed light on different aspects of humiliation, its association to our personality traits, our reactions to it, how we can recognize it, avoid doing it to others and how to heal each other after being shamed or humiliated.

Humiliation is rooted in the Latin word humiliare, which means to humble or to bring down. It is a strong or intense feeling or emotion (Otten and Jonas, 2013), and the humiliated will remember the violation for years, perhaps even a lifetime. The recognition of humiliation is key to developing our empathy but also the first important step towards neutralizing it.

Several definitions of humiliation occur in literature but four should suffice here. All these definitions of humiliation seem to consider violation of human dignity as an important element. First, Statman (2000) defines humiliation as suffering an actual threat to or fall in one’s self-esteem. Second, Lindner writes that it is when people treat others as inferior against their will. Third, according to Lazare and Levy, humiliation is explained as ‘the emotional response of people to their perception that another person or group has unfairly or unjustly lowered, debased, degraded, or brought them down to an inferior position, that they are not receiving the respect and dignity they believe they deserve’. Fourth, Torres and Bergner emphasize the loss of the standing to claim status as a central element of humiliation:

When a humiliation annuls the very standing of individuals as eligible to make status claims on their own behalf, these individuals have been nullified as participating actors in the relational domain, or community in which the humiliation has taken place.

1.1. SOME ASPECTS OF THE WORD ‘HUMILIATION’

In the tabloid press and in social media, humiliation brings ridicule and the humiliated are told to ‘suck it up’ rather than being allowed to argue that they did not deserve this. The humiliated are represented as bringing it upon themselves by their own actions and emotions. As an intense emotion, humiliation closely relates to shame, guilt, embarrassment or a fall in pride. Often humiliation is aligned with shame. However, these are not the same. The most important difference between shame and humiliation is that shame is self-inflicted while others inflict humiliation upon us. Table 1.1 reveals the key elements of this dynamic. In this sense, shame can result from humiliation, but it is not dependent on it.

Table 1.1. Key Elements of Humiliation and Shame.

Humiliation	Shame
Degradation	Guilt
Confusion	Shortcoming
Powerlessness/helplessness	Impropriety
Violation/assault	Disrepute
Feeling of unjustness	Feeling of justness
Fear of future humiliations	Fear of future shame
Public exposure	Private experience
Inflicted by others	Inflicted by oneself
Exclusion/withdrawal	Isolation/withdrawal
Effect on self-esteem	Loss of self-esteem

In Christiane Sanderson’s (2015) useful ‘spectrum of family of shame emotions’ (adapted in Table 1.2 below), we see how mild, moderate and severe forms play out.

Table 1.2. Sanderson’s Spectrum of Family of Shame Emotions (adapted).

Mild	Moderate	Severe
Embarrassment	Guilt	Chronic shame
Healthy shame	Humiliation	Humiliated fury
Authentic pride		Excessive pride

We will take a closer look at the content of the different key elements of humiliation and shame.

1.2. DEGRADATION

Degradation has many aspects to it, and different situations trigger different humiliating experiences across the lifespan. For example, adolescents seem to react most to the humiliations in social media, where they can quickly drop in status from being popular to being a social outcast, as in the case of Steph below. Such young people are prone to transform degradation into shame.

Steph had enjoyed a happy childhood and was thriving at school. She gathered friends around her and scored high in her assessments. She began a relationship with one of the older boys at the school who was also very popular. When she contracted chlamydia from him, the boy claimed that she had infected him. Other girls and boys at the school quickly posted that she was ‘a slut’. Steph was mortified, felt dirty, and humiliated but did not understand how she could fight the allegations. Steph knew that although the story was false, many of the people would believe it. She transformed the humiliation into feeling ashamed and went off sick for several weeks. The postings got worse on her return, claiming that she was having special treatment. Steph became increasingly depressed and started to isolate herself at break times by going to the library.

The story of Steph and her experience of ‘slut-shaming’ (Ringrose and Renold, 2012) will feature again later in the book when we offer suggestions for overcoming or recovering from humiliation.

Not simply young people are vulnerable to degradations. For the adult population, this can often occur in the workplace (see Fisk, 2001). We spend about 30% of our waking lives at work and humiliation can occur there as much as anywhere. Yet the impact in this context can be huge as it forms a significant chunk of our lived experience. Here, the strongest or most potent degradations are when people do not achieve the status they feel they deserve or when, as in the case of Susan, they are undermined, disempowered or have their ideas devalued:

Susan was creative and had a number of good ideas, which she was eager to share with colleagues. She also felt that her creativity could be valuable to the company. Indeed, her analysis showed that a project she designed could be highly profitable. Yet one of her peers disagreed and mobilized a more senior colleague to block its development. Susan, an enthusiastic employee, felt cut off, stopped talking about the project and eventually, after not feeling valued in other aspects of the work, resigned. She felt her competence challenged and her efforts disregarded.

Here, Susan’s work environment diminished her value as a creative and positive member of the workforce. Clearly, She lost a great deal from this degradation but the company and her colleagues also lost out. Her colleagues no longer benefited from her creative contributions and passion for the work. The company quite possibly turned down a profitable innovation.

Just as people can be humiliated in the workplace, retired, elderly people can face a similar fate. In hospitals, retirement and care homes, elderly populations can feel disempowered and subject to belittling, degrading behaviour towards them. In frailty, such individuals can feel trapped in a ‘second childhood’ where people speak to them like a baby. Put simply, as with people with serious mental disorders, such individuals can find themselves ignored, unseen and unheard. They may feel subject to physical power, humiliated in being treated as unknowing objects without respect and dignity for their unique identities, or as in the case of Jane below, being removed from a high or dignified status:

Jane had been a highflying accountant, living independently after the death of her husband. Now, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, she found herself in a care home. She still recognized members of her family. They doted on her and visited regularly, buying her new clothes, taking her out to the hairdressers and ensuring that her nails were manicured. As much as possible, Jane’s family, tried to maintain her dignity. Yet once visiting time ended, the carers would pull Jane to her feet without so much as a word, guide her into a chair and whisk her off to the toilet even though she could walk slowly with support. There, the carers would proceed to ‘jolly her’ onto a toilet seat, ignoring her complaints about the door being left open.

In Alzheimer’s or other dementias, personality traits can become exaggerated or completely change. However, it is reasonable to believe that respect for people with such a condition is fundamental in maintaining their quality of life. If carers do not show respect to people with dementia, the outcome can be depression, anger or violence. This can then lead to the person with dementia being labelled as ‘difficult’ and result in further devaluation by carers in a downward spiral.

Similarly, degradation can occur in relationships at...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Preface: Seeding Violence
• Chapter 1 What Is Humiliation?
• Chapter 2 Reactions to Humiliation
• Chapter 3 Healing, Neutralizing, and Preventing Humiliation
• Bibliography
• Index