http://www.skylightto.com/interviews/dr-donald-carveth-guilt/
Do you identify a difference between guilt and shame?
Yes I do. There are two main types of guilt: The first is punitive guilt, in which “I’m whipping myself”, and that’s almost indistinguishable from shame, which is a narcissistic emotion. In shame, my mind is entirely on myself. We often think of selfishness or narcissism as focusing on “how great I am” but it’s equally narcissistic to be going on all the time about how terrible you are. Shame is self-persecution. It’s a horrible feeling. You beat yourself up, and once in a while, in order to stop beating yourself up, you beat somebody else up- that’s the scapegoat mechanism. When I’m depressed, my superego has me in its crosshairs, but if I can shift someone else into its crosshairs: “That guy over there is the sinner, let’s attack him instead of attacking me.” People can get relief from depression by targeting somebody else. All of this is destructive guilt.
But there’s another kind of guilt altogether, which is reparative guilt: your mind is not on yourself, it’s on the person you’ve injured. The move into reparative guilt is a move out of narcissism. We get our minds off ourselves long enough to actually see the harm we’ve done to others, and to be concerned about them, and to want to do something to make it right.
The example I use is, “I’ve injured someone, and he’s bleeding in the corner. With persecutory guilt or shame, I’m flagellating, I’m such a terrible person.” But that’s useless to the guy who’s bleeding. If I put down the cat-o-nine tails, go get the first aid kit, and start bandaging- that’s reparative guilt.
So guilt can lead to better behaviour.
Yes. Now I make a distinction between the conscience and the superego. The superego is the inner, moralistic, hanging-judge torturer. Superego is about aggression turned on the self and sometimes on scapegoats.
Conscience is quite separate. Conscience is grounded in love, is grounded in concern. You give love, because you were cared for, and you know you have an obligation to give care back. When you’re out of sync with your conscience, or doing something wrong, Conscience bothers you. By contrast, the superego tortures you- the superego’s attitude is, “OK I caught you in wrongdoing, good. Now I can do what I like to do, which is beat the shit out you.” Conscience doesn’t react that way. The conscience is saddened by the fact that you’re doing wrong. It encourages you to turn around and do right, it calls you to contrition and pulls you to apology and to reparative action, and that is useful guilt.
I like that. Let’s talk about Skylight.
As background: Kyra worked in Tom’s restaurant, and they had an affair while Tom was married to Alice. Kyra was very close to the family, including Alice and Tom’s son, Edward. After six years, Alice discovered the affair, and Kyra abruptly removed herself from their lives. Tom’s relationship with Alice never recovered; Alice became ill and died. Kyra has now moved to a low-income neighbourhood and taken a job teaching very difficult students. Skylight shows us Tom’s and Kyra’s first meeting, 3 years after the end of their affair.
What do you observe in the characters?
My reactions to the play deepened every time I read it. On the first read, you’re very aware of what a bombastic narcissistic character Tom is; and he’s also a symbol, and a critique, of Thatcher’s neoliberal market fundamentalism nonsense. He’s likeable, intelligent, charming, energetic, but he’s easy to identify as a narcissist and a coward. When the wife he’s been unfaithful to is dying, his act of reparation is to throw money, which is nothing to him; he builds her a house, but he can’t face her.
My initial tendency was to see Kyra as a bit of a victim of this narcissistic male, but I think she’s pretty guilty in her own way. She felt fine sleeping with her friend Alice’s husband as long as Alice didn’t know. So now, Kyra’s freezing in this tiny, shoddy apartment, a little bit like she’s sent herself to jail– Tom calls it Siberia. But she would not have to continue in this bread-and-water prison if she came consciously to terms with her guilt. If she did that, she could get over it. So she’s paying a big price for her failure to acknowledge her guilt. And now she’s unconsciously making reparation for her sins by becoming a devoted teacher.
And yet, after Alice discovered the affair, Kyra had 3 years to make true reparations before Alice’s death, but instead, she vanished.
And now, her first words to Tom after a 3-year separation– she doesn’t even say hello- she says, “I’m not guilty.”
Exactly! She’s making a joke, but as you say, it’s the first thing that comes out of her mouth, which indicates how guilty she really is.
Oh– I wanted to mention this quotation from a Yeats poem at the beginning of the play:
“We had fed the heart on fantasies; the heart’s grown brutal from the fare.”
So here, Kyra and Tom had the illusion that they could help themselves to this fantasy of pleasure and that it wouldn’t hurt anyone as long as they kept it secret. Well that is a total illusion, because ultimately there are no secrets. Even in physics, scientists say everything connects. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon; it affects the weather in Toronto. People have this illusion that there is a hiding place, but it all comes out, and it affects us. Tom and Kyra are maintaining this illusion that their affair is not hurtful, and so…
…the heart has grown brutal as a result.
Repressed guilt and shame are toxic. It’s not the guilt and shame themselves that have a toxic effect, it’s the repression of them, the avoidance of them. So I think it’s a perfect epigraph for the play. Illusions are hard to see through– that’s why we need other people who see us better than we can see ourselves.
(laughing) You should know.
(laughing) Well, it works both ways! One of the great things about doing this work is that the patient sees me as well. When you work with patients intensively for a long period of time, they get to see your weak spots, biases, blind spots… and they tell you about it!
Oh! Can you tell me some of the things they’ve called out?
Sure! One said, “You know, Don, when they called it a Talking Cure, they meant the patient talks!” (laughing)
(laughing) How does that feel?
Well, sometimes… (laughs). But really, I like it, because they’re teaching me something. You know, sometimes I’m clumsy, sometimes I’m arrogant, sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes I’m sleepy, and the patient is going to tell me the ways in which I’m not perfect!
But I’m also getting real gratitude. Sometimes people will thank me with tears in their eyes, and this makes me feel very good. And you don’t get the good without the other side of it. It’s a very deep kind of connectedness with other people, and it’s very gratifying work.
Why did you become an analyst?
When I was younger, I was unhappy, I was self-punishing by getting depressed, by not letting myself be as successful as I otherwise could- and by not being able to write my doctoral dissertation! So I started analysis, because I knew that there was something wrong with me. I had done all of the trendy therapies- this was the sixties- but it was useless. And so, my very first psychiatrist—when I fired him—said, “Consider psychoanalysis.” And I said, “What, they still do that thing with the couch?” But within a matter of weeks I knew this was the therapy for me. I started to change, overcame the writer’s block, wrote the PhD, got the PhD and a tenure-track position, and I started publishing. And as soon as I got tenure, I applied to train as an analyst, and I’ve been practicing ever since. But it started out with a need to deal with my own personal issues, and only then did it turn into a career.
As someone who’s read the play several times, and as someone who has professional insights about its themes- what do you think audiences will take away from Skylight?
I think the audience will be quite moved, and they’ll be shaken. But also entertained. The dialogue is incredibly amusing; some of Tom’s diatribes are hilarious, and Kyra has such a dry, acerbic wit- this is a play that should really be enjoyed. But it’s going to shake people as well.
The fact that grief takes so long to resolve is not a sign of inadequacy, but betokens depth of soul.
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