Working with shame in coaching

In recent pieces, I have written about minority stress, authenticity, and code-switching. Each of these themes touches on the question of shame: the painful sense that one’s way of being, speaking, relating, or adapting is somehow wrong.

Minority stress can make shame more likely when people repeatedly encounter prejudice, exclusion, or the expectation of rejection. The ideal of authenticity can add another layer of pressure, especially when someone judges themselves for behaving differently across settings. Code-switching can then become a source of self-criticism: “Why do I change the way I speak?” “Why do I make myself smaller?”, “Why can’t I simply be myself?”

Shame is often present in coaching in many forms: It may show up as perfectionism, over-preparation, avoidance, defensiveness, a reluctance to ask for help, or the repeated belief that one should already be able to cope. It involves a painful, global judgement of the self: not simply, “I made a mistake,” but “there is something wrong with me.” Research distinguishes between internal shame, involving negative self-evaluation, and external shame, involving the sense of being negatively seen or judged by others. Both can lead to withdrawal, concealment, and attempts to avoid rejection (Garofalo et al., 2025).

A useful coaching response makes room for shame as an experience that carries information about a person’s history, relationships, and current environment. The coach can stay curious about its protective function, its impact, and the conditions that sustain it.

Why shame is rarely helpful

Shame can initially look motivating. A client may say, “I need to be harder on myself,” or believe that self-criticism is what keeps them performing. Yet shame usually narrows a person’s field of action. It directs attention towards self-protection, concealment, and the avoidance of further exposure.

In coaching, this can show up in several ways:

- A client dismisses their accomplishments and anticipates being “found out.” (see my blog piece on the imposter phenomenon).

- They avoid applying for a role, speaking in a meeting, or asking for support.

- They explain exhaustion as a personal weakness rather than as a response to sustained pressure.

- They turn understandable adaptations – such as code-switching – into evidence that they are inauthentic.

- They seek reassurance but struggle to receive it, especially when support itself feels exposing.

This last point deserves care. Receiving emotional support can itself evoke shame if a person experiences it as confirmation that they are inadequate, needy, or unable to manage alone. Perceived responsiveness and warmth from the other person matter greatly; support that feels impatient, evaluative, or intrusive can intensify shame rather than reduce it (Swerdlow et al., 2023).

Shame and social context

For people who navigate racism, migration-related marginalisation, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, or other forms of exclusion, shame cannot be understood solely as an internal emotional pattern. Sometimes the person has learned to feel ashamed because they have repeatedly been treated as if their language, body, family, accent, identity, or way of relating were a problem.

This does not mean that every painful self-judgement comes directly from an external event. It does mean that coaching should avoid locating the whole problem within the client. A person who continually edits their accent at work, hides information about a partner, or over-explains their competence may be responding to real evidence about what a particular environment rewards and punishes.

The coaching question is therefore not simply, “How can you stop feeling ashamed?” It can be: “What has this shame taught you to expect from other people?” This invites a more accurate distinction between an internalised message and a present-day risk. It also makes room for the client’s intelligence. Their strategies may have developed for good reasons, even if those strategies now carry a high emotional cost.

A coaching stance

A coach cannot and should not promise to remove shame. The aim is to reduce shame’s control over the client’s choices and to help them develop a kinder, more realistic relationship with themselves.

A shame-informed coaching stance can include the following:

- Name the pattern carefully. Instead of interpreting the client as resistant, unmotivated, or overly sensitive, notice the protective function of withdrawal, perfectionism, humour, or self-criticism.

- Separate person from problem. Help the client move from “I am inadequate” to “I am having a shame response in a situation that feels exposing.”

- Restore context. Explore the institutional, relational, and cultural conditions around the experience. Ask who benefits from the current norm and what forms of expression are treated as acceptable.

- Work with the body. Shame is often immediate and physical: lowering the head, tightening the chest, going blank, speaking quickly, or wanting to disappear. Slowing down and observing these reactions can create a small space before automatic self-protection takes over.

- Use compassionate language. Invite the client to speak to themselves as they might speak to a capable colleague who was facing the same situation. This is not forced positivity. It is an effort to replace punishment with accurate and supportive attention.

- Identify safer experiments. The client may choose one modest act of self-expression, one boundary, one request for support, or one context in which they practise taking up more space. The goal is choice, rather than an ideal of total openness.

Moving beyond self-criticism

Self-compassion can be useful here, provided it is not framed as another standard the client must master. It involves responding to suffering with warmth, recognising that difficulty is part of human experience, and noticing painful thoughts without fully fusing with them. In a study with people experiencing depression, self-compassion exercises were associated with reductions in shame-proneness, although the study did not identify one component – self-kindness, mindfulness, or common humanity – as clearly superior (Ceclan et al., 2021).

More broadly, a 2023 scoping review found that many psychosocial interventions for internalised shame reported small to moderate reductions in shame. Approaches commonly included psychoeducation, experiential work, social support, and opportunities for emotional expression, while the authors also noted that the evidence base varied in quality (Norder et al., 2023). A further experimental study found that a brief self-compassion intervention reduced acute shame more effectively than a control activity, suggesting that even short practices may help a person regulate an intense shame state in the moment (Fink-Lamotte et al., 2023).

For coaching, the practical implication is modest but important: before challenging a client’s thinking or pushing towards action, it can help to create enough safety for them to stay in contact with the experience. A client who feels less attacked by their own inner voice has more access to reflection, agency, and choice.

Questions for coaching

These questions can open the topic without demanding immediate disclosure or emotional resolution:

"When do you notice yourself becoming smaller, more careful, or more self-critical?"

"What do you fear other people might conclude about you in that moment?"

"Whose voice does this judgement resemble?"

"What has this strategy protected you from?"

"What does it cost you now?"

"What would a more accurate, less punitive description of this situation sound like?"

"Where, and with whom, do you experience less need to monitor yourself?"

"What would be one sufficiently safe way to act with slightly more choice next time?"

The goal is not to persuade someone that shame is irrational. Shame often contains a history: of criticism, exclusion, exposure, or adaptation. Coaching can help a person recognise that history, loosen the automatic equation between difficulty and personal defect, and make choices that are less governed by the need to hide.

References

Garofalo, C., Giammarioli, L., Aiolfi, I., Delvecchio, E., & Mazzeschi, C. (2025). Conceptualization and assessment of shame experience and regulation: An umbrella review of synthesis studies. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 32(4), e70136. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.70136

Swerdlow, B. A., Sandel, D. B., & Johnson, S. L. (2023). Shame on me for needing you: A multistudy examination of links between receiving interpersonal emotion regulation and experiencing shame. Emotion, 23(3), 737. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001109

Ceclan, A. A., & Nechita, D. M. (2021). The effects of self‐compassion components on shame‐proneness in individuals with depression: An exploratory study. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 28(5), 1103-1110. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2560

Norder, S. J., Visvalingam, S., Norton, P. J., & Norberg, M. M. (2023). A scoping review of psychosocial interventions to reduce internalised shame. Psychotherapy Research, 33(2), 131-145. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2022.2082340

Fink-Lamotte, J., Hoyer, J., Platter, P., Stierle, C., & Exner, C. (2023). Shame on me? Love me tender! Inducing and reducing shame and fear in social anxiety in an analogous sample. Clinical Psychology in Europe, 5(3), e7895.

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