Guilt, of and by itself, is not abnormal even when it leads to depression. The ability to experience and recognize appropriate guilt and the cultivation of effective ways of coping with guilt have always been considered necessary attributes of the healthy personality. Guilt is an important mechanism for protecting people against becoming involved in behavior that is injurious to themselves or to others. When guilt is denied, or when people cannot recognize it or do not know what they ought to feel guilty about, they are likely to enter into situations that compromise their self-esteem. They may not realize how much they are hurting themselves until they become acutely depressed. Linking their depression to their guilt and then finding a way of resolving the guilt are fundamental parts of their recovery.
'I've lost my enthusiasm for everything," said a 46-year-old salesman. "For the past 2-years nothing has worked out right. I put off making calls and I've lost customers as a result. On weekends when I'm home, I'm too tired to spend any time with the kids. My wife and I hardly talk to each other. When we do, it often ends up in a fight." As he explored the sources of his unhappiness in therapy, he revealed that he had been having an affair with the secretary of one of his customers for nearly 2-years. "That couldn't be getting me down. As a matter of fact, it's the one pleasure I have, getting into bed with her once or twice a month. Besides, what's so unusual about that? Everyone plays around."
It took several months before he could convince himself that, regardless of what others did or did not do, for him the sexual involvement was stirring up guilt. His behavior contrasted with his upbringing. He had attended religious schools as a child and, until his early twenties, had been deeply involved in church activities. He had not had intercourse with anyone before marrying his wife.
He had abided by the strict, demanding codes of his fundamentalist background until other demands in his life, particularly in business, forced him to make compromises. He began whittling away at his ingrained values. He took a drink from time to time. He arranged for occasional kickbacks. He padded his expense account here and there. "Everyone's doing it. If you don't you can't survive." He ignored occasional twinges of guilt. By the time he was in his middle thirties he looked on religion as "a real handicap to making it." Until he began his affair, his home life had been relatively placid. After that, largely as a product of his unrecognized guilt, he turned it into a battleground.
"Just what do I do with this guilt now that I recognize it?" he asked. 'I' m certainly not going back to the way I thought 20-years ago." He was confronted with two options: either to modify his value system as far as fidelity in marriage was concerned or end his affair and try to improve his life at home. He chose to end the affair. But it was not an easy choice to make. He was incredulous that, surrounded as he was by sexual permissiveness, he could still feel more comfortable with his original set of values.
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