Shame Resilience: A Strategy for Empowering Women in Treatment for Substance Abuse

Shame resilience theory (SRT) proposes that a woman who experiences shame can reduce the sense of feeling trapped, isolated, and powerless by implementing specific strategies and processes that increase awareness and understanding about shame and the sociocultural expectations that trigger it. SRT also promotes reaching out to others who can offer empathy and support and building skills in conveying what she feels and needs. This article reports on a pilot study of Connections, a 12-week psychoeducational curriculum based on SRT and piloted with 19 women from predominantly Hispanic backgrounds in 3 residential substance abuse treatment programs in central California. The results indicate statistically significant differences on measures of general health, depressive symptoms, internalized shame, self-conscious affect, and shame resilience.