Maneuver Space: Guilt and Shame

Volume 2, Issue 11

If you served in the military no matter what branch of service you were in, you learned at some point the importance of having space to maneuver. Whether you were maneuvering pairs of boots, a tank, a ship, or a fighter jet, having adequate physical space was essential to executing maneuver smoothly and safely. Likewise, when we encounter challenges in life, our minds need maneuver space to mentally negotiate difficult moments. This series will highlight each month a different brief cognitive tool that you can use in your daily life to potentially create more maneuver space. Remember having maneuver space, or space to think, is a gift in life. Once you create it, use it to your advantage!

Understanding Guilt & Shame

If you served in the military, you likely heard the phrase, ‘Words Have Meaning.” Far too often we use words to describe our emotions but don’t fully understand their meaning. We then proceed through life incorrectly labeling ourselves and condemning our self-worth to live in pain, suffering, and misery. Guilt and shame and are potentially among the most misunderstood of human emotional states. “If a person feels shame or guilt, they may assume that means this is proof they must have done something wrong.”[1] Embarrassment, humiliation, and regret are also challenging but have subtle nuanced differences. The below illustrates these differences as they relate to one another:

Embarrassment

• Quick, normal, often unexpected events in life.
• Sometimes eventually becomes funny when we look back on it.
• Usually bearable because we know everyone has them.

Examples: “I dropped a dish,” “The zipper on my pants was open,” “My voice cracked.”

Humiliation

• Someone does something to us to make us feel inferior or look bad in the eyes of others.
• Creates a feeling of anger, makes us upset, and often makes us resent others.
• Often, we feel no power or control over the situation

Examples: “Why are you doing this to me?”; “Why would you do this to me?”; “The bullies humiliated me”

Regret

• “What would have happened if I had done it differently?”
• Wishing you had done something differently in hindsight.
• Wondering if different choices could have resulted in different outcomes.

Examples: “I regret that I did not do it.”; “It would have ended differently had I been there.”’

Guilt

• “I did something bad”
• Comes from a feeling or interpretation that we did something wrong. We may feel we have to ‘pay’ now for these actions.
• Can be a source of motivation to change one’s ways in present or future.

Examples: “I feel guilty for cheating”, “I feel guilty for stealing”, “I should not have yelled at my spouse”

Shame

• “I am bad”
• Feeling bad about who you are.
• Focuses on what you do or do not “deserve”.
• We often cope with shame by attacking self, attacking others, withdrawing, or avoiding.

Examples: “I don’t deserve to be loved,” “I deserve to suffer,” “I am worthless,” “I am broken.”

Guilt and shame are complex human emotions. The confusion we experience with their meaning does not help us make sense of them. Service members and Veterans potentially experience even more intense guilt and shame because of their warrior code and ethos.

Processing Guilt

Guilt is experienced by many service members and Veterans and is typically one of the strongest emotions present.[2] Survivors guilt is often the specific emotional experience. Thoughts such as, “Why did I live, and they die?” –create what we call a ‘manufactured emotion.’ We condemn ourselves to guilt by personal choice, not by assignment of others. A person experiencing guilt may feel unworthy of having happiness in life because of the way something from the past ended the way it did. However, this may be more regret than guilt. Regret lives in past hindsight where we question what would have happened if things were different and incorrectly assume that an alternative outcome could have been better.

Guilt then also has a legal connotation to it, further confusing its perceived state. We see in media, society, and spirituality, the idea of guilt vs. innocence. For service members and Veterans, guilt in the legal context is even more complicated by the ‘Law of War’ and other international agreements set to regulate the conduct of war. If I intentionally commit a war crime or atrocity is the guilt different than if I kill a civilian by accident during war?[3] Guilt importantly has a component of intentionality. For example, a person is driving safely down the road, and somebody jumps out in front of their car and is killed. Is this guilt or responsibility? Alternatively, a person knows it is wrong to rob a bank, but they wake up one day and decide to do it anyway. In this case, not only is there purposeful intent, but there is also pre-meditation.

As humans, we are all responsible for our actions, but we don’t have to assign guilt to ourselves. That is a choice. However, if I assume that I am bad, that is not guilt, that is shame. Shame is even deeper and more complex than guilt.

Coping with Shame

Shame is perhaps the most painful of human emotions and can be conceptualized as a personal devaluation and distortion of how someone views themselves.[4] There are four potential ways we cope with shame as humans: withdraw, avoid, attack self or attack others.[5] Embarrassment and humiliation sometimes get confused with shame, particularly when we feel inferior. For example, toxic leaders in the military seem to thrive in embarrassment and humiliation, making others feel less than human. An individual may attempt to make sense of this by manufacturing an emotion. They keep telling themselves that this was their fault and therefore experience shame.[6] Because shame fuels social isolation thoughts such as, ‘I don’t deserve to feel better because of what I did’ or ‘No one wants to help someone damaged like me,’ self-sabotaging, self-destructive, or self-injurious behaviors might result. Finally, shame can create anger toward others, society, organizations, or spiritual beliefs. This is where shame starts to cross into morality.

Moral Injury

Fueled by guilt and shame is the idea of moral injury, or a soul wound. Moral injury can occur in a reaction to a traumatic event in which deeply held morals or values are violated and unabated guilt and shame stem from a fundamental betrayal of oneself.[7] It often is accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Guilt and shame make service members and Veterans more vulnerable to experiencing a moral injury.

Existential psychology teaches us that our life journey is centered around five human struggles to understand: meaning, identity, isolation, freedom, and death. As humans, we all experience these chapters at different stages of our lives. Morally injurious events arguably overwhelm our ability to make sense of these life chapters. A service member or Veteran experiencing guilt or shame that becomes a moral injury can receive a wound to the depth of their very soul and human existence.

While there are overlaps between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and moral injury, having one does not mean being diagnosed with the other. Clinical treatment of moral injury is also in its infancy as compared to PTSD. However, moral injury is not something new and has been around since antiquity. The ways that warriors in the past treated moral injury often embraced an important human need: connection and community.

Untangling the Complexity in Connection & Community

All humans have a universal need for attachment and connection.[8] Human connection gives meaning to our lives, while things like guilt and shame sever that connection. Isolation kills when guilt, shame, or moral injury are present, but communities help heal.[9] Service members and Veterans should not condemn their self-worth and live in unnecessary pain, suffering, and misery. A welcoming community that provides opportunities to connect can grow the mental maneuver space needed for the warrior to heal. It takes courage and strength to embrace these. Don’t worry, the warrior ethos won’t let them quit. Words have meaning.

About the Author: Mr. Bongioanni is a licensed mental health counselor who alsoworks for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He is also a senior leader in the U.S. Army Reserve. His professional interests include human behavior, applied psychology, and military cultural competence. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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[1] Resick, P. A., Monson, C. M., & Chard, K. M. (2014). Cognitive processing therapy: Veteran/military version: Therapist’s manual. Washington, DC: Department of Veterans Affairs, 107.

[2] Hurley, E.C., (2021). Treating Shame, Guilt and Moral Injury using EMDR Therapy Treating First-responders and Military Day 2, Part A., EMDRIA Credit Live Webinar, https://emdr-veterans.training/

[3] Resick, P.A. et al., 20.

[4] Hurley, E.C., (2021).

[5] Nathanson, D. L. (1994). Shame transactions. Transactional Analysis Journal, 24(2), 121–129.

[6] Resick, P.A. et al., 2.

[7] Norman, S.B. and Maguen, S. (2025, January 9). Moral Injury. National Center for PTSD. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/moral_injury.asp

[8] Jorgensen, R., Presentation on EFCT Fundamentals for Practitioners Working with the Veteran Community Therapy, EFT Counseling and Education Center, 2024.

[9] Bobrow, J. (2015). Waking Up From War. Pitchstone Publishing.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.