Marnia made a comment on another blog about not liking to use guilt as a motivator for changing behaviors. I believe I know what she meant, and I don't really think I'm contradicting that thought, but I did want to explore this further. I think because there's more to this than meets the eye when it comes to guilt. So bear with me while I "think out loud" for a bit.

The basic definition of guilt is to attribute responsibility to someone for committing a perceived transgression of a cultural, social, religious, or ethical taboo. The difficulty comes in determining in some cases whether a particular action actually transgresses a valid taboo. Some are fairly clear and agreed upon, like murder in most cases would be considered taboo. Sexual exploitation of women and children would generally be considered taboo. But there can be a wide difference of opinion on something like sex outside of marriage, for instance.

There are two basic types of guilt. One is guilt ascribed by outside sources, which the individual in question may or may not feel guilty about. The other is guilt one ascribes to themselves because they feel they have transgressed a taboo, which others may agree in general, have wide opinions on, or feel it isn't a real taboo.

An example of the first would be a judge and jury deciding a case. Eventually, they may bring a "guilty" verdict upon the crime. The person broke the law. This law along with a judge and jury are forces outside the individual in question. And that individual may or may not perceive that he/she is guilt of said crime. Or another similar example is when a parent tells their child that they cannot play with Bobbie down the street anymore because he is a bad apple. The child if he/she goes to play with Bobbie, may or may not feel guilty for breaking his mom's law, but when she finds out, she would most certainly feel the child is guilty and treat him/her as such.

In those cases, there is usually some authority, often backed by a community's cultural standards as to right and wrong. Violation of those standards constitutes guilt. And when one feels guilty, the concept is then to reconcile the guilt. In the case of the convicted criminal, he/she will then go to jail, or whatever other punishments are dolled out, in the hopes that they will not do that again. In the later, possibly a good talking to, or humiliation (not a good idea), or other punishment like spanking, time out, removal of privileges, etc. And the hope is if the individual comes to a moment of experiencing real guilt, that they will then take pains not to transgress that law again. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

An example of inner-induced guilt is if I were to say something to someone I felt was mean--perhaps I meant it in a bad way--and then later felt guilty for saying it. The guilt if dealt with properly would prompt me to return to that person and ask forgiveness and ensure that the relationship hasn't suffered a fracture. The person in question may have taken it as hatred toward them, or it may not have even registered on their radar as having any ulterior motives of hatred, and they never gave it a second thought. Often when you come to ask forgiveness, they'll initially go, "Huh? What are you talking about? You didn't offend me."

In each of these situations, there is healthy guilt and destructive guilt. Healthy guilt results when we have violated someone's rights to be treated as an equal member of the human race, or even other sentient beings, or even plants, the environment, etc., and it causes us to correct the problem. The guilt gets resolved and dealt with; the relationship is restored. You move forward in a healthy manner.

But an unhealthy and destructive guilt happens when instead of being resolved, the guilt is allowed to fester and spiral one into a depression. This especially becomes an issue if one feels they are helpless to resolve the guilt. This can be encountered in what we deal with here. One might feel guilt for masturbating, but feel helpless to stop. So the guilt never gets resolved, and just makes us feel bad inside whenever we give in. But unable to resolve it, we always feel bad, and it builds until we either learn to ignore it, explain away the guilt, or sink into a depression that affects the rest of our life.

Sometimes this unhealthy guilt is brought on by a standard imposed either from without or within that the person feels is real but is unattainable. For instance, some parents can be perfectionist, and demand that their children perform at a level of perfectiher on in school, sports, or other activities that constantly leaves the child feeling guilty for not being able to perfectly fulfill their parent's lofty goals. The taboo will be broken because the bar is set so high it nearly insures failure, and along with that comes guilt that cannot be resolved, no matter how hard the child may try.

An example of an inner-sourced guilt is a friend of mine I used to know a long time ago, actually my wife's friend, who constantly apologized for things she had thought about a person. At church, she'd always go at an altar call. My wife said sometimes she was annoying when she came to apologize for every negative thought she may have had. Her inner conscience was out of balance and put guilt in her for the smallest things. While she sought to reconcile them, her mind never stopped accusing her and so she always felt guilty for things. That becomes unhealthy guilt.

To bring this back around to this site, I've seen people here express feelings of guilt for slipping up. Sometimes, that could be a good thing, if the person is motivated to fix it, and treats the guilt more as a warning signal than a condemnation of them personally. But it can also be destructive if one experiences it as "you bad, bad, evil person you!" The later route will not bring about healing or reconciliation. It will only serve to sink the person further into the activity because they begin to link their identity as a person to the concept that they are a bad person, who can't help but masturbate. (Pretty much where I've been before.)

In that type of situation, a person will deal with it in one of three basic ways. One, change the conditions that make one guilty. In the case of masturbation, there is plenty out there that one can find which tells you that masturbation is all right, there's no harm from doing it, as often as you want, and as long as you want (within reason). If most all your teaching up to that point has said it is wrong and bad, it is easy enough to find material that counters that, and you can change the conditions which produce guilt, so that when you masturbate, you no longer feel any guilt about it.

The only danger with that is, if the person really should feel guilty about something, to fix it, but in essence dismisses it, then the problem is swept under the rug and festers, to one day emerge from the depths as a scary monster. Going the other way, often there are things people feel guilty about that they shouldn't. In those cases, changing the conditions is not only a valid way to deal with the guilt, but probably the only valid manner to fix it.

Two, the person can resolve the guilt by addressing the problem causing it. Somethings by their nature are never totally resolved. If I decided to drive drunk one night and ended up in a wreck, killing a child, or anyone, I would feel guilt about that. And while that guilt might diminish over time, it would never totally go away. There's no way to "fix" that mistake short of building my own time machine, going back and correcting my error. But sometimes, things can still be done that aid in addressing the guilt. For instance, maybe I would make a personal visit to the family I've affected, and give my sincere apologies, donate money for funeral expenses, offer to help them in other ways, seek reconciliation with them. It won't bring the person back, but it may at least resolve some issues with his/her relatives who've experienced a tragic loss at your hands.

Three, continue to feel guilty and sink into a depression, or worse, further into suicidal tendencies because you can't face the horror of what you've done. This is the most destructive route, and where you don't want guilt, whether real or not, to lead you to. Based on the circumstances, you'd want to deal with it via one or two above. But if the guilt provides the catalyst to make some beneficial changes to your life, to avoid the disharmony of broken relationships between you and others, or our environment, then it has served its purpose.

But keep in mind, good guilt doesn't involve fear and condemnation, but a warning and motivation to point one's self in the right directions. On this site, the right directions is to learn self-control so that we can regulate the inner child that wants more, more, more, and more until we pop.