Abstract: This research explores and refines a new theory. The theory makes a primary claim: that irrational self-blame specific to a traumatic event is an act of violence against an innocent self. As a consequence, because irrational self-blame is a belief rooted in shame, that act of self-inflicted violence sets up a shame-based ego-defense mechanism. Shame fuses with guilt and compromises the function of guilt to act as a moral guide. Compromised guilt is maladaptive guilt. Subsequently, a survivor's need for security becomes dependent upon maladaptive guilt, being chronically at fault. Maladaptive guilt is generated by controlling beliefs and behaviors in relationships with self and others, including God. Utilizing a research method known as intuitive inquiry, interviews with 12 survivors and the researcher's documented experience of transformation during the course of the study revealed a trauma bond between the emotions of shame and guilt. This emotional trauma bond is an ego-defense mechanism enabling survival, and it is the core of a deep construct generating maladaptive guilt. Intuitive inquiry is a cyclic method that generates lenses into a topic. Asking how shame and guilt were experienced posttrauma produced 132 initial lenses that culminated in 2 final lenses into the deep structure of survival: (a) Embodied shame is a background upon which, (b) there is movement between the polarities of vulnerability experienced as intolerable fear and maladaptive guilt experienced as intolerable weight. Results of the research show shame fused with guilt to be a learned functional neurosis that manifests in a classic approachavoidance conflict with vulnerability. Results also indicate that irrational self-blame specific to the traumatic event emerges through maladaptive guilt as inability to forgive self. Implications are that when this functional neurosis is projected into relationships with God, self, and others, it drives subtle and overt acts of individual and collective violence.