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The Human Experience

Guilt

Michael Breslin considers the place of guilt in a healthy personality.

The goal of this article is to demonstrate the place of guilt in a healthy personality. First what do we mean by a ‘healthy personality’ and ‘guilt’. According to Sydney M. Jourard and Ted Landsman in Healthy Personality (1980), “the term healthy personality is used to describe those ways of being that surpass the average in actualization of self and in compassionate relationships with others.” I would add that a healthy personality requires being responsible enough to make decisions about the direction of one’s life, and having the courage to live with the consequences of one’s choices and actions. Guilt, meanwhile, is “the experience of self-loathing that arises when a person transgresses [their] own moral principles” (Ibid, p.130).

By this definition, the feeling of guilt is unique to human beings, as animals do not have moral principles that they might loath themselves for transgressing. It is an important, if not vital, emotion, and is essential in the formation of ourselves. Willard Gaylin, MD, expresses the importance of guilt in his book, Feelings: Our Vital Signs (1979): He says that guilt “is the emotion that shapes so much of our goodness and generosity. It signals us when we have transgressed from codes of behavior which we personally want to sustain. Feeling guilty informs us that we have failed our own ideals… Guilt is a form of self-disappointment. It is the sense of anguish that we did not achieve our standards of what we could be” (p.52).

So one experiences the feeling of guilt when one fails to live up to one’s own ideal expectations. In this sense, guilt serves as an indicator of how someone can become more: it helps determine what needs to be corrected in the self so that the person might continue in the process of attaining a healthy personality.

The Many Faces of Guilt by Susan Auletta
© Susan Auletta 2025 Please visit instagram.com/sm_auletta/

Guilt & Shame

It is important to distinguish guilt from another emotion often confused with it: shame. The feelings are similar in that they serve as guides for acceptable and non-acceptable behavior for the individual. However, they differ in an important aspect. Whereas guilt is an internalized and personal feeling, shame occurs when one’s wrongdoing becomes publicly known. Gaylin explains the distinction between guilt and shame in this way:

“Both facilitate the socially acceptable behavior required for group living, both deal with transgression and wrongdoing against codes of conduct and are supporting pillars of the social structure. But whereas guilt is the most inner-directed of emotions, shame incorporates the community, the group, the other, directly into the feelings” (p.56).

So guilt is a personal emotion seeking expiation, whereas shame is the result of public exposure of one’s wrongdoing. Social media has often both exacerbated the public shaming of individuals, and somewhat desensitized the public to amoral behavior. The bar has been lowered in many regards to normalize abhorrent conduct.

Another difference between guilt and shame is based on how other people view someone’s feelings. In his book Existential Guilt (1973), Donald V. Morano offers this explanation of this difference (p.78):

“Shame is concerned far more than guilt with the way things appear and the way people react to the way things appear rather than with one’s actual weak or strong character, virtue or vice. One is ashamed before those for whom one’s reputation is diminished or threatened.”

It’s also important not to confuse guilt with the fear of being caught. This fear is content to avoid getting caught and punished, while guilt, “wants exposure: it needs expiation and forgiveness” (Feelings, p.44).

Both guilt and shame are important human emotions. As Gaylin says, “Guilt is not only a uniquely human experience, its cultivation in people – along with shame – serves the noblest, most generous and humane character traits that distinguish our species” (p.42).

Three Types of Guilt

The three types of guilt I want to discuss are: Existential Guilt, Superego Guilt, and Conscience Guilt.

The first type, existential (or ontological) guilt, assumes that written within the hearts of humans are certain directives or messages as to how one should be in the world. This includes a desire to be more – what some philosophers call ‘self-transcendence’. But this desire is often left unfulfilled. Existential guilt arises when one realizes that one’s desire to become more is inhibited by one’s own finitude – by one’s existence in a concrete situation. External factors may come into play here, such as socioeconomic considerations which can hinder a person’s ability to achieve or even strive for loftier goals. Existential guilt arises also when the individual realizes that at times, he or she inhibits the possibility of growth or meaning for him or herself, and others.

Human finitude as the basis for existential guilt is explained by Morano in this way (p.42):

“Man is free but his freedom inevitably involves choices which preclude other possibilities. Man is capable of fulfilling many of his desires but yet his desires such as those for pleasure and for productivity often contradict each other. Man establishes for himself certain ideals and a suitable style of life, but yet finds within himself rebellious desires seeking to resist and overturn, to dispute, deny, to mock and belittle, the very being that he chose for himself. Man accepts and assigns himself duties, but yet the fulfillment of one entails the ignoring of another”

But perhaps the following definition by Morano best states what existential guilt entails (p.41):

“Consequently, man’s ontological guilt resides within the irresolvable tension resulting from the discrepancy between what he is and what he would like to be, between what has been and what he would like to have been, and between what he would like to be and what he will never be able to be. He reflects upon his own physical, moral and non-ethical limitations and in the very reflection of itself, he finds without pretending to be other than human that he is always and inevitably deficient in fulfilling his ideals, that he can never gain the self-integration that he aspires to, that his hold on existence is thoroughly tenuous.”

The second type of guilt is superego guilt. This occurs when a person violates the values maintained by their superego.

As Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) theory of personal development would have it, the superego develops in one’s childhood. The child is filled with many impulses and desires: however, the fulfillment of such desires may exclude the fulfillment of the child’s main desire, which is to feel loved by his parents. Therefore, to avoid not feeling loved by his parents due to their anger with him when he acts inappropriately, the child develops the means of organizing his needs, desires, and impulses. Thus, the superego comes into being as the moral agent which communicates to the growing child the message given him by his parents and significant others concerning what’s acceptable and unacceptable. Thus it is concerned with the person’s own lovableness; its motivation is self-centered, concerned primarily with the person himself, and its main objective is to guarantee him or her a sense of worth, a sense of being loved. In his article ‘Conscience and Superego: A Key Distinction’, taken from the book Conscience (ed. C. Ellis Nelson, 1973), John W. Glasser offers this view concerning the superego (pp.169-170):

“The superego deals not in the currency of extroverted love, but in the introversion of being lovable. The dynamic of the superego springs from a frantic compulsion to experience oneself as loveable, not from the call to commit oneself in abiding love… The commands and prohibitions of the superego do not arise from any kind of perception of the intrinsic goodness or objectionableness of the action contemplated. The source of such commands and prohibitions can be described positively as the desire to be approved and loved or negatively as the fear of loss of such love and approval.”

The superego guards the person’s sense of meaning and value. Therefore, violation of the superego’s sensibilities leads to guilty feelings and a loss of self-esteem. A person who has guilt feelings aroused by violation of their sense of meaning and value, and allows these feelings to direct his or her life, will be unable to grow into other experiences.

Guilty feelings are evidently important to the make-up of the human personality. However, it is interesting to note that according to Sigmund Freud, guilt has no innate role in the human personality. Rather, as expressed in Martin Buber’s article ‘Guilt and Guilt Feelings’ (available in Guilt: Man & Society, ed. Roger Smith, 1971, p.225), Freud thought guilty feelings:

“had to be derived from the transgressions against ancient and modern taboos, against parental and social tribunals. The feeling of guilt was now to be understood as essentially only the consequence of dread punishment and censure by this tribunal, as the consequence of the child’s fear of ‘loss of love’, or at times when it was a question of imaginary guilt, as moral masochism which is complimented by the sadism of the superego” .

So for Freud, guilt is solely related to fear of punishment arising from social transgression.

The final type of guilt I want to discuss is conscience guilt. A person’s conscience enables them to evaluate their experiences and behavior based on their values and goals. One’s conscience enables one to distinguish between one’s own actions according to which should be approved and which should not. However, with the conscience, instead of the superego’s basis of fear, one’s behavior develops out of loving concern for other people. Glasser offers this definition of conscience (p.169):

“Conscience is an insight into love; the call issued by the ultimate value and promise of love; the warming of the destructive power and indifference or hostility to this invitation: the peace (not self-satisfaction) that results from the creative yes to love; the disharmony and disintegration of existing as an abiding contradiction to this call of love which the whole being is made to answer affirmatively.”

Consequently, conscience guilt arises when an individual violates a principle which he or she has chosen to be a source of direction or meaning in their life. Conscience guilt “is engendered when he diminishes life in himself and others, not when he violates some rule imposed upon him by his parents,” as is the case with superego guilt.

To summarise, existential guilt is based on the person’s finitude: it arises out of one’s inability to transcend one’s limitations in the hope of being more. Superego guilt is based on the influence of outside factors which shape the person’s psyche by imposing certain restrictions and prohibitions on themselves. Finally, conscience guilt occurs when a person transgresses a principle, value, or ideal he or she has freely chosen to direct their life. One further important issue which needs to be considered, is whether, and how, each guilt has a place in a healthy personality.

Guilt & Health

There is a place for existential guilt in the healthy personality as long as one does not become so overly concerned with one’s limitedness that one neglects or passes by opportunities for growth. Indeed, existential guilt serves a very important role in the healthy personality, as it gives the individual a better understanding of himself and of the world: “An appreciation of our guilt involves an insight into the deficient aspect of human existence in general and that of our personal lives in particular” (Existential Guilt, p.64).

There is also a place for superego guilt in the healthy personality only if the person is prompted to re-evaluate the prohibitions enforced upon him- or herself by the superego. Upon such an evaluation of one’s superego, one may find that many of its prohibitions are still valid. However, it is essential for a healthy personality to reflect upon its thinking, and so reevaluate its superego.

Conscience guilt can also be healthy, as it helps one stay within one’s own chosen moral guidelines.

The healthy personality will depend on itself to remove the guilt (and any implied self-hatred) and forgive itself, before it can accept the forgiveness of others (or, if they are religious, the forgiveness of God). Of course, there are healthy and unhealthy ways to deal with guilt.

It is unhealthy for a person to allow guilty feelings to rule, and to direct his or her behavior. The unhealthy ways in which people cope with their guilt is best summarised in the phrase ‘self-deception’. When people don’t take an honest look at themselves and their guilty experience, they won’t be able to find the true source of their guilt. The person remains stagnant and is unable to proceed towards a healthier personality.

The lack of reflection perhaps involves a refusal to accept one’s actions. And by refusing to consider his guilt, a person may at times places the blame for their unhappy feelings on other people, or on God. The following sums up the consequences of dealing with guilt in an unhealthy manner: “They refuse to take any responsibilities for their deficiencies, refuse to go out in any positive way to others, and blatantly blame everything on a wicked God, a God who is totally guilty” (Existential Guilt, p.73).

An individual experiences guilt when they become aware of their inability to fulfill the ideals which guide and direct their life, whether these ideals are chosen or imposed. So one healthy way to deal with guilt is to reflect upon one’s behavior while feeling guilty, as this reflection will help determine the source of guilt, and thereby assist the person in making the needed changes. This is expressed by Jourard and Landsmen thus: “When the person does feel guilt, he or she will be able to determine what aspects of the conscience have been violated; and when some conflict must be resolved, the person will make the relevant moral aspects explicit, so that the decision will be made after due consideration of the moral issue at stake” (Healthy Personality, p.19). An appreciation of one’s guilt also gives the individual an insight into who he or she is, which leads to a better self-understanding. Morano says, “The appreciation of one’s ontological guilt is of value to man, since it involves a greater insight into one-self and to one’s relations with the world and others than otherwise; and, even to look into and to face up to these limitations will enable the individual to live a more effective life” (Existential Guilt, p.63).

So for one to deal with guilt in a healthy way one must not deny the feeling. Rather, one must recognize it and work it out in an honest way. If we do this, then guilt will no longer be a stumbling block or a burden we must suffer. Instead of accusing and condemning oneself through guilt, the person will see the feeling as an opportunity for growth and development. Martin Buber says of the effect of the healthy way of dealing with guilt on the individual, “As a result, he becomes for himself a detached object about which he can only ‘reflect’, but which he can, from time to time, confirm as well as condemn” (p.100).

Conclusions

Guilt can be healthy as well as unhealthy for an individual, but the feeling of guilt contributes to the healthy personality if the person deals with it in an honest way, by reflecting on his or her experience, determining the source of the guilt, and acting upon the newly found insights. This method of dealing with guilt leads to better self-understanding, enabling the person to interact with other people in a way which is conducive to personal psychological health. However, when they refuse to acknowledge guilt and correct the source of it, they’re in self-deception. This is unhealthy because it will inhibit their ability to be an active force in their own life. It will also adversely affect their understanding of themself and their relationship with other people.

It is important for an individual to operate out of values he or she has chosen as important, including a concern for the well-being of other people. A healthy personality views feelings of guilt as an early warning signal indicating that some aspect of their life needs to be re-evaluated and adjusted. If the person does this, he or she will be one step closer to self-actualization.

Michael Breslin is a retired federal law enforcement senior executive with the United States Secret Service. He is a member of several law enforcement and homeland security related associations, and also a member of the Board of Directors for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).