Blame and shame show up a lot during my work in the therapy room.  Blame and shame are distinct psychological responses that often feed into another during conflict or personal distress. While blame discharges pain and anger onto someone else or inward onto oneself, shame targets a person's core identity with feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness.  Both are hugely impactful, at times devastating to an individuals relationship with oneself.  But, our experiences with them can be altered.  Through sharing, talking and confiding into someone we can perhaps understand why we have arrived at such judgements about ourselves.  In turn, this can lead to us challenging our view, seeing new perspectives and being less affected by both self blame and shame.  I see first hand time and time again, how much this can alter an individual's self esteem and self respect.  When we take the time to really look at our view of ourself and not distract ourself from it, that's when we can move to a place of acceptance and right there is when change occurs.