As I’ve been saying since 2005 when I first trained in EMDR, (and published with PenguinRandomHouse in 2007), all trauma is a violation, blocking, stifling, or worst of all, a diminishing of one or more masculine instincts for males or feminine instincts for females…

Or it can’t even be called a trauma. Instead call it an annoyance, an obstacle, or a frustration, but it is not an actual trauma unless it produces “shame.”

And what is “shame” in my lexicon?

It’s simple and you will recognize it immediately:

Shame is a diminishment of either the total level of masculinity in the male or femininity in the female, either of which Freud referred to by the strange word, “libido.”

This word did not merely mean sexual appetite, but “life force.” The feeling of being most alive. Synonym? None other than the word, “Passion.”

Which then means the opposite, “shame,” feels a bit like “being dead” or “less alive,” and which any trauma survivor can relate to.

The antiquated term Freud use for the male version was “castration,” and the even more antiquated term for female shame was lost to history, and called, “penis envy.” Yes a very strange male-centric term, but maybe you may now understand it to have meant to Freud, “female shame.”

I wish he had just used the simple, clear terms.