Shame frequently has to do with experiencing oneself being treated as an object when one is attempting to relate to the other in an intersubjective mode (and conversely, in certain cases, shame may be elicited when one is responded to in a subjective mode when one is presenting oneself as an object – as, for example, when undergoing a physical exam). Recall Schneider’s (1977) statement: “we experience shame when we feel we are placed out of the context within which we wish to be interpreted.” After the acquisition of objective self-awareness the child may either experience being looked at by the other that supports their intentionality, excitement, and indwelling sense of self or they may experience being looked at in a way that objectifies them and activates shame. Kohut’s concept of healthy “mirroring” is consistent with the former type of looking and being looked at. Objectification, on the other hand, could be likened to the look of the camera, which, for Owen Barfield (1977), is the leading symbol of post-Renaissance man because it “looks always at and never into what it sees.” … For consciousness dominated by objectification, things are opaque, all surface and exterior, one cannot see beyond or through them to what lies on the other side of their surface appearance; things lose their function as clues pointing to something beyond themselves.
Objectification may activate shame because as Lichtenstein has pointed out, self-objectification is incompatible with the actuality of being, the immediate sense of self as indwelling, “connected” to others, and making a difference to those others. If one is relating to the other from this connected, indwelling sense of self and then one suddenly feels objectified, one’s sense of self is disturbed and one feels placed out of context. Shame is likely to follow.
—Shame and the Self by Francis J. Broucek