The psychological mechanisms of guilt
Guilt is a feeling in which, without realizing it, we tend to cover up in the unconscious and appears in many aspects of our skiing. A widespread psychological mechanism within the guilt dimension is the inability to accept a fair compliment for our own performances or achievements.
The repressed guilt emerges as a source of conflict due to continuous frustration. For some, feeling guilty is something that occurs more often than they may realize. Skiing, as everything else, has its ups and downs and the important thing is to be aware of these contrasts. Bad days exist and it is normal if they are punctual, but if they are recurrent, then it may be the sign of a need pending resolution.
Not only we feel our own guilt, but we can also make others feel guilty without realizing it. This occurs in situations where we cannot find a solution to our skiing problems, so we blame others for not getting the help we expect. Shifting blame to others is a defense mechanism that occurs because of the natural aversion to our own guilt.
Guilt also invades those skiers who do not enjoy the mountain because they feel they do not deserve it or that they are wasting time intended for recreation. Those who interpret the time reserved for pleasure as a waste are generally people whose parents have been demanding and exaggeratedly instilling in them that everything is duty and responsibility.
Another situation associated with self-demanding in which guilt is declared is procrastination. Putting off until later what can be accomplished in the present (preparing physically, improving technique, or training a discipline) condemns the skier who practices procrastination.
It often happens that some people, unconsciously, try to motivate others through guilt. Reproaching for not practicing what they have learned or exclaiming warnings such as “You have to improve your technique or ‘that’ will happen”; “If you had attended the lessons or training sessions you could overcome this situation” may result in certain changes, but usually provokes future mortification for not having done the appropriate thing.
Another very common type of guilt is that which is generated by the violation of a specific rule, such as skiing in a prohibited area, giving rise to feelings of condemnation and self-reproach.
Our ideal skier’s Self and the feeling of guilt
Our personal ideal is founded on values influencing the formation of criteria about what is correct, appropriate, or socially accepted when skiing, constituting what I call the Ideal Skier’s Self. These ideals are formed as we evolve, paying attention to and assimilating the values and culture of good performance and technical distinction.
Simultaneously, as we become imbued with the ideals through observing instructors, coaches, and other skiers, we become impregnated with corrective attitudes towards bad behavior or deficient performance which gradually shape our corrective Self. If in our initial training we repeatedly received signals about our inability or shortcomings, a degraded self-image could have emerged. On the other hand, if the corrections received were constructive, we surely developed a healthy self-corrective attitude.
Denigrating corrections display neurotic feelings of guilt that lead to the constitution of the punitive Self. When our own thoughts and behaviors, according to the individual parameter, do not reach our own ideals, punitive guilt arises. According to the disciplinary and punitive experiences received in childhood, the adult replaces them through self-blame contributing to the loss of self-esteem. Many skiers deal with guilt and, although they do not ski badly, they punish themselves when the intention of reaching their ideal forged by the norms of others or by the technical form of reference is frustrated.
Whenever the feeling of guilt arises, we should determine if we really did something wrong or if we transgressed the principles and codes of our ideal skier’s Self. In a certain way, we can feel guilty for some aspiration that we do not achieve but it doesn’t make sense to feel continuously and inflexibly responsible for not skiing with the intended technique since this becomes pathological guilt. The psychologist Alejandro Schujman states that guilt and self-punishment form a vicious circle, and that guilt is built from the outside in and healed from the inside out.
The psychic demands of the feeling of guilt
The unconscious feeling of guilt, as designated by Freud, results from the tension between our Superself and our Self insofar as the latter fails to satisfy the demands of the former.
Behavior is socially conditioned since childhood, where positive behaviors are reinforced and negative ones tend to be ignored or punished. The feeling of guilt comes from a superselfic manifestation, that is to say, from the moral conscience applied by parents in the surveillance of child’s behaviors.
Our Superself, as a repressive and prohibitory agent throughout our life, fulfills the task of monitoring actions that do not conform to social norms and values, making us constantly compare our achievements with the expectations expected of us. Our ideal skier’s Self is housed within our Superself, generating the punishments for not reaching the ideal of the technical action, generating in our Self an irrepressible compulsion towards guilt.
It should be noted that, in some instances, the greater our skiing virtues, the greater the pressure from our Superself and, therefore, the greater the suffering due to the guilt perceived for not reaching the socially admissible norms and values.
Reactions to the feeling of guilt
According to psychology professor Bruce Narramore and writer Bill Counts, when faced with the threat of rejection, punishment, or loss of self-esteem and in order to avoid the painful feeling of guilt, we tend to react in the following ways:
- Through discouragement as soon as we surrender to decay by accepting our own guilt. This attitude hinders the normal functioning since it produces a decrease in vital energy. We surrender to the feeling of guilt and diminished self-esteem taking away the drive to make constructive efforts on our own skiing.
- Rebellion and anger are common reactions by which some skiers demand to be accepted as they are or to have their behaviors tolerated by others. Others passively rebel by giving verbal consent but do not actively engage. They ski, take lessons, or compete at the insistence of parents, partners, or friends. This passive resistance complicates the situation because it instills more guilt by doing something they do not want to do.
- In self-deception, feelings of guilt are denied by rationalizing the facts. In this case, we do not consider ourselves as bad skiers by comparing to others. We desensitize our perception of the good and the bad of our actions. Other mechanisms of guilt rationalization are to convince ourselves that what was done could not have been avoided, that we did the best we could, or self-persuade ourselves that it is ‘our’ own way of skiing and that there is nothing wrong with that. There is also the widespread tendency to blame others or the environment, denying our own responsibility. These tendencies make up the defense mechanisms of rationalization and projection and do nothing more than foster self-deception.
- Superficial confession is considered to be the most illusory of all guilt reactions. If we experience it, we feel unhappy and dissatisfied with ourselves to the point of thinking that we do not deserve comfort. We believe that by seeking sympathy from others, the guilt will disappear and we will feel good again. We pretend to free ourselves from discomfort by superficially recognizing our faults, but we have no real intention to modify them. In general, these confessions are made to alleviate the feeling of guilt rather than to correct our own behavior.
The aforementioned are stereotyped reactions that function as defense mechanisms but none of them solve the situation. We should accept with responsibility that we are not perfect and that we can –and must– make mistakes for our own evolution as skiers.
Some of the situations that generate an internal conflict of guilt are:
- Failure to meet our own or others’ expectations.
- Not having been able to set limits.
- Making mistakes.
- Thinking badly of others.
- Failing or succeeding.
- Feeling positive or negative emotions.
These coping strategies may help:
- Identify the source of guilt.
- Examining our own responsibility for what happened.
- Acknowledging and expressing guilt.Knowing how to forgive ourselves.Learning from what happened.Allowing ourselves to fail.
- Not allowing ourselves to be manipulated through guilt.
