Shame & identity

Where Are You?

Name: Where Are You? Shame, Identity, and What We Hand to the People Closest to Us
Author: Dr. Donetta D. Quinones, PhD, LMHC, LPC

Shame, Identity, and What We Hand to the People Closest to Us

Somebody says something small and true to you, and four minutes later you are the one apologizing. Shame that cannot be held does not stay put. It gets handed to somebody.

By Dr. Donetta D. Quinones, PhD, LMHC, LPC

Take the course — $149 The interactive workbook — $39

A question asked of someone who was hiding

The book takes its title from Genesis 3:9. God asks the question in a garden, of a man who has just discovered what it feels like to be seen — and He did not ask because He had lost Adam. Adam was hiding.

There is an enormous difference between I did something wrong and there is something fundamentally wrong with me. The first can lead a person toward accountability. The second sends him into hiding.

That distinction is the spine of what Dr. Quinones calls shame-based psychology: the ways shame becomes embedded in how a person understands herself, her relationships, responsibility, power, belonging, and worth — and the remarkably sophisticated ways people hide.

Four parts, fifteen chapters

Part One — Unbuilt, Then Hidden. Where shame comes from: an identity never built, one attached to a family story that was not true, and shame installed by somebody else. If you had a good childhood and still feel this way, Chapter 3 was written for you.
Part Two — Defend. What people do to protect an identity that cannot survive being wrong: pride, the relocating of shame onto the nearest person, and why the one acting most superior is often the hardest to reach.
Part Three — Transfer. Where the shame lands: on a person made small in front of an audience, on the family member chosen to carry it, and on institutions that end up protecting one person’s defenses instead of their own people.
Part Four — Face. Why moving shame relieves and never resolves — and what does. It ends with a covering that nobody had to sew.

Two appendices close the book: Shame in Costume, a field guide to the twelve forms shame wears, and Reading Someone Else Without Diagnosing.

Every chapter ends with the same two questions, in the same order. What am I carrying that was never mine? What am I handing to someone else that is mine? The first meets you where you were harmed. The second is the one that changes something — and asking it is never an admission that what was done to you was your fault.

Read it, work it, or teach it

The course

Eight modules and twenty-four lessons that take the book off the page — guided practice, knowledge checks, and a certificate. See the course, where Lesson 1 is free to preview.

The workbook

Every chapter exercise made writable, plus the Shame in Costume field guide and the Emotional Health Check. See the workbook — included with the course.

The articles

The Four Minutes, Two Sentences That Sound Alike, Three Roads, Shame in Costume, and The Container.

Education, not treatment. The book does not diagnose anyone, and nothing in it should be used to diagnose another person. Every person in it is a fictional composite or a teaching example. If what you find here opens something that needs more than a book, the next step belongs with a licensed professional.

Shame says hide. Healing asks what you are hiding from.

Written for the person who has been told she is too sensitive — and for the person who has begun to suspect the sensitivity was never the problem. For individual reading or group study.

Take the course — $149 The interactive workbook — $39

Program Clarity

GraceRoot courses are psychoeducational learning programs, not emergency care, legal advice, or a replacement for therapy. Certificates document GraceRoot completion. Court, employer, board, or continuing education acceptance should be confirmed before purchase unless a page states a specific approval.

Trust & Verification Participant Handbook Confidentiality Grievances