What is Compassion Focussed Therapy?
Compassion focussed therapy (CFT) is a third wave CBT approach, which sees that relating to yourself with compassion both how you think and behave, has a beneficial effect.
CFT notices how we can be kind to other people, but how often we aren’t always so kind to ourselves. This kindness can be both to reduce suffering and to promote well being.
This can take strength as turning towards your suffering isn’t easy, as suffering hurts. Likewise, it can take some strength to do things that aren’t easy but are good for you.
The aim of CFT is to develop you into your own best friend, which seem vital, as to be alive means at times you will suffer and the person you are in most frequent contact with is yourself.
The methods to do this, include, noticing how you relate to yourself, how you talk to yourself, the tone you use, and develop this relationship into a kinder, compassionate one.
Mindfulness is used with compassion, where mindfulness looks to increase your awareness of yourself, so that you don’t ignore yourself and you can then tend to yourself it a compassionate way.
Wisdom is also used with compassion. This is to understand that how you are is a result of your experiences and your society. So, your suffering isn’t your fault, although when you realise it, then it does become your responsibility.
CFT shows your suffering isn’t personal. We are all in this together, we all suffer at points in our life. Connecting with this can be powerful as it is the antidote of shame, which is the feeling we can get when we think suffering is our fault. Shame is the feeling that there is something wrong with you, and the response to it is to want to hide yourself, or the shameful thing. Compassion is the opposite of this, it sees that we all at times suffer and we are all in this together. Whilst it engages very much with your suffering, with a mindful awareness of it, it also sees that your suffering isn’t because of there being something wrong with you, but rather because you are human, with the emotional system that you inherited, and the body that in time can decay.
CFT understands humans as having three major drives, the fear drive, the achievement drive and the contentment\affiliation drive. So, from ancient humans, the achievement drive would go out and get food, the fear drive would protect them from attack, and when the day was over, their bellies full and they were safe, then they would connect with their family and community and relax and feel content.
CFT then looks to work with client to understand how much of their time is put into each of these areas and what the effects of that are, then to seek to develop a better balance between if that is appropriate.
