Can Guilt Manifest Into Illness - 2268 Words

Can Guilt Manifest into Illness? The origin of the inquiry â€Å"can guilt manifest into physical illness† all started when I was assigned to read the novel, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for my senior research essay in high school. The novel revolved around the character Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov and his turmoil with guilt. In the novel, Raskolnikov viewed himself to be an infallible deity, who possessed intelligence and wisdom that could not be rivaled by any other human. This superman complex eventually drove him to the conclusion that he should kill the rich pawn owner Alyona Ivanovna due to her callousness towards the people who were tardy in making payments. Raskolnikov used this iota of a flaw in Alyona to mercilessly†¦show more content†¦Since I was in college and had more resources that I had in high school, I determined it would be ideal if I started my research over. What is Guilt? In order to prove that guilt has the capability to transform itself into psychological and physicals punishment, one must first understand what guilt is, and how it can be perceived and distinguished from other emotions. One of the articles that explains and defines guilt is the article, Guilt, Shame, and Reparative Behavior: The Effect of Psychological Proximity, by Majid Ghorbani et al. In the article Ghorbani et. al. intricately analyze the differences between shame and guilt saying that guilt. Understanding how easy it is to confuse the two, they first define them in the beginning by using a quote from one of their references, â€Å"Ferguson and Stegge 1998.† In the article Ferguson and Stegge state â€Å"Guilt is defined as an agitation-based emotion of regretting a wrong action or decision, (qtd. in Guilt, Shame, and Reparative Behavior: The effect of Psychological Proximity, 313). Ferguson and Stegge’s quote is essential because it provides a concrete descriptio n when guilt occurs and what emotion type it belongs to. This is also crucial to the claim guilt can manifest into physical and psychological punishment because it gives a definition of guilt and provides a guideline for it. Although Ghorbani et. al. knew what guilt was they still needed to figure out what it looked like. To do this, they