The classic distinction, set out by Helen Block Lewis and developed by June Tangney, is between guilt and shame. Guilt says “I did something bad” and points toward repair. Shame says “I am something bad” and points toward hiding.
The difference has measurable consequences: guilt correlates with empathy and reparative behaviour, shame correlates with avoidance, defensiveness and — paradoxically — with more aggression, because being exposed as defective is unbearable and attacking moves the attention.
Chronic shame is not extinguished by performance. Someone who believes they are fundamentally flawed will read success as luck, or as evidence that they have fooled everyone — the mechanism behind impostor syndrome.
What dissolves it is not logical argument but the repeated experience of being seen exactly as you are and not being rejected. That is why shame is worked on in relationship — including the therapeutic relationship — and far less successfully alone.