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The psychotherapeutic treatment of children and adult victims of sexual trauma reveals a characteristic feeling of shame. This experience of shame, manifesting as a flushing of the face, is first and foremost a social feeling: it is always a reaction to others’ gaze. Here we discuss the hypothesis that in psychotherapeutic treatment, the subject’s expression and recognition of shame, far from being secondary phenomena, constitute an essential aid in the affirmation and reconstruction of identity. This means that rather than reducing shame to a symptom, it should be included in a more global understanding of how the psyche functions. Recognizing oneself and being recognized as a shameful subject is an affirmation of the self as subject. A clinical situation will be discussed to show how, in a post-traumatic consultation, taking into account the sense of shame can have positive effects on the subject’s mental dynamic.