Ashamed and Afraid: A Scoping Review of the Role of Shame in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

“…Findings indicate that HIV-related shame was significantly associated with depressive symptoms, hopelessness, loneliness, PTSD symptoms, as well as low levels of self-concept. These findings are consistent with studies that have documented the negative impact of shame on behavioral and mental health outcomes [ 6 , 19 – 23 ].…”

“…However, since the construct of trauma‐related guilt is conceptualized differently across several studies, it is more difficult to draw general conclusions about the impact of trauma‐related guilt (Wiseman et al., 2021). Furthermore, our findings align with prior research indicating that trauma‐related shame is robustly associated with PTSD severity (Badour et al., 2017; López‐Castro et al., 2019) and with studies that found trauma‐related shame to be more pathogenic than trauma‐related guilt (Leskela et al., 2002; Saraiya & Lopez‐Castro, 2016). An explanation for the relation between trauma‐related shame and PTSD severity could be that shame is significantly correlated to autonomic arousal during exposure to trauma triggers (Freed & D'Andrea, 2015).…”

“…We also sought to conduct a preliminary investigation of associations between PTSD symptoms and momentary experiences of shame. The finding that PTSD symptoms prospectively predicted more intense momentary shame is in line with cross-sectional work showing that people experiencing more severe PTSD symptoms tend to experience more severe posttraumatic shame (Badour et al, 2017;Beck et al, 2011;Saraiya & Lopez-Castro, 2016). However, our findings are the first to document this association prospectively in daily life.…”