What Is Pseudo-Guilt?

Kylee is a 5-year-old that is just about to get her first taste of guilt. Her mother brought home a box of Oreos and forgot to put them away in the cabinet. Kylee knows better than to eat Oreos, especially before dinner, but this time couldn’t control herself and ate a whole sleeve. Immediately after eating the Oreos, Kylee knew she had done a ‘bad’ thing and tried to hide the Oreos so her mother wouldn’t see. However, her mother caught on rather quickly and asked Kylee if she had eaten the Oreos; Kylee answered "No." After just a few minutes, and no longer being able to stand the internal guilt, Kylee burst into tears and admitted to her mother that she had eaten the Oreos.

Source: Pexels/Liza Summer

Guilt is a strong sense of internal wrongdoing or remorse about a specific behavior or action, and is actually an important and beneficial emotion. The feelings of guilt work to repair relationships and stimulate pro-social behaviors from others (Cryder et al., 2012). But what happens when we start feeling guilty about actions or behaviors that weren’t actually ‘bad?’ What happens when this guilty feeling prevents us from making the best and healthiest decisions possible? This is a concept that has found its way into almost every session I have conducted, and I call it "pseudo-guilt."

Pseudo-guilt can be conceptualized as a type of false guilt. It has also been referred to as neurotic guilt, imaginary guilt, or anticipatory guilt. For ease of understanding, when I work with clients, I use the non-clinical term pseudo-guilt to describe all of these. The feeling is identical to true guilt, but its origins are different. With feelings of pseudo-guilt, there has been no bad action or inappropriate behavior, but instead some type of limit, boundary, or healthy deviation that is causing the feeling.

Have you ever felt guilty for telling someone no, or setting boundaries? Have you ever felt guilty for not enabling certain behaviors? These are examples of pseudo-guilt and are critical in not only understanding, but in utilizing to change unhealthy behaviors.

What Is Pseudo-Guilt?

The nature of true guilt is proactive. It has us morally reflect on a decision we made and, hopefully, change that behavior for the better. This can be owning a behavior, apologizing for an action, or changing our ways so we do not make the same mistake. The foundational purpose of true guilt is to foster transformation; that is, we need to accept the feeling of guilt and make an active decision to change. Kylee accepted her feelings of guilt and decided to own her behavior and admit to her mother that she ate the Oreos; optimistically, she won’t do it again.

Pseudo-guilt serves the opposite purpose. It is a guiding emotion that hints to us that we are making a healthy change. Our objective is to stay the course and not give into the pseudo-guilt feeling. For example, let’s say that Kylee’s mother has a sister named Amy. Amy has been struggling with money management and has asked Kylee’s mother for money on several occasions, to which her mother complied. In setting a limit, Kylee’s mother told Amy (and herself) that she would no longer be giving her money. Kylee’s mother feels guilty, but the guilt comes from setting a healthy boundary. If Kylee’s mother gives into the pseudo-guilt, this actually reinforces a negative behavior and the enabling will continue. In this respect, it is crucial to recognize that the guilty feeling is coming from a healthy place of boundary setting.

Why Do We Feel Pseudo-Guilt?

At the core of human behavior is social interaction and community. We are driven by others, and naturally care about their opinions. Setting limits and boundaries, telling others no, or even changing our own behavior is new, and with newness comes uncertainty. Despite life existing on a grayscale, we would prefer it to be black and white and predictable. We can get comfortable in discomfort or unhealthy habits, which is why changing them is difficult and can lead to pseudo-guilt. Furthermore, if others are involved, we care about their perspective. We don’t want others to become upset with us, hurt by us, or think less of us because of a boundary.

Navigating Feelings of Pseudo-Guilt

One of the first questions to self-reflect on is the nature of the guilty feeling. Did I do something inappropriate? Did I deliberately deceive or hurt someone? If the answer to these questions is no, we are most likely dealing with the feeling of pseudo-guilt. The next set of self-reflection questions can be what behavior am I changing, or what limit/boundary did I impose? This can help us understand the nature of the feeling. As humans, we have more control over our behaviors than our feelings. As such, it is important to assess the behaviors that are tied to our feelings of pseudo-guilt and make sure that we do not feed into these behaviors. Perhaps we cannot always avoid the feeling of pseudo-guilt, but having a deeper understanding of the type of guilt we feel gives us more advocacy and control.

As for Oreos, sometimes the feeling of guilt just might be worth it.