Mental & Emotional Health

FIRST: Contest Entries so far: THREE! I have three questions submitted! Want to take that book away from one of ‘em? All you have to do is send a question about mental or emotional health (specific, general, personal, not-so-personal, silly, serious, whatever!) to mental.and.emotional.health@gmail.com and you’ll be entered to win a book from Amazon!

I left you wondering about other types of guilt floating around out there. The one that most people probably immediately think of is “legal� guilt; those who are proven guilty by a jury trial or strict legal concept. The judgments of society may not always agree with the judgments handed down (*cough*OJ Simpson*cough*), but they are binding “in a court of law.� This shows that even if a person is found “not guilty,� there is a societal stigma of continual guilt … something that may never go away.

Well, research shows that may be the last “type� of guilt floating around out there, so I looked into doing some cultural guilt studying. I was pretty intrigued by what I found!

Both Ancient Greek and traditional Japanese societies are oftentimes referred to as “shame-based� rather than “guilt-based� societies. This means that the “getting caught� part of the guilt-inducing activity are more important than a person’s own feelings and experiences of that activity. Then there are religious societies (Christianity and Islam) which have taken their notions of guilt from Judaism, Persian & Roman beliefs; interpreting them through Augustine’s adaptation of Plato’s Christian ideals. (Did you get that? I’m still reading & re-reading it trying to re-phrase it to make more sense. I can’t!)

So, guilt exists in many forms in many places and in every society. There is no perfect explanation as to why we have feelings for something that may or may not have happened, though. I am hoping to do some more research into social guilt and how we see/treat/react to guilt & non-guilt. We’ll see what I can come up with! On Monday I plan on addressing the 1% of society that does not react to guilt; psychopaths.

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