After being terminated from a marketing position at a major book retailer, a New York-based executive concocted an involved rationale for his firing to tell networking contacts and prospective employers. He would explain that he wasn't interested in the company's new emphasis on Internet sales and felt it was time to seek new challenges. But a few weeks after recounting this version to a friend, he confessed that he'd been fired but had been ashamed to say so.

Why are some candidates able to discuss their terminations candidly and begin networking while others feel humiliated, hide what happened and lack confidence to seek new positions? While those in this latter group may not always realize it, feelings of shame are usually at work.

Being ashamed results in symptoms and behavior that can affect your life significantly, says Susan B. Miller in her book "Shame in Context" (1996, Analytic). "Shame creates feelings of smallness and unworthiness causing a person to retreat from social situations," she writes. "It leaves a person with images of him (or her) self as impaired and valueless, so small he's incapable of significant aggression and in need of rescue from others." Clearly, these feelings can hinder your efforts to job hunt successfully.

What You Feel

Shame isn't all bad. Having such feelings is a necessary part of the human condition and, depending on the situation, amount and type of shame you feel, can have a positive impact on your life. Healthy shame, the feeling you've compromised a standard but can repair the situation, allows us to function and have good personal, work and social relationships. Even a vague memory of feeling ashamed can be enough to propel us to bone up for a meeting, work overtime to complete a job, practice before making a big speech or be polite at a company holiday party.

Unhealthy shame, on the other hand, arouses negative feelings and doubts about your personal worth and value. It's this nagging sense of self-deficiency that can damage your ability to job hunt. You begin to feel diminished or less of a person than others do, which erodes well being and generates underlying fear. These feelings can be so intense that you'll avoid situations and thoughts that might trigger them.

Often feelings of shame stem from events in childhood that become programmed into your adult subconscious. If unemployment triggers these feelings, you may experience moderate to acute anxiety or become immobilized when you seek new employment.

Most job seekers don't fully understand the origins of their shame. As children, they may have been called stupid, incompetent, lazy or needy for certain behaviors concerning work, such as not doing a job effectively or asking for help. After a job loss, the same feelings may be aroused, convincing us that we're undesirable to others.

While such feelings may stem from a weakness that causes you to need help, they're exaggerated distortions. After all, we're human and can and will make mistakes or need assistance.

Job Loss and Shame

A job loss is an especially powerful shame trigger for many reasons. Almost every area of human competency gets tested in the workplace. Mental and emotional capacities, the ability to maintain personal and professional relationships, cognitive skills and perceptions are revealed and rated daily. Many employees who feel flawed believe their firings occurred because their deficits in one or more of these areas were discovered. Further, relationships from childhood often are recreated at work, arousing the same vulnerabilities and shameful feelings.

But why would having these feelings affect your ability to find another job? Certainly few adults hang their heads and retreat like shamed children. Most know how suppress and redirect negative emotions and act positively. The reason is that a job loss triggers feelings of deep deficiency-that your total being is tainted and flawed. The following job-search tactics often are affected by shameful feelings after a job loss.

1. Conducting a self-evaluation

Those who believe they're defective can't job hunt effectively. To overcome this feeling and develop meaningful career goals, you must conduct a positive self-evaluation that includes reviewing your value in your former job. Focus on your behavior, not on yourself personally. For instance, if you were terminated from your previous company, review what you could have done differently, but tell yourself "I made a mistake," not "I am a mistake." Step back and identify positive skills and characteristics to list on your resume and discuss with interviewers.

2. Leaving on a "good note"

How you leave employers is an important skill. Your goal is to maintain connections that can help you gain new employment. Telling yourself, "I'm not wanted," can seriously damage future relationships with co-workers and supervisors.

This faulty self-evaluation separates you from others and generates shameful feelings that will prevent them from championing your cause. One 45-year-old who returned to work at a major franchiser after raising her family and later was dismissed felt so rejected and paralyzed, she couldn't seek another job.

Her doubts about her self-worth were so severe that she sought help from a counselor. Together, they discovered her reaction was so intense because it was related to painful experiences of feeling disliked and shamed in childhood. Having feelings of anger about your termination also can make you feel ashamed. Managing angry feelings appropriately will help you be more productive and strengthen your relationships during your search.

3. Networking

Many candidates assume that only weak or needy people ask for help. To avoid showing this neediness, they refuse to network, thereby eliminating assistance that can build self-worth.

When you do approach others, your shame-based stance makes them uncomfortable and unwilling to help. A graphic arts professional in his 50s received outplacement assistance after being laid off when his company had financial difficulties. Although his unemployment wasn't his fault, he felt like a failure and withdrew from business and social contacts. Losing support from mentors and having few leads caused his search to stall. When he realized his feelings of failure stemmed from being raised in a highly critical family that didn't appreciate his artistic talents, he was able to move on.

4. Negotiating

"Only greedy people ask for more" is an irrational, paralyzing belief common to candidates raised as children to control their longing for attention, food or other key needs. A piercing look from a parent may have been enough to silence such children and stop them from asking again even though they still felt these needs. Stating your needs isn't inappropriate or wrong. To gain a good severance package when leaving an employer, be willing to overcome past feelings of discomfort.

Feelings of shame about not adequately providing for your family or earning your share of the family revenues also may hinder your search. Decide what your needs are, alone or with a significant other, before eliminating various options and negotiating a new pay package.

5. Writing resumes and interviewing effectively

Do you believe it's inappropriate to brag? Consider rewriting your definition of bragging. It's acceptable and necessary to state what you've accomplished by working hard. On the other hand, stressing your superiority as a human being will harm your chances of being perceived as a team player.

One talented professional minimized her accomplishments on her resume and during interviews. When a mentor noticed this and discussed it with her, the candidate realized that her reticence came from being raised in a family that reprimanded her for speaking positively about herself. Moreover, her parents would stop teachers, relatives and others from complimenting her.

Overcoming Shame

Many job hunters spend more energy coping with their shameful feelings than they do on job hunting. Modifying the effects of their shame should be their first objective. The following steps can be helpful:

• Evaluate the extent to which shame is interfering with your search efforts. Ask yourself how comfortable you are discussing your termination with fellow employees, family and friends. Your actions will reveal the extent of your discomfort and how it may interfere with a job search. Do you lower your eyes, head or voice? Does your face flush? If this response persists, increases or causes you to avoid others, you likely need to deal with your feelings of shame. Other behaviors and emotions, such as withdrawal, anger and shyness, also may signal that shameful feelings from childhood have resurfaced.

• Decide if internalized shame-laden messages from childhood apply to you now.

• Separate who you are from what you do. Your behaviors and thoughts, as well as events, don't dictate your inherent value. Differentiate what you do from who you are, given your circumstances.

• If you have a shame-inducing thought, counter it with a more rational, positive thought about yourself.

• Reaffirm your personal value through volunteer work.

• Discuss your feelings with someone you trust. Verbalizing and sharing feelings puts them into perspective. Keeping them inside leads to distorted thinking and more shame.

Remember, it's a shame to allow bad thoughts and feelings that don't fit your present life to interfere with your job search and the success that can follow.

-- Dr. Eldridge is dean at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago, a psychotherapy consultant in Highland Park, Ill., and a member of the editorial board of the Clinical Social Work Journal. Ms. Gordon is a licensed clinical social worker located on Chicago's North Shore.