Compassion Focused Therapy Participant Workbook

Rachel Arnold, Cameron T. Alldredge, Kara Cattani, Derek Griner, David M. Erekson, Gary M. Burlingame, Mark E. Beecher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000436976
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychische Gesundheit in der Psychologie

Compassion Focused Therapy Participant Workbook is a companion book to Compassion Focused Group Therapy for University Counseling Centers, a one-of-a-kind 12-session manual for conducting compassion focused group therapy on college campuses.

Compassion-based interventions have been shown to decrease symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress in students. This book's 12 sessions incorporate several aspects of compassionate living including defining and understanding compassion, mindfulness, shame, assertiveness, and forgiveness to help participants act in more compassionate ways with themselves and others, lower feelings of shame and self-criticism, and engage in self-reassuring behaviors. The workbook provides clients with summaries of each session, handouts, and key exercises and, along with the manual, can be followed session-by-session or adapted according to the needs of the group.

This workbook is designed to be used by clinicians and participants in a clinician-led group utilizing Compassion Focused Group Therapy for University Counseling Centers.

Module 1: Introduction, Compassion, & Tricky Brain

DOI: 10.4324/9781003202493-2

Aims

• Establish group rules, norms, and safety.
• Define what compassion is and is not.
• Discuss the flows of compassion.
• Talk about our tricky brains and evolutionary theory.
• Discuss ways our minds get into unhelpful loops that we have the power to change.
• Explore compassionate wisdom.
• Wrap up with a compassionate cultivation meditation.

Introduction

Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is an approach that focuses on the interplay between biology, psychology, and your social environment. Our goal is to increase wisdom and understanding of how our hardware (brain) and software (past experiences) affect our daily lived experience. In each session, we will spend time learning skills that provide alternative ways to handle life.

In the first module we talk a bit about what compassion is and what compassion is not.

Compassion is:

• “Sensitivity to suffering and distress in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it.” One insightful group member in another group summarized all this as “empathy in action.”

Compassion is not:

• just being kind,
• feeling sorry for others,
• being submissive…in fact, compassion can be quite assertive.

Sometimes, in order to better understand what compassion is, it can be useful to think about very compassionate people you know. What makes them compassionate? What do they do and say? How do these people behave?

We all need compassion because we all just find ourselves here with a tricky brain having to cope with the ups and downs of life. Essentially, our brain was built for us, not by us. We have genes we did not choose and do not get to control. We are socially constructed, or shaped, by our experiences. While it's not our fault that our minds are like they are, it is our responsibility to learn how to work with our minds. For example, imagine you had been kidnapped as a three-day-old baby and grew up in a very different environment. You would obviously be a very different version of yourself.

Despite the fact that we are influenced by things we didn't choose, we have the ability to be aware of ourselves and to monitor our minds. We can ruminate about the past and the future. This tricky brain leads us to develop feedback loops, thoughts about a threat that lead to unpleasant emotions, that lead to some type of action, that lead to more thoughts, and round it goes. These feedback loops often times are not very helpful. This ability to ruminate is not our fault, but it is our responsibility.

For example, imagine a zebra running away from a lion. Once they get away and can no longer see, hear, or smell the lion, there is nothing to keep them anxious, and in fact they settle down quite quickly. While a human will also be quite relieved to escape a lion, we tend to have thoughts such as: “Can you imagine if I'd been caught and what would it be like to be eaten by a lion?!” Our minds can suppose and create many frightening possibilities. Zebras don't do anything like this!

One of the aims of CFT is to help us recognize that there are several different versions of ourselves and start looking at the ways we can get stuck in patterns of thinking and feeling that are unhelpful. We are working toward choosing the version of ourselves we want to become; specifically, we hope to develop the compassionate version of ourselves.

One of the first steps we can take is acknowledging our compassionate wisdom. Our compassionate wisdom consists of recognizing that we are all just here with a very tricky brain and life experiences that we didn't choose. This is part of what it means to be human. This compassionate wisdom reminds us that we are not alone—everyone has a tricky brain, and this helps us experience a sense of common or shared humanity with those around us. It helps us see the wisdom in the phrase, “It's not my fault, but it is my responsibility.”

HANDOUT 1.1

HANDOUT 1.2

HANDOUT 1.3

HANDOUT 1.4

HANDOUT 1.5

Cultivating Compassion

(Note: A digital copy will be provided by your group leader.)

To end this module, we are going to finish with a practice to help you start to cultivate compassion.

We start by closing our eyes or looking down and feeling how we are sitting on our chair right now. (Pause 15 seconds.)

Engage a compassionate posture by having your back straight and shoulders in line with your hips, with an open diaphragm. Now slow your breath, and with each slower and deeper breath say, with a friendly tone, “Mind slowing down,” and then “Body slowing down.” Alternate these phrases on each out breath. Gradually get that sense of grounding. Gradually feel a sense of stilling and slowing but also with alertness in your mind. Notice yourself becoming more grounded.

Allow time for this to settle in and focus on your breath. (Pause for one minute or so.)

Now tune in to your inner compassionate wisdom. Remember that we all just find ourselves here with a very tricky brain an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Handouts
• How to Use This Workbook
• Introduction & Welcome
• Module 1 Introduction, Compassion, & Tricky Brain
• Module 2 Three Systems of Emotion
• Module 3 Mindfulness
• Module 4 Feeling Safe and Receiving Compassion from Others
• Module 5 Compassionate-Self
• Module 6 Multiple Selves
• Module 7 Self-Criticism
• Module 8 Shame and Guilt
• Module 9 Deepening Compassion for the Self
• Module 10 Compassionate Assertiveness
• Module 11 Forgiveness
• Module 12 Envisioning a Compassionate Future
• Index