1st Edition

Shame and Grace Six Essays on Falling Apart and Becoming Whole Again

By Patricia A. DeYoung Copyright 2025
178 Pages
by Routledge

178 Pages
by Routledge

178 Pages
by Routledge

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... Read more

1. Shame and Writing  2. Shame and Falling Apart  3. Shame and Relationships  4. Shame and Desire  5. Shame and Being Right or Wrong  6. Shame and Getting Old

Biography

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

 

“Patricia DeYoung has given us a brave and honest book, a work of psychoanalysis without jargon, a challenge to learn about and converse with our own chronic and acute shame. Her personal stories make this book hard to put down. It is a significant gift and deserves a wide and fearless readership.”

Donna Orange, PhD, PsyD, author of Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians and Psychoanalysis, History, and Radical Ethics: Learning to Hear

“In this book, Patricia DeYoung, a psychotherapist and author who learned long ago that shame is the elephant in the room, explores the role of parental and cultural shaming in her childhood. She is honest about its potent effects yet merciful toward its purveyors, herself included. She understands that shaming can become a family custom, cascading down generations in ways that trap and injure both children and parents. Perhaps most importantly, DeYoung shows how we can light the exit from this ruinous cycle by being kind.”

Martha Sweezy, author of Internal Family Systems Therapy for Shame and Guilt