“...well written, informative, and easy to recommend....[A] valuable addition to the rapidly growing literature on shame. ”

—Psychoanalytic Quarterly


“Well written, informative, and easy [for me] to recommend to readers across the range of mental health professions....Broucek's proposals [are] logical and persuasive....His warnings to therapists command attention....[A] valuable addition[s] to the rapidly growing literature on shame...I highly recommend [this book].”

—Joseph D. Lichtenberg in The Psychoanalytic Quarterly


“Broucek's book is an imaginative and forthright discussion of an extremely powerful and painful phenomenon. As the author suggests, it may be this very intensity of feeling associated with shame that has paradoxically caused a lack of attention to the subject (until recently) in psychoanalytic literature. Broucek contends that psychoanalysts have ignored shame because of their own vulnerabilities to it—both personally and because shame is an almost inevitable component of the standard psychotherapeutic relationship...The necessary balance between shame and shamelessness that Broucek ultimately proposes provides an impressive conclusion to this important book.”

—Jon G. Allen, Ph.D., Section Editor, Review in Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic