What is the point of guilt?

When you feel guilty about something, who benefits? How does it help you or the object of the guilt? It would be difficult to come up with any long-term benefits. We might argue that it flags up behaviour that we wouldn’t want to engage in again. Those feelings might make sure that we don’t subject others to the same behaviour, meaning that they benefit from our guilt…but is there anything else?

When you feel guilty you know that you do not want to engage in that behaviour again, otherwise, you wouldn’t be feeling guilty in the first place; and there would be no point in the guilt to endure. It hangs around and chips away at our self-confidence encouraging a negative view of ourselves. It sticks to our thoughts, beliefs and affects other aspects of our lives. 

Guilt lies to us. It distorts our thoughts. It makes you think you are bad even when all the evidence suggests otherwise. It chatters in your ear as you lay awake at night encouraging you to make “if only…” statements.

“If only I had…” “If only I hadn’t…” “If only I had said…” “If only I hadn’t said…” 

The new parent feels guilty when they don’t know why the baby is still crying. The teenager feels guilty when they tell their parents they missed their predicted exam grades. The bystander feels guilty when they didn’t step in. The child feels guilty when accidentally make their classmate cry during the game at playtime. 

Guilt is the most common emotion that my clients face in therapy. Why?

Guilt is a toxic emotion because it is the only emotion that cannot be projected onto other situations, people or circumstances to make sense of it. 

We process emotions by thinking through them and feeling them within the context they were created. I can share your happiness. I can share your sadness or excitement. I cannot share your guilt, because that is about you.

All any of us can do with guilt is hold onto it. Even then it is too much to cope with so we turn it into other things that can be projected out and processed, like anger, frustration, anxiety, and addiction. We might not understand they are misplaced guilt, but that’s okay because it has the added benefit of meaning we don’t have to think about it. How kind our mind is…!

What about if a person understood why they felt guilt the first time; I mean where that guilt came from? Is it possible they would understand it for what it is? Perhaps they would see that didn’t need to feel guilty anymore and that it was serving no purpose? What would happen to all those misplaced emotions that had taken the place of the guilt?