Author · Teacher · Psychological Activist
I'm David Bedrick —
founder of the UnShaming Way.
For over 40 years, I've worked around one central conviction: your struggles are not problems to fix. They are invitations — carrying intelligence, medicine, and the seeds of your most authentic self.
My work has reached hundreds of thousands of people through five books, online courses, international trainings, and a community of practitioners on six continents.
"David Bedrick provides a deep investigation of shame, the most debilitating of our mind states, and offers a workable, practice-based, and accessible path to divesting ourselves from it."
— Gabor Maté, MD, New York Times bestselling author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
If you're here because something in you is tired of trying to fix yourself — you're in the right place.
Five books. Four decades of practice. One radical truth: You're not broken.
What is UnShaming?
Most approaches to healing are built on a hidden premise: that something is wrong with you, and the goal is to get rid of it. UnShaming turns that upside down.
Shame isn't just a feeling. It's an internalized viewpoint — a voice that was handed to you, often in childhood, that learned to see your pain, your anger, your needs, your body, your authentic self as problems to be managed or eliminated.
This isn't positive thinking. It's a rigorous, compassionate practice of witnessing yourself — and others — in a way that transforms what you believed was broken into what you were always meant to become.
My journey began in my own childhood.
I grew up in a violent and oppressive home. My father's rage was physical and verbal. My mother coped by denying and dismissing what was happening. What I lacked most wasn't just safety — it was a loving witness. Someone who could see what was happening, name it, and stand for my experience.
That absence shaped everything. And when I began working with people decades later — in private practice, in classrooms, in training rooms around the world — I kept seeing the same wound. Not just in what had happened to people, but in the way they had learned to talk about themselves afterward. The self-blame. The inner critic. The sense that their pain was their own fault.
Over 40 years of research, teaching, and working one-on-one with clients, I developed UnShaming — a framework that treats trauma, shame, and emotional difficulty not as pathology but as intelligence waiting to be understood.
UnShaming has transformed what I once saw as problems in myself:
- What I once saw as insecurity, I now see as a capacity for vulnerability and an acute awareness of my need for more fluid boundaries.
- What I once saw as anger, I now see as a fire of passion that carves a path for my voice to be more empowered and free.
- What I once saw as resentment, I now see as deeper needs and desires that were longing for expression and support.
- What I once saw as criticalness and judgment, I now see as an impulse to develop finer theories and a deep urge to write and communicate them.
- What I once saw as flaws and derailments, I now see as the spirit of my own intelligence, guiding me toward a more authentic life.
This is what UnShaming can do for you too.
Explore the Work
Whether you're seeking your own healing or bringing these tools to your clients, my courses and books offer a trauma-informed path into UnShaming.
Shame & Authentic Self
- Start here The Foundations of UnShaming Bundle The best introduction to the work
- Go deeper UnShamed: the 6-week course My most complete and transformative teachings
- Ongoing practice UnShamed: Monthly Medicine Community, live sessions, and continued growth
Trauma
- Start here The Trauma-Work Bundle An accessible introduction for individuals and practitioners alike
- Go deeper The Trauma Clinic A 7-week course exploring trauma healing through an UnShaming lens
Credentials & Background
My main credential is my own UnShaming journey — 50+ years of living inside the questions I now teach. But if you'd like to know more:
The Unshaming Way: A Compassionate Guide to Dismantling Shame (2024)
The Unshaming Way Workbook: Exercises and Reflection Questions to Heal from Trauma, Unlearn Self-Blame, and Reclaim Your Story — now available for preorder
I teach and travel internationally alongside my partner Lisa Blair, PhD, a leading researcher in intimacy and human connection, with whom I also co-host the podcast In Two Deep.
With love,
David