In the 1960s, American neuroscientist Paul MacLean formulated the ‘Triune Brain’ model, which is based on the division of the human brain into three distinct regions. MacLean’s model suggests the human brain is organized into a hierarchy, which itself is based on an evolutionary view of brain development. The three regions are as follows:
Reptilian or Primal Brain (Basal Ganglia)
Paleomammalian or Emotional Brain (Limbic System)
Neomammalian or Rational Brain (Neocortex)
At the most basic level, the brainstem (Primal Brain) helps us identify familiar and unfamiliar things. Familiar things are usually seen as safe and preferable, while unfamiliar things are treated with suspicion until we have assessed them and the context in which they appear. For this reason, designers, advertisers, and anyone else involved in selling products tend to use familiarity as a means of evoking pleasant emotions.
Shame is a complex and powerful (“contracting” and belittling) emotion that can have a significant impact on our mental health and how we navigate the world and interact with people. It often stems from feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, or embarrassment about certain aspects of ourselves or our actions. This may not mean much to you right now … but that is all bullshit. I have worked with many people experiencing extreme toxic shame, and they are intrinsically beautiful people. Understanding the root causes of toxic shame is an essential first step in creating a healthy relationship with it. It’s crucial to recognize that experiencing shame is a universal human experience, and it does not define your worth as a person. Oftentimes, our shame is a projection of what we believe other people think about us, or it is an internalised belief (script, attitude etc.) that we learned from painful and scary life experiences. I want to preface the following by acknowledging that shame can be healthy. Without shame, we may develop unhealthy levels of egotism, narcissism, arrogance, and superiority.
The following are evidence-based, albeit typical, and clichéd approaches to building a healthy relationship with our toxic shame:
Challenge Negative Thoughts
One effective way to overcome shame is to challenge negative thoughts and beliefs that contribute to feelings of shame. This can feel exhausting! To be constantly vigilantly of our thinking, hence, noticing and letting thoughts stream through the mind will be necessary here. In 12-step fellowships, they would suggest to “let the go” and “hand them over”. For example, saying to yourself “This is not for me right now and I’ll hand it over to the universe just for now”. We do not always have the energy to challenge our negative thoughts. You can ‘compartmentalise them’, or say, “not right now”, or even say “thank you for making me aware of this and I may reflect on this when I have more time”. Challenging negative thoughts involves identifying and questioning the critical inner voice that fuels self-criticism and self-doubt. By practicing self-compassion and cultivating a more positive self-image, you can begin to counteract the destructive effects of shame. If you want someone to talk to about these issues, please call me: 0488 555 731.
Practice Self-Compassion
Self-compassion (and kindness) is a key component of overcoming shame. Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you would offer to a friend facing similar struggles. Underpinning our shame is a profound fear that we will be rejected i.e., lose a job, be ignored by friends, lack confidence to make meaningful connections and intimacy. Acknowledge your imperfections without harsh judgment and remind yourself that it’s okay to be imperfect. We don’t often see others’ imperfections, and when we do, we think theirs are tolerable or not that bad compared to ours. Developing self-compassion can help us build resilience in the face of shame and cultivate a healthier relationship with yourself. I say again, every client I have worked with has shown me their absolute beautifulness by talking about their imperfections and showing me their self.
Seek Support
It’s essential to reach out for support when dealing with shame. This can be terrifying – paralysing even – and many people have reached out in the past and the outcome has made us feel even worse. Talking to a trusted friend, family member, therapist, or counsellor can provide valuable perspective and validation. Sharing your feelings of shame with others can help you feel less isolated and alone in your struggles. Additionally, professional help can offer guidance and strategies for coping with shame in a healthy way.
Cultivate Self-Acceptance
Practicing self-acceptance involves embracing all aspects of yourself, including those that may trigger feelings of shame. Recognize that nobody is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes. By accepting your vulnerabilities and imperfections, you can reduce the power that shame holds over you. Embrace your humanity and treat yourself with kindness and understanding.
Engage in Positive Activities
Engaging in activities that bring you joy, fulfillment, and a sense of accomplishment can help counteract feelings of shame. Pursue hobbies, interests, or goals that boost your self-esteem and remind you of your strengths and capabilities. Surround yourself with supportive people who uplift you and encourage your personal growth.
Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness techniques can be beneficial in managing feelings of shame. By staying present in the moment without judgment, you can observe your thoughts and emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them. Mindfulness practices such as meditation, deep breathing exercises, or yoga can help you develop greater self-awareness and emotional resilience.
Top 3 Authoritative Sources Used:
American Psychological Association (APA) – The APA provides evidence-based information on mental health issues, including strategies for coping with emotions like shame.
Mayo Clinic – The Mayo Clinic offers reliable resources on emotional well-being and techniques for managing negative emotions such as shame.
Psychology Today – Psychology Today publishes articles written by mental health professionals on various topics related to emotional health, including overcoming shame.
These strategies, actions, and ways of thinking will take practice, practice, and more practice. It is not easy. Based on my own experience, I needed a group of people on my path who I could rely on and practice with many times over, and then I started practising on my own. I still connect with the people living my recovery. I take breaks from them when I need to, but I always reconnect because loneliness will breed more shame. Please call 0488 555 731 if you need my support.
Identify your stressors or potential stressors. Sometimes, “stress” is frustration or fear in disguise.
Plan ahead
Decision making and problem solving
Accept what we cannot change
Changing how we see stressful situations
We may not be able to change our circumstances, but we can see them differently (Forsyth & Eifert, 2016). For example, stress can be viewed as an experience that will support our learning, growth, and personal development.
Technique: Accept – Choose – Take action
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has proven valuable for people learning to manage anxiety and stress; it encourages:
Letting go of the struggles that keep them stuck
Cultivating peace of mind
Accepting what is, and doing what works
Rather than struggle to reduce stress and anxiety, we:
a. accept what we are already experiencing and then
b. choose the direction we would like our life to take, and then
c. take action that reflects are values
Technique: Radical acceptance
Radical acceptance is often practiced within Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). Radical acceptance is based on the notion that suffering does not come directly from painful experiences but our attachment to them. For example, workplace stress may be more about your identity and status in the workplace rather than the stress itself.
Radical acceptance means fully accepting everything that you are experiencing in the present moment i.e., thoughts, feelings, emotions, body sensations, reactions, attitude, environment etc. We fully accept the present moment because what we resist persists. The more we deny reality the more painful (or unpleasant) we will perceive it to be. Radical acceptance is about saying “yes” to exactly what is happening for us in the moment.
Radical acceptance is about accepting life on life’s terms and not resisting what one cannot or chooses not to change.
Accepting doesn’t mean agreeing. It’s simply exhausting to fight reality, and it doesn’t work.
Resisting reality delays healing and adds suffering to one’s pain.
Technique: Challenging core beliefs
Our core beliefs can shape how we face up to the difficult times and how we react to stress (Beck, 2011) and reconstructing them in a balanced way that allows room for perceived shortcomings.
Humans subconsciously “look for” evidence to support their core beliefs about themselves and the world.
You may have to take mental control to actively on-purpose look for evidence to the contrary.
Technique: Acceptance of our thoughts and feelings
The goal of ACT is to accept what lies beyond our control and commit to life-enhancing actions instead.
There are six core processes in ACT:
1. Contact with the Present Moment
Conscious awareness of your experience in the present moment enables you to perceive accurately what is happening Gives you important information about whether to change or persist in behaviour Enables you to ‘catch’ cognitive fusion ‘in flight’ Allows you to engage fully in what you are doing.
2. Acceptance
Actively contacting psychological experiences directly, fully, and without needless defense Definition: defused, open, undefended contact with the present moment, as a fully conscious human being.
‘Opening yourself fully to experience, as it is, not as your mind says it is’.
3. Defusion
Looking at thoughts, rather than from thoughts Noticing thoughts, rather than being caught up in thoughts Seeing thoughts as what they are, not as what they seem to be Aim of Defusion is NOT to feel better, nor to get rid of unwanted thoughts Aim of Defusion IS to reduce influence of unhelpful cognitive processes upon behaviour; to facilitate being psychologically present & engaged in experience; to facilitate awareness of language processes, in order to enhance psychological flexibility.
4. Self-as-context or The Observing Self:
Observe and accept all changing experiences.
How rigid is your thinking? Allow for psychological flexibility. Think in new ways. Consider other perspectives. Ask people for their perspective.
It is a process, not a thing: an awareness of awareness itself: ‘pure awareness’.
It is that aspect of a human being that does all the noticing/observing of one’s inner and outer world. You could call this “meta-awareness” or “pure awareness” if you prefer: it’s the awareness of one’s awareness, or the noticing of one’s noticing, or the consciousness of one’s consciousness.
5. Values
Chosen life directions ‘Your heart’s deepest desires for the sort of person you want to be and the things you want to do in your time on this planet; in other words, what you want to stand for in life’ Provide motivation & inspiration Provide guidance for your actions Give life meaning Give a sense of abundance Are different to goals 6.Committed Action Overt behaviour in the service of values (may require skills training) Committed action is: values-guided, effective & mindful
Technique: Meditation for acceptance
Meditation is a powerful tool for accepting stressful situations and difficult emotions. Bring your attention, non-judgementally, to your mind, body, and environment. Here are some alternative definitions:
“Bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis.” (Marlatt & Kristeller)
“Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn).
“The nonjudgmental observation of the ongoing stream of internal and external stimuli as they arise.” (Baer)
“Awareness of present experience with acceptance.” (Germer, Segal, Fulton)
“Consciously bringing awareness to your here-and-now experience, with openness, interest, and receptiveness.”
Allow everything to be just as it is. Do the following to start for 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or as long as you like, whenever you like:
1. Take a seat. Find place to sit that feels calm and quiet to you.
2. Set a time limit.
3. Notice your body.
4. Feel your breath.
5. Notice when your mind has wandered.
6. Be kind to your wandering mind.
7. Close with kindness.
Technique: Grounding and centering
5-4-3-2-1 Technique
Using the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, you will purposefully take in the details of your surroundings using each of your senses. Strive to notice small details that your mind would usually tune out, such as distant sounds, or the texture of an ordinary object.
Vision
What are 5 things you can see? Look for small details such as a pattern on the ceiling, the way light reflects off a surface, or an object you never noticed.
Touch
What are 4 things you can feel? Notice the sensation of clothing on your body, the sun on your skin, or the feeling of the chair you are sitting in. Pick up an object and examine its weight, texture, and other physical qualities.
Sound
What are 3 things you can hear? Pay special attention to the sounds your mind has tuned out, such as a ticking clock, distant traffic, or trees blowing in the wind.
Smell
What are 2 things you can smell? Try to notice smells in the air around you, like an air freshener or freshly mowed grass. You may also look around for something that has a scent, such as a flower or an unlit candle.
Taste
What is 1 thing you can taste? Carry gum, candy, or small snacks for this step. Pop one in your mouth and focus your attention closely on the flavours.
Naming categories
Choose a category (e.g., colours, shapes, textures), then look around the room and name all of the things you can see in that category.
Cold water
Have a few slow sips of cold water, feeling the sensation of the cold water in your mouth and notice the sensation as you swallow.
Washing your face with cold water can also reduce your heart rate and lower stress levels.
Counting
Count backwards from 20. You can do this as many times as you need to. Say to yourself that you are becoming calming as you count down each number.
Notice your breath
Take a deep breath and as you exhale, imagine breathing out strongly through the soles of your feet. Feel the connection of your feet with the floor. Do this three times.
2. Behaviours that can protect our vulnerability to stressful situations
It is essential to consider what skills and tips we can use to manage stress and ultimately improve our wellbeing inside and outside work:
Exercise i.e., running, swimming, resistance training, aerobics etc.
Eating healthy foods
Avoiding alcohol and other drugs
Recommended sleep at the recommended times i.e., 8 hours during the night hours.
See your GP if you are experiencing physical or psychiatric illness
Spend time with family and friends
Engage in a hobby or create a hobby
Meditation, yoga, group exercise, group mindfulness classes
Listening to music
Setting a time to watch tv and having boundaries re length of time watching tv
Read a book
Self-care tips
Life, and particularly work, can be stressful. Self-care is essential to keep us functioning well and improving our overall wellbeing (Bush, 2015).
The following aspects of our health are vital to our wellbeing and crucial for managing stress better. Ask yourself the following questions when your intuition tells you that you may be in a deficit:
Without sleep, we cannot think clearly – are you getting sufficient sleep?
Exercise is one of the best cures for stress – are you prioritizing physical activity?
Our brain is maintained by the food we eat – are you eating a balanced and varied diet?
Healthy relationships are vital for our wellbeing – are you making time for the people you care about?
Self-expression enriches who we are and how we live – are you giving the focus you would like to the things you are passionate about?
Community and spirituality ground who we are and how we live – how can you make yourself more open to both?
Managing stress in the workplace
Stress is a significant factor in many workplaces, resulting in countless hours lost due to time off or non-productive hours. We may think the responsibility is on workplaces to create environments that reduce stress and help workplace stress, but it’s also very much an individual responsibility.
Putting in place each of the following will help (modified from HBR guide to beating burnout, 2021):
Increase psychological safety Trust and collaboration will reduce the perception that the workplace is a threat.
Build regular break times We cannot focus for beyond 120 minutes without appropriate rest breaks. Build them into the day and encourage people to use them.
Encourage the use of private workspaces Open offices often have many distractions that can frustrate staff when unable to concentrate. Supply private workplaces where staff can focus without interruption.
Set boundaries around time outside of work The borders between work and personal life are often blurred, especially if working remotely. Set clear expectations and stick to them.
Create flexible work policies Juggling work and family life is not easy. Flexibility can remove or reduce that stress without feelings of guilt.
Make sure people are in the right roles When staff are doing jobs they enjoy and are well supported they thrive and take challenges in their stride.
Encourage autonomy Micromanaging is stressful for everyone. Give teams the autonomy to manage their own projects and staff their individual tasks.
3. Further Stress Relief Activities
Positive emotions such as joy, awe, hope, and optimism are essential to living the good life and are known stress relief techniques. They strengthen our psychological resources for overcoming tough, stressful times (Seligman, 2011).
Boosting positive emotions
Practice gratitude. A helpful way to practice gratitude is to think of everything you have in life and imagine if something was taken away.
Spent time with people who you love.
Do something kind for someone else.
Spend time in nature.
Take a break from screens (tv, mobiles, computers).
Take a break from listening to the news.
Take a work holiday.
Laugh more – find something to laugh about and share it with someone. How often are you laughing?
Build hope
Hope is a positive, optimistic frame of mind in which we expect good events and scenarios to occur. The ability to remain hopeful can help you bounce back more effectively from life’s difficulties when they crop up (Seligman, 2011).
Improving self-awareness
Mindful reflection can leave us grounded and better aware of ourselves and our situation. The Who am I without this stress? exercise helps us focus on what is “right” with us rather than what is “wrong”.
Once centred by our breathing, ask yourself to consider:
What do I value most in life? Are my current stressors more important than what’s most important? What do I enjoy doing? What do I look forward to every day? When do I feel at my best?
Change the way you talk to yourself
When we are stressed, we sometimes say negative or self-defeating things to ourselves. Unhelpful self-talk might include things like, “I can’t cope”, “I’m too busy to deal with all this”, “This is all their fault”, or “I’ll never get this done”. Negative self-talk can make it more difficult to manage stress.
Notice your self-talk and work on using helpful, soothing, and calming self-talk, such as, “I am coping well given what I have on my plate”, “Relax, this stressful time will pass”, or “This is a stressful situation, but what is one thing I can do to help me get through this?”
Ask yourself:
Am I overestimating the likelihood of a negative outcome?
Am I overestimating how bad the consequences will be?
This report summarises how clinical psychology and psychiatry generally understand people who believe that killing others is justified, necessary or required because of a religious or ideological cause. It uses plain language where possible and distinguishes extreme beliefs from mental illness.
Believe it or not – Key finding
A belief that killing people is justified by religion does not, by itself, mean that a person is mentally ill.
This is an important distinction. Contemporary psychiatric literature indicates that members of terrorist or extremist groups do not generally have higher rates of mental illness than the general population. Mental illness appears to be more common among some lone-actor extremists, but it still cannot be assumed to be the explanation for their behaviour.
In other words, someone can be psychologically capable of understanding what they are doing, planning it deliberately and believing that it is morally right, while not suffering from a psychiatric disorder.
1. Extreme religious belief is not necessarily psychosis
Psychosis involves a significant loss of contact with reality, such as hallucinations or fixed false beliefs that are not reasonably explained by the person’s cultural or religious background.
For example:
Extreme ideology: “My religion teaches that these people are enemies of God, so killing them is justified.”
Possible psychosis: “God is personally speaking to me through my television and has instructed me to kill my neighbour because he is secretly a demon.”
The first statement may represent an extreme ideological or religious belief. The second could indicate a psychiatric disorder, particularly if it occurs alongside other symptoms of psychosis.
A psychiatrist would therefore ask much more than “Does this person have strange beliefs?” They would examine whether the person has lost the ability to distinguish their beliefs from reality and whether there are other symptoms of mental illness. Distinguishing extremist beliefs from symptoms of mental disorder is recognised as an important difficulty in psychiatric assessment.
2. How can an otherwise ordinary person come to accept killing?
Psychology provides several explanations that do not require mental illness.
One is moral disengagement. This is where a person changes the way they think about an action so that something normally considered wrong becomes acceptable.
An ordinary example would be a soldier being trained to think of an enemy as a threat rather than as an individual person with a family and a life.
In extremist thinking, this can become much more extreme:
“They are not innocent people. They are enemies of God.”
Once someone has been placed into an “enemy” category, killing them can become psychologically easier to justify.
3. The importance of an “us versus them” mentality
Extremist movements often create a very strong distinction between “us” and “them”.
The person may increasingly see:
their own group as good, pure or righteous;
outsiders as corrupt, dangerous or evil;
disagreement as evidence of hostility; and
violence as self-defence or moral duty.
This is something ordinary people can recognise in less extreme forms.
For example, football rivalry can involve “us versus them”, but most people retain the understanding that the opposing team’s supporters are still ordinary human beings.
Extremism can take the same psychological distinction to an entirely different level, where the opposing group is no longer regarded as deserving the same moral consideration.
4. Religion can provide a powerful justification
Religious belief can become particularly powerful when something is regarded as a sacred or absolute value.
If a person believes:
“This is God’s command”,
then ordinary moral reasoning can change.
Instead of asking:
“Is killing this person morally acceptable?”
the person may ask:
“How could I disobey God?”
This can produce a situation where the individual genuinely believes they are doing something morally good, despite the fact that an outside observer sees the behaviour as horrific.
That does not make the behaviour acceptable, nor does it make the belief reasonable. It helps explain how the person can psychologically reconcile their actions with their own sense of morality.
5. Believing something and acting on it are different
Clinical assessment is particularly interested in the difference between extreme beliefs and a pathway towards violence.
A person might say:
“I believe people who oppose my religion are evil.”
That is concerning, but it is different from:
“I have decided to kill someone.”
And that is different again from:
“I have chosen a target, obtained the means to do it and have started preparing.”
Psychiatric risk assessment therefore looks for behavioural evidence of movement towards violence, rather than simply diagnosing someone based on their political or religious beliefs. Contemporary forensic psychiatry specifically emphasises identifying warning behaviours and distinguishing extremist beliefs from an actual pathway towards violence.
6. Mental illness can nevertheless be involved
Some people who commit extremist violence do have mental disorders.
For example, a person could have:
schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder;
severe depression;
a personality disorder;
substance-use problems;
significant paranoia;
or another condition affecting their judgement or behaviour.
However, clinicians should not automatically assume that the mental illness caused the extremism.
The relationship may instead look something like:
Personal grievance + extremist ideology + social reinforcement + psychological vulnerabilities + opportunity + willingness to use violence
rather than simply:
mental illness → terrorism.
Research specifically cautions against looking for a single cause or single psychological profile for radicalisation.
7. The most important clinical distinction
From a clinical perspective, there is a major difference between:
“This person believes something that I consider bizarre, frightening or morally repugnant.”
and
“This person has a psychiatric disorder that is causing them to lose contact with reality.”
Those are not the same thing.
A person can be completely sincere, highly intelligent, psychologically organised and fully aware of their actions, while holding an extraordinarily dangerous ideology.
That is one reason psychiatry does not regard terrorism or religious extremism as a diagnosis in itself.
Conclusion
Clinical psychology and psychiatry would generally view religiously motivated killing as a complex interaction between ideology, psychology, social influences and individual circumstances, rather than automatically as evidence of insanity.
The crucial question is not simply:
“Are their beliefs extreme?”
It is:
“What is driving those beliefs, how firmly are they held, is the person able to distinguish belief from reality, and have they moved from believing violence is justified to actually intending, preparing or attempting to carry it out?”
That distinction is important because a mentally ill person is not necessarily dangerous, and a person who is not mentally ill can nevertheless become extremely dangerous. Contemporary psychiatric literature explicitly warns against confusing mental disorder with extremist ideology and instead emphasises assessing the person’s actual pathway towards violence.
