The Neuroscience Behind Toxic Shame: Pathways to Healing w/ Robyn Gobbel
Adult Child
Andrea
4.9 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Toxic shame isn’t just a feeling—it’s a state of being, hardwired into our nervous system through childhood experiences. Let's break down the neuroscience behind toxic shame and see how we can begin to rewire our brains for healing.
Robyn Gobbel is a psychotherapist specializing in relational neuroscience, translating complex brain science into practical strategies for parents and professionals. She authored "Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors," providing insights into understanding and addressing challenging child behaviors.
Key Takeaways
- What Makes Shame Toxic? Unlike guilt or healthy shame, toxic shame makes you believe you are fundamentally flawed, not just that you made a mistake.
- How Toxic Shame Gets Wired Into the Brain Early experiences of misattunement, neglect, or invalidation shape how we see ourselves and stay locked in our nervous system.
- Rewiring Shame Through Disconfirming Experiences Healing requires new, safe experiences that contradict old shame-based expectations of rejection and abandonment.
- Why We Keep Recreating Trauma in Relationships Our brains unconsciously seek familiar dynamics, hoping for a different outcome—but healing means consciously breaking those cycles.
- The Role of Memory Reconsolidation in Healing We can rewire our brain’s response to shame by reshaping how we store and process painful past experiences.
⬇️DAMN THE JOIN SHITSHOW - ADULT CHILD HEALING COMMUNITY⬇️
- 4 weekly zoom support groups (Sun 3: 30 pm EST, Mon 8:30 pm EST, Tues 1 pm EST, & Thurs 8:30 pm EST)
- Support community at your fingertips with discussion boards and chat
📰SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION - ADULT CHILD NEWSLETTER
👩HELP A GIRL & CAT EAT🐱
www.buymeacoffee.com/adultchild
www.adultchildpodcast.com/shop
🎙️NEW TO THE POD🎙️
How I learned I was an Adult Child - The Tale of 2 Brians
THE LAUNDRY LIST - Common Characteristics of an Adult Child
Follow Andrea on social
www.instagram.com/adultchildpod
https://www.youtube.com/@adultchildpod
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code ADULTCHILD for 15% off: https://happymammoth.com
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Shame corrods the very part of us that believes we are capable of change. |
| 0:05.9 | My name is Andrea, and this is Adult Child. |
| 0:21.4 | What's you're holding on to? just let it all go. |
| 0:31.8 | Welcome back to adult child, where we take a deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family. |
| 0:34.8 | Ahoy, my dear shit shows. |
| 0:37.2 | For any new listeners, my name is Andrea. |
| 0:40.0 | I am a total incomplete shit show. |
| 0:46.3 | And before you get insulted and turn this off, please know that shit show is a term of endearment around here. |
| 0:47.8 | Okay? |
| 0:48.2 | It is an identity. |
| 0:50.0 | It is a badge of honor. |
| 0:51.6 | It is all about embracing that this healing journey is messy as hell. |
| 0:58.8 | We don't pretend like we have it all together around here. And I guess by we, I mean me. So I guess we also |
| 1:07.0 | talk about ourselves in the second person at times. |
| 1:11.9 | And as you may have gathered, if you haven't already turned this off, we don't take ourselves |
| 1:19.1 | too seriously around here, okay? |
| 1:21.2 | We talk about seriousness, but we don't take ourselves too seriously because let's be |
| 1:25.6 | honest, this healing journey is absolutely ridiculous at times. |
| 1:31.9 | And so if we can't find the humor, if we can't laugh from time to time, we're going to go |
| 1:38.9 | absolutely nuts. So welcome aboard this hot mess of a ship. This is not your typical trauma podcast. We curse here. You've been warned. I'm an acquired taste. You've been warned. And for anybody who doesn't know, I'm currently on a little break working on the relaunch of this podcast. So in the meantime, we are taking a dive. We're taking a swim in the adult child vault. So today, |
| 2:05.4 | we are going to revisit one of my favorite interviews ever. So this is with Robin Goebbels. She is a |
| 2:15.3 | psychotherapist who specializes in relational neuroscience. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -10 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Andrea, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Andrea and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.