1. A Brief Introduction to Compassion Focused Therapy Russell L. Kolts, Ph.D. Eastern Washington University Inland Northwest Compassionate Mind Center Spokane, WA USA

2. Compassion – being moved by suffering, and motivated to alleviate it.
Two psychologies at work: sensitivity to suffering, and motivation to help.
Compassion begins by approaching suffering.
In Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), compassion begins with understanding how our brains and minds work.
Looking around – compassion exercise

3. CFT is based in a few Basic Ideas
“Hope Comforting Love in Bondage” courtesy of the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Collections, Birmingham, UK
Artist: Sidney Harold Meteyard, 1901

4. Idea #1: Our brains, and the way they influence our minds, are the products of evolution.

5. As our brains evolved, different strategies, motives and competencies evolved with them:
Symbolic thought, self-awareness, empathy, metacognition
Kin caring/affection, alliances, play, social communications
Fight, Flight, Sex, Hunt, Territoriality
Frontal Cortex
Empathic brain - key for emotion regulation

6. Our old, emotional brains are very powerful, but not very wise.
The emotional brain isn’t good at distinguishing between input from environment and imagery, thoughts, and fantasies.
This is why we can stay angry for hours or days and our dogs don’t…
Draw brain-inertia example. Introduce Soothing-rhythm breathing

7. Understanding our Emotions
Emotions evolved to guide us to our goals and respond if we are succeeding or threatened.
There are three types of emotion:
Those that focus on threat and self- protection
Those that focus on doing and achieving
Those that focus on contentment and feeling safe

8. Types of Emotion System
The Safeness System
The Drive System
Safeness
kindness
Content/Peaceful
Soothing
Wanting, pursuing, achieving, consuming
Excitement, Lust, Ambition
Anger, Fear,
Anxiety, Disgust
The Threat System

9. Our Old, Emotional Brains are Biased toward Feeling Threatened
In species without attachment only 1-2% make it to adulthood. Threats are everywhere. At birth individuals must be able to ‘go it alone’.
Our Ancestors’ Survival depended on efficiently detecting and responding to threats.

10. Motivations and Emotions Organize Our Minds in Very Powerful Ways

11. Anger Thinking Reasoning Attention Imagery Fantasy Behaviour
Motivation
Emotions

12. Anger Threat System Protection and Safety-seeking Body/feelings Tense
Heart increase
Pressure to act
Anger
Attention/Thinking
Narrow-focused
Transgression/block
Scan – search
Behaviour
Increase activity
Aggressive displays
Attack

13. Wanting, pursuing, achieving, consuming
Drive System
Wanting, pursuing, achieving, consuming
Activating
Excited
Body/feelings
Activation
Heart increase
Pressure to act
Disrupt sleep
Attention/Thinking
Narrow-focused
Acquiring
Exploring
Behaviour
Approach
Engage
Socialise
Restless
Celebrating

14. Non-wanting/ Connection-focused Safeness-kindness Soothing Well-being
Body/feelings
Calm
Slow
Well-being
Content
Behaviour
Peaceful
Gentle
Prosocial
Attention/Thinking
Open-focused
Reflective
Prosocial

15. CFT helps people work with these emotions -learn to balance them by helping ourselves feel safe…which makes compassion possible

16. Social Mentalities Our social orientation toward others
Social motives can organize the mind in very powerful ways
Defensive
Competitive
Caregiving

17. Defensive Thinking Reasoning Attention Imagery Fantasy Behaviour
Motivation
Emotions

18. Competitive Thinking Reasoning Attention Imagery Fantasy Behaviour
Motivation
Emotions

19. Thinking
Reasoning
Attention
Imagery Fantasy
Compassionate
Behaviour
Motivation
Emotions

20. Idea #2: We are powerfully shaped by our early relationships and by social situations (many of which are unchosen).

21. Early Relationships With Caregivers
Shape how we experience others:
Kind vs Harsh
Consistent vs Unpredictable
Available vs Unavailable
Trustworthy vs Dangerous
Shape how we experience ourselves:
Worthy of kindness/love/nurturing?

22. These early relationships also powerfully influence our ability to feel safe in connection to others (or not).

23. Idea #3: Shame and self-attacking get in the way of working effectively with our challenges and emotions.

24. “There’s something wrong with me.”
We have unlimited access to our own internal experiences, and very limited access to those of others. (“I feel like a wreck, but they seem to be doing alright!”)
Evolution shaped us to be very concerned about how we exist in the minds of others.

25. So we’re set up to self-shame and self-criticize…but this keeps us stuck in the threat circle.

26. Idea #4: Cultivating compassion for others and ourselves can help us work with suffering and balance our own emotions.

27. Research shows that Compassion benefits us:
Kind interactions turn down threat responses in the brain.
Working for others’ happiness makes us happier than working for our own.
Self-compassion is more associated with happiness than is self-esteem.
Looking around – compassion exercise

28. Compassion-Focused Therapy involves a number of factors:
Building mindful awareness.
Develop capacity to soothe – to help ourselves and others feel safe.
Cultivation of compassion toward others and self.
Developing courage to take responsibility and work with difficulties.
The cultivation of compassionate strengths, and an image of the self as a compassionate person.

29. Mindfulness
“paying attention, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally, and on purpose.”
Benefits of Mindfulness
Builds capacity to use attention skillfully.
Trains us to notice movement in the mind – notice thoughts and emotions as they arise.
Reframes thoughts and emotions as mental experiences.
Increases distress tolerance – learning to stay.

30. Hope Comforting Love in Bondage by Sidney Harold Meteyard; Used with kind permission from the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.

31. Mindful awareness creates space for compassion to flourish.

32. Working with the Body: Soothing Rhythm Breathing
Slow down the breath: 4-5 seconds on the in-breath, hold for a moment, 4-5 seconds on the outbreath.
Focus the attention on sensation of slowing – slowing down the body, slowing down the mind.
30 sec.-1 min, several times per day

33. Learning to feel Safe
Many people may never have truly felt safe. It is crucial that we help them get those brain systems online – to help them learn to feel safe.
Frozen shrimp metaphor
We can start this process by creating the causes and conditions in which feeling safe is possible – starting with our relationship to the person.

34. The Compassionate Self
Helping to develop a version of ourselves that has deeply compassionate qualities:
Kindness
The courage and confidence to take responsibility and face difficulties
Wisdom
This builds compassionate patterns in the brain.

35. Hope Comforting Love in Bondage by Sidney Harold Meteyard; Used with kind permission from the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.

36. Compassion Training in CFT
Warmth
Warmth
SKILLS -TRAINING
Imagery
ATTRIBUTES
Attention
Reasoning
Sympathy
Sensitivity
Distress tolerance
Care for well-being
Compassion
Feeling
Behaviour
Empathy
Non-Judgement
Sensory
Warmth
Warmth

37. Compassion Thinking Reasoning Attention Imagery Fantasy Behaviour
Motivation
Emotions

38. The Compassionate Self In Action
From this perspective, how would you understand this situation? Feel? Think? Work with it?
How would you relate to the other people in this situation?
If you could go back to a previous difficult situation and whisper in your own ear, what would you say? What would you want that version of you to really understand?
Prompting workable action

39. Compassionate Motivation: Connecting with the sort of person I’d like to be
Compassionate Reasoning:
“What sort of person do I want to be?”
“What do I want my life to be about?”
“If it were my funeral, and I had lived the life I wanted to live, what would I hope that people would say about me?”

40. Compassionate reasoning: when we observe ourselves or others struggling or acting erratically,
Instead of judging and labeling, seek to understand:
“How does it make sense that they/I might feel/act this way?”
“What might be going on in their/my mind?”

41. “Given this, what would be helpful?”
With compassion, we allow ourselves to soften - to be moved by the pain and suffering of ourselves and others, and ask questions:
“Given this, what would be helpful?”
“What does she need to feel safe?”

42. This second question is of vital importance:
Compassion tends to flow naturally when we feel safe, and is almost impossible when we don’t.

43. The key is to keep shifting to the perspective of the Compassionate Self
From the perspective of my compassionate self,
How would I understand this situation?
What would I want to happen?
How would I feel about everyone in the situation? How might I empathize with them? With myself?
What would I want to do? What would I do?
The goal is to gradually establish this shift as a habit, so that the compassionate self gradually becomes a stronger aspect of who we are.

44. Deepening Compassion: Compassion for Others
“Everyone just wants to be happy and to not suffer.”
Lovingkindness meditation
“Everyone has a story that runs just as deep as mine.”
Contemplating the unintended kindness of others.
Bring to mind again and again and again – “short periods, many times”.

45. Hope Comforting Love in Bondage by Sidney Harold Meteyard; Used with kind permission from the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.