In depth:

Shame is basicly a healthy, normal human emotion. It keeps us within our boundaries, by telling us that we can and will make mistakes in life and that sometimes we actually need help.
But shame as a healthy, human emotion can become a permanent state of being. When this happens it means that shame has taken over your whole identity. When your identity is based on shame, you think or feel that your innermost being is damaged and that you are not a worthy, equal human being anymore.
When you feel that your true self is damaged, you need an adjusted or 'false' self that doesn't feel damaged. Someone with a false self tries to be more-than-human or less-than-human.

The origin
Shame develops in the early stages of youth, when we try to discover who we really are. This process is interrupted when child gets a signal from the environment, often time after time, that there is just no space for being this real you. This forces a child to form a personality that is capable to meet the demands and expectations of the people in the environment: the 'false self'.
A direct result is the feeling of being unreal, an overwhelming sense of just not fitting in, but being an outsider looking in on life through a window.

Addictions
Shame is also the source for addictions. The urge behind every addiction finds its origin in the conviction that you do not meet the requirements of being human. It doesn't matter if you are addicted to drugs or to certain activities, such as work, shopping or gambling, it is all an attempt to form an intimate relationship with something. The workaholic has an attachment with work, the alcoholic with a bottle. Every addiction changes the mood, just to silence the feeling of loneliness and vulnerability that is part of the inner shame. Every time someone gives in to the addiction it has damaging consequences and of course this awakes even more feelings of shame. That new shame feeds the addiction, and creates an endless spiral. This all begins with the wrong conviction that all addicts share with each other, the conviction that no one will love you just for who you are.

Healing
There is only one way to heal limiting shame and that is doing exactly the opposite of what the shame tells you: emerge from your place of hiding. To change her, you have to accept her. 'The only way out leads you through it', is a well known therapeutic saying.
This means that in therapy we search for the deepest origin of shame that you feel inside. This quest leads you to the moments in your childhood where you started to believe that you are not OK when you are your true self. This leads to situations where you started to identify with believe systems of your parents that are also based on shame.
It is important that you contact those parts of you that feel full of pain and hurt, and as a result are often repressed.

Guidance
The guidance in this process happens in a very respectful manner, where your feelings, boundaries and pace direct the process. We all need courage to be fully human, because we can only be human when we acknowledge that there is no such thing as perfection. And only when we are ready to let go of all expectations of being perfect, we can really start to live. Live a life where there is room for laughter, spontaneity and above all: Love.