Bringing Remedy to Shame
Shame is often a whole-body experience.
It can show up as heat in the face, collapse in the chest, a frozen feeling, an urge to hide, or a harsh inner voice that seems to take over.
That is one of the reasons we are bringing Brainspotting-informed work into this month’s Mom Parts KAP Lab on Shame in Motherhood.
Shame in Motherhood
For many moms, mothering people, and caregivers, shame often makes itself known in the aftermath of a moment:
A moment of yelling.
A moment of wanting to disappear.
A moment when our child’s pain or behavior feels like a referendum on our parenting.
A moment when our own needs feel selfish or unacceptable.
A moment when the inner critic says, "A good mom would not feel this way".
In the Mom Parts framework, these moments are not failures. They are entry points into the parts, protections, and wounds that are asking for attention. They show us where our parts are carrying pain, pressure, protection, and old beliefs about what it means to be “good,” lovable, selfless, or enough.
Many of us have experienced how shame can keep us stuck in a loop:
We can analyze it, explain it, trace it back.
We can understand where it came from and still, in the moment, our body may continue to react as if something is deeply wrong with us. That is where bottom-up processing becomes so important.
Why Brainspotting?
Brainspotting gives us a way to include the body, the nervous system, and the felt sense of an experience. One of the core concepts in Brainspotting is that where we look affects how we feel. For many people, a change in gaze can subtly change what they notice, feel, or have access to. (Grand, 2013).
In this month's Mom Parts KAP Lab, we are using Brainspotting-informed principles to help participants locate a Remedy Spot: a Body Resource connected to support, care, compassion, or grounding.
Shame can be Tricky
Shame can be tricky because it often creates more of itself. A part feels ashamed, and then another part criticizes it for feeling ashamed. A mom feels inadequate, and then feels ashamed for not being more regulated, more patient, more present, or more “together.”
We may understand the pattern intellectually and still not know how to find relief in the moment. So instead of going further into the shame, we begin to explore the possibility of a remedy:
Maybe what is needed is warmth.
Maybe it is spaciousness.
Maybe it is an inner sense of being held.
Maybe it is the felt sense of a loving presence.
Accessing a Remedy Spot through a Body Resource gives the system a place to orient by creating an embodied pathway back toward support. Even a felt sense of 1% more support can make a huge difference.
Applying this Framework in KAP
In ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, painful material may become more accessible. Defenses may soften. Parts may come forward. The body may reveal what the mind has learned to organize, manage, or explain.
But insight inside the medicine space is not the whole work. People still have to go back into their lives. They still have to parent, answer the email, pick up their child from camp. They still have to notice the moment when their brain-body says: hide, collapse, blame yourself, disappear.
So part of ethical, clinically useful KAP work is helping people build bridges between the journey and everyday life. This month, the bridge is the Remedy Spot.
Participants will learn how to locate a body resource, pair it with gaze, and return to it during the experiential practice as needed. They can also bring this into preparation, dosing, integration, and non-medicine clinical work.
Bringing Remedy to Shame
This lab is about learning how to meet shame differently. We will explore shame through the Mom Parts lens, psycholytic low-dose KAP, and Brainspotting-informed noticing. We will look at how shame shows up in the maternal system and how clinicians can support clients without taking them deeper than their system is ready to go. The heart of the practice is finding a felt sense of remedy as a way to offer the system a different experience.
Join Us Next Week
Mom Parts KAP Lab: Shame in Motherhood:
Wednesday, July 15, 12–3 pm ET
Integration Session: Thursday, July 16, 1–2 pm ET
This lab is for clinicians interested in Mom Parts work, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, parts-informed care, Brainspotting-informed practice, and bottom-up ways of working with shame.
You do not need to be Brainspotting trained to attend. This will be a Brainspotting-informed introduction focused on clinical application, embodied support, and integration.
If shame is part of your work with mothers, parents, caregivers, or yourself; this lab offers a bottom-up way to explore what shame needs and how we can support the parts that carry it.
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