The Compassion Initiative: Just Two Guys in Brisbane talking Compassion. www.thecompassioninitiative.com.au

The COVID-19 pandemic has been really dragging on. And everyone is feeling it. There is an ever-present sense of threat and foreboding. in this video, Dr Stan Steindl summarises some recent research exploring the relationships between our perceived threat of COVID-19 and our mental health and social safeness outcomes...as well as the role fears of compassion might play in those relationships. And, of course, fears of compassion play a very important role indeed.

If you would like to access the paper described in the video, titled "Fears of compassion magnify the harmful effects of threat of COVID-19 on mental health and social safeness across 21 countries", you can find a link to the abstract here:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cpp.2601

Wait, what? Ted Lasso is afraid of compassion?

We all can have certain fears of compassion, across one or other, or all, of the three flows: being compassionate towards others, receiving compassion from others, or being compassionate towards ourselves. Season 2 of Ted Lasso depicts these fears beautifully, as well as how, with persistence and hard work, we can work through these fears and create connections with others that can help us through life's difficulties. Great script writing! Definitely deserved the Emmy!!

Compassion focused therapy in a nutshell, and bringing compassion to the world!

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Professor Paul Gilbert, OBE, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, Visiting Professor at the University of Queensland Australia, Founder of the Compassionate Mind Foundation, and recently retired Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Derbyshire Health Care Foundation Trust.

Professor Gilbert has worked extensively as both therapist and researcher, and his experiences in both led him to develop compassion focused therapy, an evolutionary and bio-psycho-social approach to psychotherapy. He has published extensively, including numerous research articles, academic texts and self-help books.

If you are interested in reading Paul's seminal book, The Compassionate Mind, you can find the details in the link below.

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The Compassionate Mind

https://www.amazon.com.au/Compassionate-Mind-Paul-Gilbert/dp/1849010986/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=compassionate+mind&qid=1629622393&sr=8-1

In Episode 5, Paul talks about the inhibitors to compassion, the fears, blocks and resistances. As Paul says, in compassion focused therapy working with fears, blocks and resistances is the work!

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Professor Paul Gilbert, OBE, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, Visiting Professor at the University of Queensland Australia, Founder of the Compassionate Mind Foundation, and recently retired Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Derbyshire Health Care Foundation Trust.

Professor Gilbert has worked extensively as both therapist and researcher, and his experiences in both led him to develop compassion focused therapy, an evolutionary and bio-psycho-social approach to psychotherapy. He has published extensively, including numerous research articles, academic texts and self-help books.

One of his many considerable contributions to the science of compassion and compassion in therapy is the notion of fears, blocks and resistances to compassion, the inhibitors, or things that get in the way. He has written extensively about this concept, most notably in a 2011 paper where he and colleagues developed the Fears of Compassion Scale (see link below).

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Fears of compassion: Development of three self-report measures

by Paul Gilbert, Kirsten McEwan, Marcela Matos, Amanda Rivis (2011)

https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1348/147608310X526511

We are basically a species designed for caring and sharing, but socio-cultural factors push us towards competitiveness, selfishness and callousness with sometimes disastrous effects.

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Professor Paul Gilbert, OBE, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, Visiting Professor at the University of Queensland Australia, Founder of the Compassionate Mind Foundation, and recently retired Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Derbyshire Health Care Foundation Trust.

Professor Gilbert has worked extensively as both therapist and researcher, and his experiences in both led him to develop compassion focused therapy, an evolutionary and bio-psycho-social approach to psychotherapy. He has published extensively, including numerous research articles, academic texts and self-help books.

In this episode, Paul mentions a recent study in which compassion focused approaches help change psychopathic traits. The reference for the paper is included below.

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Ribeiro da Silva, D., Rijo, D., Brazão, N., Paulo, M., Miguel, R., Castilho, P., Vagos, P., Gilbert, P., & Salekin, R. T. (2021). The efficacy of the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program in reducing psychopathic traits: A controlled trial with male detained youth. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 89(6), 499–513. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000659

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-62983-002

What is compassion? On the one hand, it is a simple algorithm: detecting suffering and taking action to alleviate or prevent it. And on the other, it is a rich array of qualities and characteristics all of which make up what it means to be human. Professor Paul Gilbert takes us through all of that, as well as how concepts of compassion can be helpful in a therapy sitting, and finishing with an emphasis on courage!

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Professor Paul Gilbert, OBE, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, Visiting Professor at the University of Queensland Australia, Founder of the Compassionate Mind Foundation, and recently retired Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Derbyshire Health Care Foundation Trust.

Professor Gilbert has worked extensively as both therapist and researcher, and his experiences in both led him to develop compassion focused therapy, an evolutionary and bio-psycho-social approach to psychotherapy. He has published extensively, including numerous research articles, academic texts and self-help books.

He has a recent publication that provides a rather comprehensive look at his theory of the mind from an evolutionary biopsychosocial perspective, published as open access in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

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Compassion: From Its Evolution to a Psychotherapy, Front. Psychol., 09 December 2020

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586161/full

In Episode 2 of Compassion in a T-Shirt: Short Shares with Professor Paul Gilbert Paul speaks about some remarkable observations he and colleagues made when working with clients, as well as by following the science, and how that led him down the path of warming up the tone of self-talk with a caring motivation and ultimately with compassion.

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Professor Paul Gilbert, OBE, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, Visiting Professor at the University of Queensland Australia, Founder of the Compassionate Mind Foundation, and recently retired Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Derbyshire Health Care Foundation Trust.

Professor Gilbert has worked extensively as both therapist and researcher, and his experiences in both led him to develop compassion focused therapy, an evolutionary and bio-psycho-social approach to psychotherapy. He has published extensively, including numerous research articles, academic texts and self-help books.

Of note, Professor Gilbert has published his very popular and helpful self-help book Overcoming Depression: A Self-help Guide Using Cognitive Behavioural Techniques, now in its third edition (possibly soon to be updated to a fourth edition!). See the link below for more details on this wonderful book.

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Overcoming Depression 3rd Edition: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques

https://www.amazon.com.au/Overcoming-Depression-3rd-behavioural-techniques-ebook/dp/B002S0KBP4

Compassion in a T-Shirt: Short Shares with Professor Paul Gilbert will explore the life and work therapist, the researcher, and the founder of compassion focused therapy. In Episode 1, he speaks about his journey from childhood and adolescence, through training and research, arriving at a model of the mind and the inception of Compassion Focused Therapy.

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Professor Paul Gilbert, OBE, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, Visiting Professor at the University of Queensland Australia, Founder of the Compassionate Mind Foundation, and recently retired Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Derbyshire Health Care Foundation Trust.

Professor Gilbert has worked extensively as both therapist and researcher, and his experiences in both led him to develop compassion focused therapy, an evolutionary and bio-psycho-social approach to psychotherapy. He has published extensively, including numerous research articles, academic texts and self-help books.

Through the Compassionate Mind Foundation and Compassionate Wellbeing, he has recently produced a series of videos taking a compassionate response to the COVID-19 crisis called The Nature of Compassion, Fear, Safe Relating and World Change (see link below).

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The Nature of Compassion, Fear, Safe Relating and World Change

https://www.compassionatewellbeing.com/compassion-safe-relating-and-world-change-lecture-series.html

In this video, Alicia Carter, PhD candidate at University of Queensland School of Psychology, describes the 12 modules included in the group-based compassion focused therapy intervention for body weight shame she evaluated as part of her PhD. CFT, and the modules described in this video, was founded and developed by Professor Paul Gilbert, who also helped supervise Alicia's PhD. Alicia's primary supervisor at UQ was Dr James Kirby.

Time Stamps:

0.31 Module 1: Introduction to compassion and the tricky brain.

1.38 Module 2: Three types of emotions.

2.44 Module 3: Learning to notice what your mind does.

4.22 Module 4: Exploring safety/safeness and compassion from others.

5.55 Module 5: Compassionate self.

6.55 Module 6: The nature of multiple selves as patterns of mind.

8.26 Module 7: Self-criticism.

10.12 Module 8: Shame and guilt.

11.07 Module 9: Deepening compassion for the self.

12.32 Module 10: Compassionate assertiveness.

13.48 Module 11: Compassion for others and forgiveness.

14.57 Module 12: Envisioning a compassionate future.

"We think that the end result of our PhD is a thesis, but really, it's you."

Alicia Carter is an Australian provisional psychologist and candidate for both the Master of Health Psychology and PhD programs at School of Psychology, University of Queensland. She follows a scientist-practitioner model and seeks to explore how social and evolutionary theoretical frameworks assist psychotherapeutic approaches in the field of health psychology and group therapy programs. She has recently completed and submitted her PhD thesis titled "Compassion Focused Therapy for Body Weight Shame", which involved several studies, including a systematic review of compassion-based interventions for body weight shame, a large survey to explore a compassion focused model of body weight shame, and then a pilot study and randomised control trial of group-based compassion focused therapy for body weight shame. Whilst completing her degrees, Alicia has worked as a tutor and research assistant, and she has facilitated compassion-based workshops at the Biomedical Institute of Yoga and Meditation.

Time Stamps:

3.18 Tell us the executive summary of your PhD research.

5.47 Tell us about Study 1, your systematic review of compassion-based interventions for body image shame.

15.15 Tell us about Study 2, your survey exploring the CFT-based model of body image shame and mental health outcomes.

23.37 Tell us about Study 3, a pilot study on a group-based compassion focused therapy program for body image shame.

28.46 Tell us about Study 4, the randomised control trial of group-based compassion focused therapy for body image shame.

35.36 What was it like for you at a personal level to make such a contribution to this important field of research?

37.39 What's next for you?

Published Papers:

Carter, A., Gilbert, P., & Kirby, J. N. (2020). Compassion‐focused therapy for body weight shame: A mixed methods pilot trial. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 28(1), 93-108. https://doi/epdf/10.1002/cpp.2488

Carter, A., Hoang, N., Gilbert, P., & Kirby, J. N. (2021). Body weight perception outweighs body weight when predicting shame, criticism, depression and anxiety for lower BMI range and higher BMI range adults. Journal of health psychology, 13591053211027641. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591053211027641

Carter, A., Gilbert, P., & Kirby, J. N (2021). A Systematic Review of Compassion-Based Interventions for Individuals Struggling with Body Weight Shame. Psychology & Health. (out soon!).