Guilt

Guilt is a difficult feeling or concept to define. The easiest way, in my mind would be to say it is when you feel badly about having done something wrong. It is also the state of not being innocent, having committed a crime, a sin, fault or an offence. The word has emotional, legal and religious connotations. For the purposes of this article I will look at guilt from an emotional perspective. We could also say that guilt is a measure by which someone holds themselves accountable for having done or not done something, having thought or not thought of something or someone. A good psychological description of guilt is an anguished state of mind arising from an internal conflict.

How does guilt come about? Guilt arises in relation to the idea of right and wrong. This is usually guided by a moral code. We could say that guilt is borne out of our capacity for concern. The capacity for concern denotes one’s ability to bear another in mind, while thinking of how your actions will impact how they will feel. Concern refers to the fact that the individual cares and accepts responsibility. This ability is thought to have developed (or not) in very early childhood. As like most qualities in childhood this ability continues to strengthen throughout one’s life.

It would not be doing the topic justice if we did not think of guilt in relation to conscience. Conscience is a noun which denotes a person’s internal sense of what is right and what is wrong, hence a guide to one’s behaviour. Anything, action or thoughts that goes outside of this can lead to feelings of guilt. This is usually mostly influenced by the person’s very early environment, that is home and parents. The capacity to feel guilt based on a moral compass and is heavily influenced by parental values and later on by peers and society.

On the premise that we learn to express and navigate our emotions from early childhood; one theory is that, if a parent often threatens to withhold their love for a child due to a particular behaviour. This translates as the parent threatening not to provide affection or comfort when the child needs it. This child will inevitable grow up to be very anxious to please and guilt prone.

Guilt can many times be present in a person who is feeling angry and hateful.

Guilt can help you to recognise when you have done someone else harm. It can be a useful way of gauging healthy participation in relationships. However, all-consuming guilt can be very difficult to live with.

Many of us gauge what we do in terms of the degree of guilt it will evoke. On an individual level, people control how much and what they eat drink or do based on how much guilt it will cause them. Some make career choices based on the guilt of not letting parents down as they would otherwise feel guilty if they let them down.

We could then say that there are healthy and unhealthy degrees or intensities of experiencing guilt. This might be difficult to decipher; however, it is important to note that if the feelings of guilt are impacting negatively on one’s life and ability to be happy or feel fulfilled then we might consider this unhealthy guilt. Some individuals can experience guilt to the extent that they become self-punitive. Engaging in self harming behaviours of varying degrees. Guilt is sometimes interwoven with feelings of sadness, regret and anger and can lead to mental overload triggering mental anguish, distress and illnesses. It is important to monitor feelings of guilt and why the feelings are present and are they justified.