How Shame Runs the World: Harness the Revolutionary Power of Our Most Misunderstood Emotion

The emotion you dread above all hides a secret code for living your best life.

Nothing undermines people's health and happiness more than shame, but we don't understand how shame really works nor how powerfully it affects us. Beyond the difficult, distressing emotion we hide or try to defeat, shame is also a universal, continuous, neurologically-based communications system designed to protect your well-being, guide you to success, warn you of harm, secure your community, and potentially save your life.

In How Shame Runs the World, Dr. Judith Pilla upends our traditional view with groundbreaking understanding that finally gets it right about shame. Her practical, clinically-proven, jargon-free steps will teach you to decode all of shame's messages--the hurtful, damaging ones you'll finally be able to eliminate permanently as well as vital ones that better your life every day. Her steps will guide professionals, too, improving outcomes in psychotherapy, addiction treatment, medical care, and even in social policy.

Through plentiful historical, cultural, and clinical examples, you will learn to:

• Heal shame that drives many health problems, including anxiety, depression, poor self-esteem, aggression, impacts of trauma, imposter syndrome, procrastination, perfectionism, disordered eating, alcoholism, and more.
• Manage shame that is a colossal and frequent source of discord among couples, family members, friends, and coworkers.
• Recognize the growing issue of public shame as used today to control us as a whole society, reshaping our values; manipulating commerce and politics; and changing our national story.

This book's revolutionary look at our most misunderstood and underappreciated emotion cracks the code of shame's astonishing power. It will help you become your most confident, effective, authentic self--as an individual, in your relationships, and in your wider world.

Author: Judith Pilla
Publisher: Health Communications
Published: 09/01/2026
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 1.10d
ISBN13: 9780757325618
ISBN10: 0757325610
BISAC Categories:
- Psychology | Emotions
- Psychology | Mental Health
- Self-Help | Self-Management | Stress Management

About the Author
Judith M. Pilla, PhD, is a psychotherapist in private practice with decades of experience successfully treating individuals, couples, families, and groups. For the past ten years, she has focused her study, research, and clinical practice on understanding the problems engendered by shame. She contributes as an international presenter and workshop leader on the subject for professional clinicians and the public in countries as diverse as Sweden, Canada, Israel, England and across the United States. Her background as a clinical nurse specialist in psychiatry, clinical social worker, and as the director of qualitative research for a global healthcare company ground her commitment to scientific, evidence-based research and writing. She is the winner of the Joan Saul Rivitz fellowship award for her graduate studies at Bryn Mawr College and is a charter member at Thomas Jefferson University of Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society. She and her husband live outside Philadelphia, PA. In addition to her clinical practice and her writing, she devotes time to being the proud mother of two adult children and their wonderful families.