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Reviews from Amazon
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This is an exceptionally powerful and important book that I recommend without hesitation. It is raw, uncompromising, and deeply visceral—at times confronting, but always compassionate and ultimately transformative.
Carolyn offers a clear and unflinching exploration of shame, articulating its inner dialogue with a precision that is both unsettling and profoundly validating.
She has a way of writing that feels as though she’s inside your head and body (an experience amplified by both reading and listening to the book), giving voice to the shaming, critical thoughts so many of us wrestle with. Her ability to do so makes her words immediately relatable, while simultaneously normalizing these experiences and gently dissolving their power—thereby reducing their isolating impact.
What makes this work especially powerful is how it moves beyond theory. Carolyn guides us to notice how shame flows both inward and outward, and more importantly, how we can interrupt that loop. The book is filled with practical tools: somatic practices to help release energy through the body, as well as reflective writing exercises that bring unconscious patterns into the light of awareness.
As a psychotherapist, I have already recommended this book to colleagues and clients, and I know it will be one I return to again and again. It is not an easy read in the sense of comfort—but it is profoundly liberating, useful, and necessary.
Everybody would profoundly benefit from reading this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 October 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
An exceptionally good journey into the phenomenon of shame. Sublimely written and spoken, if you listen on Audible, all formats are transformative and informative. The best book I’ve read to heal and understand the world of shame, both personally and professionally. Everybody would benefit with embarking on the authentic journey Carolyn takes you on.
Transformative and enligtening
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
A truly excellent book that has the advantage of being very well written and also a pleasure to read. Having said that it deals with some very painful emotions and behaviours. The author takes a straightforward and unerring look at issues around shame that most of us experience at sometime in our lives to a lesser or greater degree. The great news is that you can with the help of this book transform the way you feel and the way that you relate to others; you can become empowered with the knowledge and information that is given and the trick is to step up, be brave and take yourself. An amazing book that everyone should and could read.
If there’s one book you should read this year it is Shame
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 September 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
If there is one book you should buy this year it is Shame! Carolyn has a very unique style of writing which engages you the moment you start reading. You almost feel like she is with you, holding your hand. The learnings from this book have been life changing for me and with the world as it is today, I think everyone should read it. Thank you Carolyn for writing such a masterpiece. I have bought for my friends as well and they are totally absorbed in the learnings Shame brings.
A superb piece of work from a master teacher & guide.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 June 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
A book that every adult could read to improve their own life & the lives of those around them. As ever, inner work is not for the faint-hearted. This book is no exception. I almost winced to turn certain pages, knowing that I would find myself laid bare in those pages, darkest truths exposed to the light. But that’s okay. Carolyn Cowan is an expert guide, laying out the landscape of shame in brutal clarity but holding your hand as she walks you through it’s mechanisms. I wish I’d had access to this years ago. It lays out what shame is, how you ‘get’ it, how it shows up, and most importantly, how to navigate it & choose differently. After the wincing & cringing of self-recognition in these pages, I have come away elated, with all that darkness dragged, finally, into the light & knowing I can choose how I show up. A superb piece of work from a master teacher & guide. Highly recommend.
Meeting Shame, and Finally Moving Forward
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 July 2025 Format: Audiobook Verified Purchase
Carolyn has been one of the most important teachers in my life. Her work helped me become aware of the judgments I carried, especially those rooted in childhood conditioning and inherited family patterns.
This book is another magic of her mastery, it brings her wisdom together in a powerful and practical way. I love how Carolyn speaks directly, yet always with compassion. She helps you understand how shame shapes your behaviour and how to meet it without fear. This book gives clarity and the strength to make real change.
Thank you Carolyn.
Insightful and Empowering – and so beautifully written!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 July 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This book is not for the faint-hearted and requires some courage to pick up and stay with it – the reward however is so worthwhile.
Written with compassion and in an incredibly relational manner, it is educational, full of eye-opening insights and utterly empowering.
Carolyn’s work is remarkable, and having attended many of her workshops, including her signature Shame workshop, this book took me further on my growth journey.
A must-read for anyone who is ready to break free from the shackles of their past and move forward with more presence and lightness.
A book for life
Reviewed in Ireland on 21 July 2025 Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This book is wonderful, and is reflective of Carolyn’s work. She teaches with great clarity and a wonderful sense of both profundity and humour. Having attended her classes, it’s great to have this book to refer to. The topic is so crucial and I do not know of any person who would not benefit from exploring the teachings in this book.
A Work-book…You gotta do your work!
Reviewed in Australia on 12 July 2025 Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This book has alot of depth, and gently invites you to do your work on shame.
It takes bravery to look into your own shadows but there is gold on the other side of it…
Carolyn is fantastic at what she does, and I’m so grateful to have come across her work.
I highly recommend this book!!!!
More than a book
Reviewed in Germany on 17 August 2025 Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Reading Shame was quite an experience. I truly felt the author’s empathetic presence while she guided me through a process that unfolded by reading the book and doing the exercises. The book is cleverly structured, perfectly paced with meaningful emphasis and, at least for me, a plot twist. If you are open to receiving some wisdom (benevolent truth) and practical tools, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 October 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This book is one of those rare finds that can truly change the way you see yourself. Carolyn Cowan writes with honesty and depth about shame and the path out of it, offering a mix of reflection, neuroscience, creative insight, and practical exercises that actually work. The questionnaires, especially around body awareness and perception, were incredibly eye-opening and helped me recognise how shame had shaped so many parts of my life without realising it.
What I really value is how the book doesn’t dwell in the past but helps you understand and move forward from it. It’s compassionate, clear, and deeply practical. I found myself coming back to chapters, using the tools, and noticing real shifts in how I think and feel. If you’ve ever felt weighed down by something you can’t quite name, this book is like finding the missing puzzle piece.
A breath of fresh air, just fabulous.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2025 Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
What a fabulous book. A delight to read, hold and go back to. Again and again. Shame is grim, destroying and an absolute witch. To work through the exercises and learn, to have tools to break down the walls and build new ones back up again, is actually life changing. To gain an understanding in the method in the madness is quite wonderful. Quite simply a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 August 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Read. This. Book.
Then read it again.
An extraordinary exploration into shame and how it affects our lives and relationships.
Illuminating and highly informative, it helps to unravel potentially crippling behaviour that is, somewhat unknowingly, based in shame.
This is a gift to yourself and everyone you come into contact with.
A timeless book that will continue to aid our transitions throughout life. Also a fantastic addition to the shame workshop which is so revealing and transformative.
The ultimate guide to recognising and healing shame
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 August 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This is an absolutely brilliant book for understanding shame and the impact it has on our lives. It lies underneath almost all mental health issues and applies to so many of us. So well explained and a wonderful step by step compassionate guide to recognising , understanding and healing. Highly recommended.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 September 2025 Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Just transformational and just like being in the room with Carolyn – i have just finished and can see me wanting to revisit her wisdom often to keep my recovery on track
The missing part of the puzzle
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 June 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This is a magical book. It is expertly and beautifully written, it is a beautiful object, and it delivers a journey that I truly believe will change my outlook on my story, and my future, from here.
I did not know anything about shame and its impact on the psyche before encountering Carolyn by chance. Her knowledge and methods are the missing parts of a jigsaw puzzle I have been attempting to put together for my entire adult life, through an ongoing struggle with poor mental health.
I love this book and will treasure it. Everyone needs to read it.
Taking on the big things in our life.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 August 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
A really excellent practical book. Goes into sources of shame and how our brain and body adapt accordingly. The reader is guided through a recovery process in a warm and witty way. A joy to read and immensely helpful.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 August 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
A powerful and illuminating exploration into the depths of shame. This book is brimming with wisdom and practical tools, it offers a path to transformation.
It’s a pathway… so take it a page at a time. Ten stars!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 June 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
If I could give this book ten stars, I would. Written with compassion and understanding, it offers practical ways to delve deep into the cause of your anxieties, obsessions, compulsions and addictions. The book is a pathway, so begin at the beginnning and work through it, page by page. Working with or without a therapist, I feel sure this book will help many people.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 June 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
An extraordinary book written by an extraordinary woman. Highly recommended. Shame, known and unknown, permeates so much of our thinking our actions and our reactions. This book can and will help you recover from the crippling emotional bondage of shame. Freedom
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 June 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Wow to this book! The author shows you, teaches you and guides you to exit your cycles of suffering. Empowering and beautiful.
Useful, informative and entertaining
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 July 2025 Format: Hardcover
An accessible and useful look at a corrosive experience; shame. Carolyn Cowan – who describes herself as the owner of a ‘tall dark history’ – wears her considerable knowledge lightly in this idiosyncratic and compassionate book. The mix of the physical (breathwork and yoga/exercise) with the psychological is empowering. I learned a lot.
A very deep dive into the baneful nature of shame.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 June 2025 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
A very deep dive into the baneful nature of shame, dismantling complex and covert coping mechanisms not immediately obvious to the conscious eye in how shame is projected and internalised, keeping you inexorably trapped in your own hellscape.
Carolyn goes further, really elucidating the oblique and shapeshifting nature of shame and our counterintuitive attachment to it. She sheds light adroitly on the pernicious and often unconscious ways we play our shame out in the interpersonal.
As confronting a read as this can first be, the immediate gift from this book is that once you see the destructive patterns play out it’s impossible to unsee it, which is in no uncertain terms, an offering of liberation and hope from all addictive, anxious and compulsive behaviours.
Carolyn’s book is so expansive in its knowledge around the physicality of the stress system, providing tools that can be used anywhere, any time, by anyone to bring you out of panic and general dysregulation. The understanding feels fresh, pioneering and absolutely at the forefront of contemporary conversations around neuroplasticty and the brain body axis.
For anyone struggling with addictive, anxious and compulsive behaviours – from OCD to trying to quit smoking; chronic health anxiety to a social media or coke addiction – this book is a life raft to freedom.
