When writing a blog, I’ve come to learn that brevity is key in order to grab someone’s attention fully for the 2-3 minutes they have available.  But my goodness, when it comes to mental health and wellbeing it’s so hard to choose what to prioritise and what to leave out.  

Even so, there is one thing that I can advocate, that makes a difference to groups who feel isolated and excluded, and to individuals who struggle with mental health. That thing is Compassion. 

This may sound odd to some and slightly fluffy and new age to others, but both research and neuroscience is fast showing the beneficial impact that compassion (for others and ourselves) has on our nervous system, and so on our mental health.  All good therapists are truly compassionate, and today most will introduce self-compassion as a skill to build with their clients. 

What is compassion?

Compassion can be defined as a genuine concern for the suffering of others, and a willingness to do something about it.  Like sympathy, compassion has a feeling of sadness for someone else’s predicament, but a sympathetic viewpoint can feel like pity: “I’m not there with you, but I can see how bad it is for you”. To be compassionate, we also need the skill of empathy, the ability to truly understand and feel what another is going through, which allows a full recognition of their difficulty, a viewpoint of: “I’m here with you and I feel it too”. 

Compassion, however, is even more powerful than empathy. Some studies have shown that prolonged empathy, especially in caring roles, can result in burnout and negative emotions. Whereas, compassion produces positive emotions and more goal-oriented motivation through the desire to alleviate suffering (1).  Ensuring our compassionate self speaks first promotes actions of kindness, on-going support, and ensures the acceptance of difference, promoting inclusion in our society.

The healing power of self-compassion

Importantly, compassion can be self-oriented, which is showing huge benefits in mental health treatments.  The science behind self-compassion is growing.  Granted, it’s not easy when an individual has been used to beating themselves up in their own mind for many years, but neuroplasticity shows us that brain patterns can change through a gradual and sensitive build-up of practice.

The science behind compassion has led to compassionate mind training and its use in NHS talking therapies.  Professor Paul Gilbert has led the way with the science and written best-selling books and practices to engage with compassion.  He teaches about our ‘tricky mind’ that has developed over thousands of years to work a certain way, and that is now being challenged with the ‘always switched on’ way we now live. This was never anticipated even 50 years ago and is giving many of us problems which manifest in poor mental health.

Understanding brain development and how this tricky mind keeps us unwittingly in unhelpful feedback loops of anger, anxiety and depression, is essential in stepping back and giving us new options. Our compassionate self will create distance from these more reactive emotional states, and help us make wiser decisions. 

It’s too big a subject to say more (and being mindful of my opening sentence), but I hope I’ve sparked an interest in what is proving to be a key game changer in mental health.  Extra resources are below for those who want to find out more.

Extra resources

This video summarises the compassionate mind well.

The home of The Compassionate Mind is here 

The best resources for self-compassion practice are with key worldwide expert in compassion Kirsten Neff here

Ref:

(1)  Singer T, and Klimecki OM. Empathy and compassion. Curr Biol, 2014;24(18): R875-R878

Photo by Dave Lowe