The author develops the significance of shame in everyday relationships, pathology, and politics, as well as its reflection in fine literature, based on theoretical foundations and stylistic sensitivity. The reader is also made aware of the societal dimension of this affect. The themes of this book range from the phenomenology, structure, and genesis of shame, its often neglected distinction from guilt, to forms of shame, shame defense, and alienation, culminating in the resulting conclusions for psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic techniques.