Living in The Shadow of Our Fathers: Overcoming Our Shame

By Russ McCormack Psy.D.

A nonfiction piece about the experience of shame turned toxic and its impact on the psychological and spiritual fate of mankind. This ten-chapter effort intertwines the literary substance of the book with a workbook component, designed to get the reader to move beyond a simple mental and intellectual endeavor and move toward an exercise of personal integration with the material. The experience of shame is universal, a human experience, but an experience that has the potential to turn toxic. Toxic shame can wreak havoc on the psychological development and well-being of the individual. But this author also purports that toxic shame can equally disrupt and damage the spiritual nature of the human experience. When Demons Rush In is a two-pronged approach, both psychological and spiritual, to understanding what this author believes is a devastating reality besieging the individual of our day. Specifically looking at the father-son relationship, the author focuses on this masculine relationship, his own relationship with his father, in a way to bring awareness and credibility to the author's insights into what plagues the fathers, the sons, and the men of our present-day societies. By focusing on shame turned toxic, its roots, its causes, its consequences, the author is seeking to draw attention to what he feels is a monumental threat to the fate of humankind. With special emphasis and focus on the spiritual, the author is challenging the reader to open their minds and hearts to a reality that remains unnoticed and unrecognized. As a first-time author, I have selected a subject to write about, that reflects both my professional and personal experiences. My own personal story is one of shame turned toxic, and as a licensed clinical psychologist, I have witnessed the devastating effects of toxic shame on the individual, their families, and on their communities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641408066

Book preview

304011-ebook.jpg

Living in The Shadow of Our Father’s 

Overcoming our shame

Psychological and Spiritual Warfare

The Fate of Mankind

A Personal Story into the Lost Soul of the Son

A Book and Workbook

For the Psychological and Spiritual Healing

Of Shame, Turned Toxic

Dr. Russ McCormack, Psy.D

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

ISBN 978-1-64140-805-9 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64191-716-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-64140-806-6 (digital)

Copyright © 2018 by Dr. Russ McCormack, Psy.D

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

In Memoriam

Dr. Percival D. McCormack, PhD, MD

(1929–2015)

My Father

Fr. Luke Dougherty, OSB

(1929?–2002)

Benedictine Monk

My Spiritual Director

Mr. H. T. Percival McCormack

(1904?–1990)

My Grandfather

These men have been some of the most influential

individuals along my life’s journey.

I have loved them dearly.

Rest in peace.

See you all again someday soon!

Acknowledgments and Recognitions

My father, Percival, wounded, but still loved.

My mother, Dorothy, faithful to her sons forever.

Fr. Luke, healed and loved.

My grandfather, Percival, fun and loving memories.

My wife, Julie, the one who has journeyed the longest

and the furthest with me.

Would not have come this far without you.

God intended your presence in my life.

My son, Joshua, who has taught me the most

about being the masculine father.

My daughter, Jessica, who has taught me the most

about being a father.

And Special Recognition to the Following

(As many as I can remember, my apologies if I leave anyone out.)

My brothers: (William) Percy Jr., David, (Robert) Howard, Hugh,

Aunt Peggy (my godmother), Uncle Jono, Aunt Maud, Great Uncle Harold

Friends: Charlotte, Deacon Ray Noll, Brian, Joe

Professors: Mr. Pidgeon, Mr. Valois

Julie’s family: Eleanor, Vito, Big Mike, John (wife, Julie-Marie),

Steve, and Dave (always like the little brother I never had)

Daughter-in-law, Christina

Mutual friends: Kathy and Chuck, Marietta, Rich and Pam

Foreword

The German psychologist Alice Miller (1983) wrote about a man that had been abused as a child. She wrote, This man was beaten by his father for every little infraction, real or imagined, he committed as a boy. When his father wanted him, he would not call him by name, but rather whistle for him, as though he was calling the house dog. This boy grew up with anger and rage in his heart, but he was unable to express these feelings towards his father. The little boy kept his pain and rage within himself, nursing it. Years later as this boy grew up he learned that his grandfather (whom he knew little of) had been Jewish. Through his distorted thinking, this boy began to believe that his Jewish blood was the reason for his father’s abusive behavior towards him. Alice Miller goes on to write that this boy’s name was Adolf Hitler. You know the rest of the story.

It is this author’s belief that some of the most significant causes of our nation’s (our world’s) current distress are the disappearance of the father figure, the lack of healthy masculine role models, and consequently, the vacuum of healthy masculine leadership. Our communities, our cities, our societies are experiencing the loss of fathers at an alarming rate, experiencing the loss of the healthy masculine. Our fathers have become dispensable, disregarded, devalued, and unnecessary in the raising of our children. The masculine world is being raised by the feminine. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of boys are being predominantly raised by their mothers. This is not to say that mothers are not doing an incredible job, but the basic nature and reality for effective human development is that each child needs an extensive imprint from their same-sex parent. Boys need their fathers, or male substitutes, to bring them into the masculine world in a way that they know it, understand it, and embrace it, in a way that leads to constructive and life-promoting endeavors. The expendability of the male, of the father, in their innate role as the masculine model for gender developmental purposes has devalued the role of the father and has undermined his role as masculine mentor to our sons and daughters, particularly our boys. The father as an authority figure has become disrespected, laughed at, and belittled. The media on a daily basis has taken aim at the masculine, routinely making it the butt of jokes, humiliating what it means to be a man, shaming the masculine, feminizing it. Television media specifically, on a nightly basis, through its sitcoms has for years portrayed our men and our fathers as bumbling idiots, half-witted imbeciles, personalities with little character and/or integrity. Our societies have demoralized the male psyche, ruptured the essential role of the father in his relationship with his children. Denied access to the father, our children are becoming increasingly fragile, rebellious, increasingly enraged, and violent, the consequences we see on our violent streets and in our violent neighborhoods, through the epidemic of gang activity, and through the violence we see today in our workplaces and schools.

F.1. Journal your own thoughts of how the media portrays men in our societies today. List examples!

F.2. What images are you aware of, tuned into, have you embraced as representative of your gender identity?

F.3. Are you an accurate portrayal of today’s modern man? Where do you reflect the new masculine or stray from it?

The male child, who experiences the father as unnecessary, devalued, as lacking potency within the family system, even within the culture at large, will become a confused and angry male. This male will enter adulthood seeking compensation for his loss. He will turn on other males and will assault the feminine in his pursuit of power. This is the example of masculinity that we are witnessing today in our police forces, in our court systems, in our governing bodies. These males, as they grow and develop through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, will be confronted by these powerful forces of devaluation and condemnation. Once unleashed on society as adults, they will not bring the creative and life-giving source of masculinity with them but, instead, will exercise their demons of jealousy, greed, rage, and violence, shadow energies, the dark masculine, which will wreak havoc on our towns and cities. Without a mature healthy masculine mentor (i.e., father) to identify with and embrace, a father to call the son out into the world of the true masculine, the male child will feel lost and dislocated from himself, the healthy masculine, and society in general. In his experience of isolation and rejection, he will experience toxic shame and a burning rage within. A rage that will destroy families, schools, neighborhoods, communities, and nations.

Asa Baber (1992) writes,

When the father is expendable, when he is disposable, disrespected, when his vital and necessary role in the growth of his children is unacknowledged, young men [and, this author believes, young women as well] become rebellious. They yearn to burn. They carry within their hearts what seems to be limitless anger.

Richard Rohr (1992) writes,

Most of the men in our prisons today are men that have grown up without their fathers. It is not that they have never had fathers, but that they have never experienced their fathers as loving, nurturing, or caring of them.

He goes on to state that these men have never experienced their fathers’ admiration of them, that these men have never received that primal enthusiasm that comes from growing up in the company of a father. And so, they spent their lives trying to become men in devious and destructive ways. They were insecure men who had to prove that they were macho, and they did this by committing acts of lawlessness and violence.

Men, who have never been able to find their own inner masculine strength are men who are insecure and must constantly prove who they are. Driven by their conscious and/or unconscious awareness of their inadequacies, they try to hide their deep inner shame by making money, accumulating the things money can buy, and exercising power (Rohr, 1992). They live in constant search for a deeper sense of their true self (their spiritual self), their value, and their purpose.

Asa Baber (1992) again writes,

I believe that until we stop separating fathers from their children, particularly boy children, we are going to have a society in which we burn down our cities and have muggings in the streets. The only answer to these problems is to bring fathers back into the community.

As will be discussed in depth in later chapters, psychology (self-psychology specifically) offers a unique opportunity wherein the wounded male (i.e., the father-wounded male) may seek union with another male, who may call him out into the world of the true and healthy masculine. In doing so, the wounded male may create, recreate, and recover his true identity while discovering his rightfully masculine nature. In therapy, the individual male may resurface the toxic shame that has paralyzed him, confront it, embrace it, and experience a release from it. However, it is this author’s belief, after researching this topic extensively, having lived the shame-based life, that the psychological approach alone cannot provide the wounded male with what he ultimately wants, needs, and so desperately desires: unconditional union with the masculine, with the father, with the spiritual. In a later chapter, the author will explore the idea that the psychological and the spiritual are inseparable. That the psychological leads to deeper authenticity of self and of life, authenticity that in and of itself is the essence of the spiritual world.

In conclusion, it is the author’s belief that the field of psychology must broaden its horizons in its understanding of the individual of their purpose and meaning in life. Psychologists must seek to investigate the spiritual and find ways that they can implement and integrate the spiritual into the field of psychology. Based on this author’s research and work, the psychological is already a part of the spiritual. To continue to ignore it within our clients, within ourselves, and within the therapeutic encounter will leave our work incomplete, lacking the necessary means to produce and establish meaningful change, sustainable change. The field of psychology (and sociology) must begin to reflect upon its historic, contemporary, and future impact on our societies and the individual, and must attempt to address the enormous conflicts, problems, and crises individuals in our societies are facing today. This author’s work is an attempt to establish a clear and definitive way to approach the woundedness we are today witnessing in the men of our societies. It is an effort to stimulate thoughts and questions and to motivate others to consider the critical relationship between the father and the son as a significant contributor to the suffering of humanity. It is also an attempt to challenge the way in which we think about psychology and spirituality. It is an attempt to challenge the fields of psychology and spirituality to address what this author feels is a chronic problem in our society: the wounded (angry) male.

Workbook Section

Journal Activity

F.1. Journal your own thoughts on how the media portrays men in our societies today (i.e., stupid, clumsy, social incompetent). List examples!

Social Masculine Portrayals

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

F.2. What images are you aware of, tuned into, have you embraced as representative of your gender identity?

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

F.3. Are you an accurate portrayal of today’s modern man? Where do you reflect the new masculine or stray from it?

Chapter One:

The Problem We Face

Introduction

Shame is an inner sense of being completely diminished or insufficient as a person. It is the self judging the self. A moment of shame may be humiliation so painful or an indignity so profound that one feels one has been robbed of her or his dignity or exposed as basically inadequate, bad, or worthy of rejection. A pervasive sense of shame is the on-going premise that one is fundamentally bad, inadequate, defective, unworthy, or not fully valid as a human being. (Fossum and Mason, 1986)

As one might infer from this statement, the experience of shame is profound, complicated, and far more traumatic to the individual’s reality than we may have realized, recognized, or allowed ourselves to be aware of. It might not be too bold to say, too far a reach to declare, that the experience of shame can be one of the most destructive experiences that may occur in an individual’s reality. Shame, an experience that most of us would consider routine, normal, may be the most hideous reality the individual self can endure. An individual who experiences shame may experience a sense of separation, isolation, abandonment so profound that it may lead that individual to take drastic measures to regain any sense of humanity and/or regain any sense of connection with humanity. Examples of this may include self-medicating behaviors (i.e., drugs, alcohol), entering and staying in dysfunctional relationships, selling out one’s values, morals, and/or goals in order to obtain acceptance.

1.1 Where in your life can you identify areas or acknowledge behaviors that may reflect your sense of shame? Make a list. What is the source of the shame (i.e., an individual, a situation, a thought or cognition)?

The shame-based experience not only has the potential for disrupting and destroying the individual’s ability to relate to themselves, but it can equally disrupt or destroy their ability to relate to others and to their surrounding environment. Shame has the potential to prevent the individual from establishing and maintaining intimacy with themselves, with another—ultimately, from forming spiritual intimacy with God. Shame is an emotion, an affective and cognitive reality, that every individual will experience at one time or another. It may have been felt in the classroom when we failed to answer the teacher’s question correctly. It may have occurred when we failed to make the soccer team, or it may have manifested itself in our life one evening when our father came home drunk. Regardless of when we might have had to face this possibly traumatic emotion, the potential power of this affective experience is quite phenomenal.

Shame is an emotional experience, possibly a traumatic emotional experience that can be felt deep within the individual’s psyche, leading to anxiety, depression, and other mental disorders. Shame is an experience that often makes us want to avoid, conceal, and hide ourselves. It often drives the individual to dissociate from themselves and create false realities in order to cope, a powerful source of mental illness.

1.2a. Where in your life have you created false realities, concealed yourself from others?

1.2b. In which relationships, under what conditions, do you find yourself avoiding, shutting down emotionally?

The individual who is overwhelmed with a sense of shame will be plagued with sensations of being exposed, visible, open, and vulnerable (Middleton-Moz, 1990). The individual may become painfully self-conscious and aware of this exposure and may consequently experience an overwhelming need to escape, sometimes through anger, rage, even violence.

1.3. Identify the areas of your life where you experience frustration, anger, rage. These emotions are often good indicators of where we struggle with shame. They also provide valuable insight into what may cause us new experiences of shame.

Unwanted self-transparency, the revelation of the dark shadow side of our personality, in environments or under certain circumstances that are critical, unsupportive, and painfully judgmental can wreak havoc on the individual’s mental status, emotional well-being, behavioral choices, and their sense of spiritual unity.

John Bradshaw (1989b) writes,

Our families are where we first learn about ourselves. Our core identity comes first from the mirroring eyes of our primary caregivers.

Sandra D. Wilson (1990) states,

Our parents are our earliest and most influential authority figures and thus influence our interpretation of all other authority, human or divine. Thus, the parental and family environments are perhaps the most significant and dynamically influential components of the infant’s early developmental process. Together they provide the developing infant with their most powerful early experiences, and with their first sense of self. It is within the functioning or dysfunctioning family environment that the infant first learns about their world and begins to create a sense of their own identity in relationship to their world.

Fossum and Mason (1986) write,

The individual’s strength is largely derived from the early experience with his/her family.

The early family environment serves a crucial role in determining how the infant (or individual) will grow, develop, and mature from a dependent infant to an interdependent adult. As the human embryo develops, its environment is a mini cosmic reflection of the mother’s world. In those early formative days, weeks, and months, the developing fetus is exposed to the mother’s reality. At birth, the infant moves to a larger reality, that of its family.

1.4a. Explore your family of origin! Understanding your story, identifying it, labeling it, and acknowledging it can assist you in the healing of your shame. Explore your mother’s pregnancy with you, your early infant environment. Are there any situations and/or conditions that may have contributed to your sense of developing shame?

1.4b. Create a timeline.

These early realities coupled with the infant’s sensitive and vulnerable self make it critical that the early experiences for a child must be healthy, need-satisfying, protective, responsive, engaging, and stimulating. The vulnerability of the fetus and the infant’s first four or five years leave it particularly exposed to harmful effects. We have often heard that the early years of the child’s life may be the most critical. I would propose that while resilient, the child is at a point in its existence like no other. What realities are experienced and applied during these early formative years can have a lifelong impact on the individual.

Throughout the development of the child, the adolescent, and the adult, the individual is continuously involved in the struggle to define their strengths, weaknesses, limitations, etc. The experience of shame can assist in these developmental processes, allowing the individual to identify their boundaries. It allows the individual to accept their unique strengths