I appreciate conversations about the guilt issue as I find them thought
provoking and a useful place to begin to analyze some of the psychosocial
barriers to breastfeeding.  Cathy Liles and Kathy Dettwyler have done some
interesting work on this subject, and references to their work appears in
the archives.

Guilt can become a motivating impetus to change, altho in a heirarchy of the
steps involved in changing, I think guilt is an early and rather primitive
motivator.  Certainly discomfort moves me off my perch.  Ultimately,
however, a DESIRE for forward movement seems the stronger and more active
principle.  I tend to move into this stage when whatever I am doing starts
to work and I get relief from my discomfort. The success of the effort
rewards my behavior and I begin to experience a taste for more success in
that direction. Guilt pushes me; success pulls me.

   My experiences with shame, on the other hand, have convinced me it is a
crippler, incapacitating people and creating a backlash of resentment and
resistance. Guilt is something I feel.  Shame is something you make me feel.
In my life, attempts to control others -- esp. with shame -- have proven
illusory, pointless, and frustrating. Such efforts have often engendered
guilt in ME!

 I see my job as an LC as requiring telling the truth about the situation as
best I know it, throwing my  most excellent art and science at the problem,
giving full-hearted and sincere emotional support for as long as the mother
needs me, and not being too  attached to the results. Each mother arrives on
my door step with a life full of experiences -- some profoundly wounding.  I
have learned that I feel better about my job (less burn-out) if I give
information without necessarily interpreting it.  Mothers are, by in large,
capable of doing that without my help.  I don't accept that it is my
responsibility to control the behavior of another with shame, and I don't
think it works.

Barbara

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Private Practice, Austin, Texas
Owner, Lactnews On-Line Conference Page
http://moontower.com/bwc/lactnews.html