Guilt is an unpleasant feeling of repentance of a past experience felt by a person. This generally happens when they do something that is against their morals or believes. Individuals who have strong feelings of guilt may experience a lot of stress and pain and this in turn affects their relationships with others or their daily functioning. Sometimes people have difficulty to move past guilt, which in turn can lead to chronic psychological issues like depression and anxiety. An individual can rationalise his/her behaviour to overcome their guilt but this generally provides a temporary relief from guilt.
A therapist will help the client to reframe their thoughts and emotions about the incident or situation. Sometimes the therapist will work with a family and help them resolve the concerns related to guilt which affect their entire family. Psychotherapy helps individuals to resolve unwanted emotions and counselling lets them challenge their self-defeating thoughts.
Erik Erikson has mentioned that guilt emerges form at the age of 3-5 as a negative outcome to a stage called ‘Initiative vs Guilt’ where children develop a strong sense of guilt as an opposite to playfulness. He believes that children are afraid to express their emotions with their toys as they fear that if they did, they would commit an unacceptable act. And they tend to grow up in inhibited adults who repetitively fear doing something wrong for which later they feel guilty.
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