3 Ways To Work With Toxic Shame - Part 2

Toxic shame is one of the most debilitating effects of childhood trauma, and in Part 2 of this series Patrick Teahan, LICSW goes deeper into three specific forms of shame and what to do about each of them. Where Part 1 introduced the problem, Part 2 offers exercises for working with the direct shaming, absorbed shaming, and inherited shaming that grew out of dysfunctional family systems.

Patrick opens with weaponized shame — the finger-in-your-face rhetorical questions ('how could you do this to me,' 'why can't you be like so-and-so') that toxic parents use to enforce compliance. He contrasts this with healthy parenting, where love is the tool and the child's growth is the priority. To ground the teaching, he shares a personal story about cutting his thumb on a meat slicer at fifteen and his mother's irritation at the inconvenience — a vivid example of how day-to-day direct shaming shapes a child's sense of self far more than any single event.

The video is designed for survivors who recognized themselves in Part 1 and are ready for the exercises. It assumes a level of familiarity with how shame works and focuses on giving viewers concrete, repeatable practices they can use to begin separating from the shame scripts they inherited.