Peter Shabad, Ph.D.
Seizing The Vital Moment: Passion, Shame, and the Freedom To Become
In this course we will explore how traumatic and chronically disillusioning experiences have profoundly inhibiting effects on the passion necessary to grow and change throughout life. We will devote special attention to how human beings transform their traumatic experiences outside of their control into shameful failures, in which they “blame the victim” in themselves for being a victim. After describing how the “intimate creation” of one’s unique constellation of symptoms is a means of both communicating and memorializing such traumatic experiences, we will examine how shame leads to character passivity and interrelated dynamics such as self-pity, resentment, entitlement, envy, perverse spite, and regret. Finally, we will discuss how the mourning process of accepting and reintegrating one’s shamed desires paradoxically facilitates the generosity of relinquishing the necessity that those desires be fulfilled.
Upcoming Events
How to Fall in Love with Questions: A New Way to Thrive in Times of Uncertainty
Elizabeth Weingarten
Journalist and applied behavioral scientist
Heather Havrilesky
“Ask Polly” advice columnist on Substack, essayist, and author
ON ZOOM
Change the Wallpaper: Transforming Cultural Patterns to Build More Just Communities
Nilanjana Dasgupta, Ph.D.
Provost Professor of Psychology and the founding Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Jerry Kang
Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Law and Distinguished Professor of Asian American Studies at the UCLA School of Law
ON ZOOM
GRAND ROUNDS: Shift: Managing Your Emotions — So They Don’t Manage You
Ethan Kross, Ph.D.
Professor, Management & Organizations, Ross School of Business, and Director of the Emotion and Self Control Lab, University of Michigan
David Schreiber, MD
Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychiatrist and CEO and Co-Founder, Compass Health Center and Compass Virtual
ON ZOOM