The Sense of Guilt and the Charity of the month

We are approaching the end of another year, yes dear reader (a), plus one year ends and at least I did not see him pass. I know we're still in November and we still have the entire month of December, however, in a few days we will begin to be bombarded by the media with advertisements about Christmas, so I would like to put some questions to think this month preceding Christmas.

At this time in Bonfim, is already noticeable when walking the streets of the neighborhood's famous Christmas lights, decorated shops, panettone gracing the shelves and the more sympathetic figure of this feast the good old Santa Claus.

No, I will treat on the Christmas spirit or imply that the consumerism that date back to her. I would like to bring to you who are reading this column the feelings that arise with the proximity of this date. Often we see institutions doing charities, anonymous giving charity, group of friends doing charity, even when I was a teenager attending a Christmas Serenade which was to end the path to Vila Planetarium which was our main goal and this stop entregávamos candy or toys for the children living there.

I find it extremely beneficial to do charity, but because only in December developed this capacity for empathy? My goal is not to exercise judgment to those who practice charity dezembrina but bring to the attention of all a feeling that we bring with us consciously or unconsciously called guilt.

What guilt have? Do we have because we spent the whole year doing nothing for others, and in December will have a liberating want to do something for the other, or is it because we realize we have a social responsibility to help the less fortunate or doing something is because the others may charge: I did my part and you? Thank God I do not have this ability to know why everyone has to make this kind of charity, at least I think I have the ability to know the reasons for my actions, go back a bit player and realize that I wrote that I think, because even we often have an awareness of why we have a kind of behavior.

But what is guilt? The feeling of guilt is obtained after suffering a reevaluation of past behavior regarded as reprehensible by itself. The basis of this feeling, the psychoanalytic point of view, is the frustration caused by the distance between what we were not created by the superego and the image of what we think we should have been. There is also another definition for "guilt" when it violates personal moral consciousness (ie, when we sin and make mistakes), there is the feeling of guilt.

For Humanistic Psychology, especially the line Rogerian (Carl Roger), guilt is a feeling like any other and that can be "worked" therapeutically to address this feeling is the one who suffers. For this line of Psychology, a feeling like this when it comes to be considered an obstacle for those who feel it is the result of an inappropriate personal growth, but is not considered a psychopathology. For rogerianos, all people have a tendency to update that addresses the full self-realization, therefore, the guilt may be only momentary limitation in the process of self-realization.

It is quite conceivable that either the guilt produced by civilization is perceived as such, and largely remains unconscious, or appears as a kind of malaise, a dissatisfaction, for which people seek other motivations. Religions, at least, never despised the role in civilization by guilt.

The guilt, the severity of the superego, is therefore the same as the severity of consciousness. It is the perception that the ego has to be watched this way, the evaluation of the tension between their own efforts and the demands of the superego. It is the key point of the text "malaise in civilization" of Sigmund Freud.

One might say that guilt is an obstacle to our growth as a human being, or rather, as the psychoanalytic theory of the Ego Ideal.

If doing a charity we aim to get rid of the guilt, it is a reassessment of the concept of charity. Charity is nothing more than a feeling or action selfless help to someone without seeking any reward.

Enough for today.
Any suggestion on the column or theme will be welcome by e-mail.
Leonardo Melo
leonardommspsico@gmail.com