Overview
The American Psychology Association’s (APA) Dictionary of Psychology:
“a self-conscious emotion characterized by a painful appraisal of having done (or thought) something that is wrong and often by a readiness to take action designed to undo or mitigate this wrong. It is distinct from shame, in which there is the additional strong fear of one’s deeds being publicly exposed to judgment or ridicule.”
Commentary
The distinction between guilt and shame that the APA points out is an extremely common theme in recovery circles, though that doesn’t mean there’s a consensus about the difference. The APA definition adds a social dimension to shame as a type of anticipatory fear of backlash from the environment.
I find that in ideas of shame within recovery circles, the fear of being perceived as fundamentally flawed is conflated with the fear of being fundamentally flawed. A common framing is that “guilt” translates to “I did something bad” while “shame” translates to “I am fundamentally bad.” Personally, I always engaged with the distinction as one between a personal feeling and a social mechanism, rather than the distinction between an action and a fundamental trait. When we say “you should be ashamed of yourself,” I assume we mean that someone should feel bad about violating social standards, not that someone should see themselves as fundamentally bad.
If we do separate “guilt” and “shame” on the basis of an action vs a trait, we see arguments emerge to challenge whether either is ever good. Many people in recovery will say guilt is part of their gift-of-desperation that anchors them to sobriety. Others will say that the feeling of being ashamed of who one becomes in active addiction keeps them clean. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step groups that discuss moral inventories and making amends necessarily run into the emotion of guilt, and while it may not be explicitly considered healthy to put oneself into a position of guilt, it’s still expected that guilt emerges as a motivation during the Steps that is resolved through their completion.