• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

WhyWeSuffer.com

Transformative Insights from Depth Psychology

  • BASIC PRINCIPLE
  • About
  • Services
  • Comments
  • Contact
  • Books
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Prisoners of Guilt

Peter Michaelson · December 29, 2014 ·

Do guilt trips lock you up in an emotional prison? What do you need to know to deflect or neutralize guilt trips?

After a guilt trip, Tom locked himself in an emotional prison. following a guilt trip.
After a guilt trip, Tom locked himself in an emotional prison.

Let’s look at Tom’s encounter with guilt. He was concerned this past Christmas about picking out presents that his nieces and nephews would need or like. So he gave money to his sister to buy his presents for them. He did, however, wrap the presents, and he was present when they were opened Christmas morning.

The children liked the gifts and thanked Tom cheerfully. However, Alice, the eldest niece, told him with a hint of disapproval that she knew he hadn’t personally bought them. He hadn’t gone to the store, she reiterated, and picked them out himself. Taken aback, Tom mumbled an excuse about being too busy. Alice didn’t look impressed, though, by his explanation.

Afterwards, Tom was bothered all day by guilt. In his mind, he kept seeing Alice making her “accusation.” He began to feel upset at her. “How could she be so mean as to say that to me,” he thought, “after I got her such a nice present!” Soon he was speaking resentfully about Alice to a friend.

His friend told him, “Tom, it’s true she laid a guilt-trip on you. But you’re the one who got triggered. You have to ask yourself why you’re so upset by that young girl’s passing comment.”

This friend’s suggestion is a good one. Tom’s problem is not with his niece but with the ease by which he gets triggered by real or implied criticism.

It doesn’t help Tom much to try to figure out her motives for judging him. Thinking along those lines and trying to guess at her intentions would likely just trap him in a labyrinth of speculation. He might even end up entertaining feelings that she harbored malice toward him. In all likelihood, Alice was only displacing on to him her own inner conflict between self-criticism and self-approval. Her behavior was innocent, in the sense that it was unconsciously compulsive.

It’s true that we’re faced with a challenging moment when someone lays a guilt trip on us. The guilt trip can be as innocent as someone saying, in a seemingly friendly way, “Oh, we never see you!” when you drop by for a visit. A moment like this can throw some people on the defensive. So how do you reply to such a comment? If you’re emotionally strong and not easily triggered, you’ll probably just ignore it. Or you might say something like, “Here I am, happy to see you!”

Through emotional strength, we can make light of guilt-tripping comments. This lightness can be observed in how easily, inwardly and outwardly, we dismiss the comment, perhaps allowing it only to amuse us.

People usually won’t continue to be judgmentally aggressive toward you unless they can see that doing so repeatedly brings up in you a defensive and emotional reaction. Still, some people—sometimes they’re verbal bullies—are very persistent with their critical aggressiveness. In those instances in which a particular family member, friend, or coworker does repeatedly try to guilt trip you, you likely have to learn how to respond with more verbal assertiveness (more on this later).

First of all, though, we need to see the nature of our own reactions. What’s going on within ourselves? If guilt trips consistently throw us into an emotional dungeon, we’re allowing someone’s negative remarks to penetrate into us and strike a sensitive nerve. How do we neutralize their sly or sometimes crude insinuations? We need to do a bit of inner work on ourselves to get to a place of emotional strength, where we’re not so instinctively defensive and sensitive.

A guilt trip carries with it some aggression. The person laying the guilt trip on us is acting aggressively. This aggression is not usually authentic. Instead, it’s a symptom of neurosis. Still, it can feel real. Even when the aggression is muted or subtle, we still feel it. However, the aggression only penetrates into us when, through our inner passivity, we allow it to do so.

When we react to such aggression with anxiety or guilt, we’re reacting through our passivity. Hence, we take too seriously the insinuations or accusations that make up the guilt trip. We give their words too much credence. Through our passivity, it feels as if the guilt trip is holding us accountable for our conduct and perhaps even for our very existence. We become defensive and stammer out some explanation for our behavior. It’s as if we’re a child again having to explain ourselves to a parent.

We want to see into the nature of our passivity. Some people, of course, have more inner passivity than others. This weakness, while a measure of our self-doubt, is simply an element of human nature. We’re an evolving species, still learning to access our own mind, power, and wise authority.

Inner passivity occupies one side of the major inner conflict in human nature. To varying degrees, humans are entangled in the conflict between inner aggression (the inner critic or superego) and inner passivity (the unconscious, subordinate ego). The conflict is such that we want both to feel strong and to feel weak. Obviously, we want to feel strong, yet nonetheless we keep stumbling over a persistent, stubborn sense of our own weakness. The weakness remains as an old identification, a familiar sense of self from childhood through which, in part, we still know ourselves.

At an inner level, our psyche is governed, somewhat primitively, according to the conditioned reactions and operational procedures of aggression and passivity. This aggression and passivity can, on a temporary basis, be alleviated and harmonized by meditation or healthy pursuits and activities. Alcohol and drugs can also temporarily ease the conflict. However, to acquire a more stable inner harmony, one that opens the door to growing consciousness and wisdom, we can look to self-knowledge. This enables us to establish or develop a conscious point within ourselves—our authentic self—that can begin to observe the inner conflict between aggression and passivity with a sense of freedom from it.

This observing self is also very likely to feel wonder and awe at the discovery of these remarkable, previously unchartered dimensions of our humanity. Once the initial fear of inner exploration subsides, there’s much pleasure to be felt in self-discovery.

This authentic self sees the inner conflict and stands outside it. Over time, the self grows in stature as one’s wise, trusted, inner authority, while the conflict itself diminishes.

Part of Tom’s problem with Alice concerns how poorly he represented himself. He felt guilt not only because he absorbed her implied criticism but also because he reacted so defensively and had no words of power or authority to dismiss her comment. His inner critic was able later on to assail him harshly for reacting so weakly. He felt another layer of guilt as he absorbed this inner criticism.

Should he overcome this passivity, he’ll have the power to calmly say words to this effect should she persist with her verbal aggressiveness: “Alice, I’ve noticed that you frequently make statements that imply I’ve done something wrong. I ask you to be aware of that. It’s a measure of negativity that you direct my way, and I really don’t want or need it in my life.”

It never hurts to understand the guilt tripper’s unconscious motives. Alice might be inclined to throw Tom into a passive moment, and then identify with him being entangled in that passive experience. As part of this, she might be wanting to identify with him feeling criticized, as she herself feels in relation to her own inner critic. Such behavior can remain compulsive unless the underlying dynamics are made conscious. This is very handy to know should you happen to be one who regularly guilt trips others.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share This:

Filed Under: Depth Psychology, Guilt and Shame Tagged With: critical aggressiveness, get triggered, guilt trip, guilt-tripping, human nature, observing self, subconscious motives

Primary Sidebar

MOST OF OUR suffering is avoidable. Our emotional and behavioral problems can be resolved. We just have to understand how our psyche works. This website is dedicated to teaching vital psychological knowledge. Do you need help to curb drinking or to get off drugs? Are you facing a divorce or a career failure? Are you anxious, depressed, or overwhelmed by life's challenges? Perhaps you're simply unable to get your mind or intelligence into high gear. I can help. I'm Peter Michaelson, an author and psychotherapist in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I teach people how to overcome unconscious programming that produces suffering and self-defeat.

WHY WE SUFFER–THE BOOK

My book, Why We Suffer--A Western Way to Understand and Let Go of Unhappiness, is the story of what mainstream psychology has failed to teach the world. The depth psychology in this book has vital insights, answers, and solutions for you. Click on the Books link above for more information. --

Other Articles

  • Happiness Hinges on Psychological Insight
  • The President Hears from Dr. Freud
  • People Who Hate Love
  • The Language that Liberates the Self
  • Dare We See the Trump in Us?
  • The Emotional Catering Service
  • Are You Addicted to Self-Punishment?
  • A Hidden Cause of Loneliness
  • The Impulse to Destroy Democracy
  • We Get Stronger by Seeing Our Weakness
  • The Warmonger in Our Psyche
  • Armed with Stubbornness, the Weak Go on the Warpath
  • How to Rescue Yourself from Suffering
  • My New Book (of Poetry!) Is Versed in Depth Psychology
  • Finding in Self the Richness of Being
  • Sports Fans and Their Discontents
  • Two Terrible Voices in Your Head
  • Why People Support Donald Trump
  • The Vital Knowledge We Disown
  • Climate Anxiety and the Psyche
  • Abandonment, Self-Abandonment, and Democracy
  • Our Readiness to Feel Controlled
  • The Key to Emotional Self-Regulation
  • Seven Villains in a Sad Love Story
  • The Latest Pandemic: Feeling Overwhelmed
  • The Blindness of the Species
  • Why Americans Are So Wretchedly Divided
  • Are You Passive to Your Mind?
  • What Freud Knew That We Still Hate to See
  • The Emotional Conflict Behind 50 Mental-Health Symptoms
  • A Novelist’s Quest to Unravel His Madness
  • When Inner Growth Feels Impossibly Difficult
  • Haunted by Incessant Wanting
  • My New Book: Healing Our Deadly Flaw
  • Inner Conflict’s Role in Child Suicide
  • Putin’s Psyche
  • The Flaw Wars that Sabotage Relationships
  • Can You Be Your Own Therapist?
  • The Difference Between Learned Helplessness and Inner Passivity
  • The Sad Sordidness of Inner Conflict
  • The Deep Knowledge that Liberates the Self
  • The Four Dimensions of Our Ego
  • Are You Overly Sensitive to Rejection?
  • Evolving Consciousness is the Lifeblood of Mental Health
  • Answers to Questions from Readers (Part 9)
  • Don’t Be Duped by Your Defenses
  • The Shocking Secrets of the Psyche
  • The Undercover Enabler of Habitual Oversleeping
  • Understanding the Assault on the U.S. Capitol
  • The Sheepishness of the Psyche: A One-Act Play
  • Three Self-Defeating Reactions at the Heart of American Disunity
  • Answers to Questions from Readers (Part 8)
  • Our Compulsion to Self-Punish
  • Ego and Self Do Battle for the Soul of America
  • The Hazards of Inner Conflict
  • A Toxic Inner Process Afflicts Humanity
  • Don’t Let America Betray Herself
  • Inner Conflict Ripens in the Hothouse of Pandemic
  • Living and Dying with Coronavirus
  • How the Coronavirus Plays with Our Mind
  • Access the Genius Within
  • How Meditation and Depth Psychology Overlap
  • Guilt: A Favorite Way to Suffer
  • Understanding the Psyche of Boys
  • The Joy of Militant Ignorance
  • Answers to Questions From Readers (Part 7)
  • Breaking the Chains of Self-Imposed Oppression
  • Jordan Peterson’s Blind Spot
  • Learning to See Ourselves Objectively
  • When Food is Used to Feed Inner Conflict
  • How You Can Save the World
  • The Inner Critic is a Primitive Brute Force
  • The Self-Defeat of Passive Morning Thoughts
  • Get Rid of Guilt with Deeper Insight (II)
  • Discover Sublimation, the Agent of Success
  • The U.S. Government’s Flawed Intelligence on Clinical Depression
  • Answers to Questions from Readers (Part 6)
  • 12 Ways We Fail to See or Experience Reality
  • Is Ambivalence a Hidden Factor in Much of Human Misery?
  • Inner Conflict is the Source of Cognitive Distortion
  • A Psychological Hindrance to National Unity
  • A Technique for Overcoming Insomnia
  • Liberals Need More Psychological Insight
  • Why We Urgently Need Inner Truth
  • Notes to Psychotherapists on Addressing Inner Passivity
  • Are You Living Your True Story?
  • Another Visual Portrayal of Our Psyche’s Dynamics
  • Get to Know Your Psyche’s Operating Systems
  • Illustrating the Characters Who Mess With Our Mind
  • How to Love Yourself
  • Don’t Let Inner Passivity Undermine Democracy
  • Connecting With Our Best Self
  • The Deeper Roots of Social Unrest
  • The Las Vegas Killer’s Hidden Motive
  • My Latest Book is Now Available
  • Insight that Conquers Incessant Negative Thinking
  • New Editions of All My Books Now Available
  • The Exhausting Race against Time
  • The Perils of Past, Present, and Future
  • The Mocking Voice of Inner Resistance
  • The Essentials of Empowerment for Enablers and Codependents
  • Answers to Questions from Readers (Part 5)
  • The Appeal of Alternative Facts
  • Are You a Clone of Your Identifications?
  • Unmasking Fear Itself
  • Fundamentalism and the Psyche
  • Ascending to Joy
  • Now’s the Time for Heroes
  • Feeling Like a Fraud or an Imposter?
  • The Invisible Wall of Psychological Resistance
  • Cognitive Therapy’s Flawed Premise
  • Dealing with Election Aftershock
  • After the Election: Healing the Divide
  • Collapsing into Helplessness
  • Solve the Mystery of Your Suffering
  • Answers to Questions from Readers (Part 4)
  • An Insightful Case of Self-Injury
  • Understanding Inner Evil in Mass-Killers
  • A Common Theme in Relationship Strife
  • Breaking Free of Inner Passivity
  • Are You Hopeless of Ever Finding Love?
  • Words to Enlighten Younger Children
  • Deeper Reflections on Inner Passivity
  • Escape the Misery of Moodiness
  • Answers to Questions from Readers (Part 3)
  • Emotional Fortitude for Anxious Times
  • Follow Your Fantasies to Self-Awareness
  • Answers to Questions from Readers (Part 2)
  • The Art of Self-Regulation
  • The Thrill of Fear
  • Answers to Questions from Readers
  • “Why Am I so Easily Discouraged?”
  • Paris and Our Discontents
  • Unconscious Bias in Race Relations
  • Acquiring a Feel for Natural Aggression
  • Defensiveness for Dummies
  • Exposing the Roots of Emotional Suffering
  • Who Wants to Be a Celebrity?
  • Say Goodbye to Your Regrets
  • How to Recognize Good Psychotherapy
  • Visions of Human Destiny
  • Tears of Self-Deception
  • Westerners Who Identify with Terrorists
  • A Decisive Look at Indecision
  • Neurotics on Capitol Hill
  • Inner Passivity Impairs Leadership Skills
  • Hidden Dynamics of Racism
  • Unconscious Factors Fuel Abortion Fight
  • The Two-Minute Inner Workout
  • Defeating the Inner Bully
  • When Life Becomes Unreal and Dreamlike
  • Releasing Inner Passivity
  • Deliverance from Addictions & Compulsions
  • Life’s Painful Entanglements (Part II)
  • Insight into Gender Identity Disorder
  • The Psychology of Wealth Disparity
  • How Do We Achieve Self-Control?
  • Anger and the APA
  • A Painful Game People Play (Part I)
  • Prisoners of Guilt
  • Neurosis Unbound
  • The Lingering Pain of Old Shame
  • Emerging from Shyness
  • An Unconscious Factor in PTSD
  • When in Doubt about Sexual Orientation
  • Why Students Fail to Learn
  • How to Enhance Your Verbal Skill
  • Be Brave when Truth Comes Knocking
  • What Warps the Mind of Domestic Terrorists?
  • Greed as a Mental-Health Disorder
  • The Core of Being
  • The Folly of Modern Psychology
  • The Scoop on Intimate Partner Abuse
  • Tormented Mothers, Endangered Babies
  • Terrific Knowledge for Trying Times
  • Stung by Ingratitude
  • How to Be Your Own Inner Guide
  • Does Inner Growth Require Practical Steps?
  • A Remedy for Feeling Trapped
  • The Golden Rule Needs Depth Psychology
  • A Deadly Case of Inner Conflict
  • Vital Knowledge for Marriage Intimacy
  • Stressed Out in America
  • Four Steps to Stifle Our Inner Critic
  • Oh, Sweet Narcissism
  • The Pain We Lock Away
  • Cognitive Therapy’s Distorted Thinking
  • Indecisive No More
  • Chasing the Shadow
  • How Inner Passivity Robs Men of Power
  • A New Understanding of Bipolar Disorder
  • A Chaos Theory of the Mind
  • Free Yourself from Inner Conflict
  • Curbing Our Appetite for Brutality
  • The Futility of Compulsive Approval-Seeking
  • How Worriers Unconsciously Chose to Suffer
  • Get to Know Your Psychological Defenses
  • The Love Song of the Self
  • Finding Inner Longitude
  • Overcoming a Type of Resistance to Studying
  • Understanding Anorexia
  • The Human Weakness behind Alcoholism
  • Rebutting 9/11 Conspiracy Beliefs
  • Achieving Inner Freedom
  • The Mysterious Allure of Kinky Sex
  • Hooked on Deprivation
  • Aspects of Women’s Empowerment (Part II)
  • Men’s Resistance to Women’s Empowerment
  • The Missing Link in OCD
  • A Hidden Reason for Suicidal Thoughts
  • Overcoming Fear of Intimacy
  • O Shame, Where is Thy Secret Source?
  • The Correct Interpretation of Our Dreams
  • Escaping the Clutches of Helplessness
  • The Double Barrels of Gun Mania
  • Exterminate Infestations of Negative Thoughts
  • The Psychology Behind Mass Shootings
  • Our Messy Mix of Aggression and Passivity
  • Speeding Up Our Evolution
  • Why Our Emotional Suffering Persists
  • Easing Tension and Stress at Family Gatherings
  • Wallowing in the Lap of Bitterness
  • The Hidden Dynamics of Marital Strife
  • The Psychological Roots of National Disunity
  • The Futile Dialogue in Our Head
  • Psychologists of the World, Go Deeper
  • When You Feel Bad About Yourself
  • Cultivating a Life of Disappointment
  • Lost in the Fog of Inner Passivity
  • The Private Joke behind Our Laughter
  • Why We Fear and Hate the Truth
  • When Eyes Are Blinders of the Soul
  • How Deeper Insight Relieves Stress
  • When Money Enriches Our Suffering
  • The Common Ingredient in Human Misery
  • The Infantile Basis of Our Fears
  • Cynicism: The Battle Cry of the Wimp
  • Desperately Seeking Validation
  • Being Seen in a Negative Light
  • The Need to Believe in Yourself
  • Why We Dither on Climate Change
  • Avoidable Miseries of the Workplace
  • Taming the “Little Monsters” of Insomnia
  • A Plague of Neurosis Upon Our House
  • The Origins of Feeling Overwhelmed
  • Teach Your Children Well
  • Why We’re Quick to “Go Negative”
  • 8 Ways We Sabotage Physical Health
  • Occupy the Psyche
  • The Astonishing Basis of Our Addictions
  • Deliverance From the Lonesome Blues
  • Our Global Strategy for Self-Defeat
  • The Mayo Clinic’s Bogus Psychology
  • The Meaning of Evolved Consciousness
  • The Hanky-Panky Behind Our Anger
  • Lincoln’s Integrity, Our Integrity
  • Stubbornness: The Guts to Fight Reality
  • A Participant in National Self-Sabotage
  • Underlying Dynamics that Breed Bullies
  • Deliverance from Low-Level Anxiety
  • The Politburo in Your Psyche
  • Nagging: Love Destroyer, Marriage Killer
  • A Singular Cause of War
  • The Temptations of the Injustice Collector
  • The Dire Determinants of Divorce
  • Enjoy the Quality of Your Consciousness
  • The Helplessness Trap in Cravings & Addictions
  • Mark Twain’s Mysterious Misery-Machine
  • Obesity and the Dopamine Fallacy
  • Four Favorite Ways to Suffer
  • The Deeper Issues that Produce Meanness
  • Panic Attacks Arise from Within Our Psyche
  • The Overlooked Factor in Criminal Behavior
  • The Three Amigos of Woe
  • Overcoming Incompetence and Its Miseries
  • Three Great Truths from Psychology
  • The Hidden Cause of Clinical Depression
  • Terrorism and the Death Drive
  • Welcome Aboard the Voyage of Self-Discovery
  • The Bittersweet Allure of Feeling Unloved
  • How Inner Fear Becomes Our Worst Nightmare
  • The Problem with Positive Psychology
  • Respect, Disrespect, and Self-Respect
  • Neither a Procrastinator Nor a Dawdler Be
  • Prose to Shatter Writer’s Block
  • Stop Smoking through Psychological Insight
  • The Secret Allures of Pornography
  • How Deeper Awareness Can Eliminate Shame
  • When Sexual Desire Covers Up Self-Sabotage
  • The Dreary Distress of Boredom
  • Problem Gamblers are Addicted to Losing
  • The Tyrant that Rules Our Inner Life
  • The Negative Emotions Behind Addictions
  • Beware the Limitations of Superficial Psychology
  • Get Rid of Guilt with Deeper Insight
  • Riding the Emotional Wave of Turbulent Times

Article Archives



Copyright © 2025 WhyWeSuffer