A group program using Compassion Focused Therapy, adapted from the book CFT Made Easy by Russel Kolts, and The Power of Self Compassion by Mary Welford and the Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

1. Compassion
Focused
Therapy
Facillitator: Tammy Kontuk
M.Sc. R.Psych

2. Session 1
 Welcome and overview

3. Welcome.. We are so glad you
are here…
 Goal of CFT: To develop a new type of
strength within.. The strength of compassion
 Overview of CFT
 Getting to know each other:
 Say a bit about yourself
 What you hope to get from the program

4. How do we work together?
 Guidelines for group safety, treatment agreement
 Things to consider for group readiness
 Behavior that disrupts the group
 Expectations about whether it will help
 Ability to participate and share
 Can opt out if this is not the time
 You are always welcome back

5. Measuring success:
 Questionnaires
 Self-compassion measure
 Compassion toward others measure
 Patient Health Questionnaire (for depression)
 Generalized Anxiety Questionnaire (for Anxiety)

6. CFT: Core Ideas
 Shame and Self-Criticism can be life-long and
crippling
 What is Shame?
 “The painful emotional state related to thinking of
the self as bad, undesirable, defective and
worthless”
 It can become central to our identities
 It can prevent us from contacting our emotions

8. Core Ideas
 Shame can get in the way of other treatments,
and can result in more “stuckness”
 Shame makes other emotional problems
worse
 Shame causes a “threat response” in the
brain (more on this later)

9. Core Ideas: An example
 Father yelling at his children:
 Sees fear on faces of kids
 Feels shame
 Focuses on his own inadequacy instead of
learning new ways, feels threatened
 Avoids the shame by becoming angry, rationalizing
his behavior (secondary emotion)
 blames his children
 The cycle continues… sometimes for generations

11. Goal: Compassionate Self-
correction
 Self-compassion doesn’t mean we don’t self
correct….
 Example of self-compassion:
 “It makes sense I would struggle with parenting,
because of my own experiences, but it’s not the
sort of parent I want to be, it’s time I committed to
interacting with my kids differently.
 Notice when you do something wrong.. Feel guilt,
not shame, and turn the focus on doing better in
the future

12. Compassion: The Strength to
Move Toward the Pain
 Shame causes people to shut down and turn
away from the struggle
 Compassion help people to move toward their
pain and work through it in helpful ways
 Compassion: Sensitivity to notice suffering
and Motivation to help alleviate it

13. Moving toward the pain..
 Instead of avoiding the pain we maintain a
warm, forgiving approach to suffering
 CFT teaches us to be able to tolerate
suffering (distress tolerance)
 CFT teaches us to be skillful in order to be
helpful to ourselves
 We will develop the “compassionate self” our
most wise, kind and confident selves

15. Shifting from Judgment to
Understanding
 Instead of self-attacking, we try to understand
what has lead us here
 “it’s not about who you are, but what has
happened to you”
 We set the stage for compassion to arise
through understanding our journey, how we
got here

17. Judgment to Understanding
 Our struggles are rooted in things that we did
not Choose or Design
 Move from blaming and shaming to
understanding and helping the self

18. The Evolution of our Brain…
 Emotions are grouped into three types,
according to their function in evolution:
 Threat (identifying and responding)
 Reward (pursuing goals and rewards)
 Safeness, contentedness, peace, connection
 Behavior makes sense when we see how it
meets evolutionary needs i.e. Sweet, salty
fatty foods…

19. Evolved brains…
 Our brains are old and tricky… they work in
ways that we didn’t choose or design
 Make quick connections
 Future and past focused
 Attention to threat or danger dominates
 We want to move from something is wrong
with me to I understand this is how my
brain works

20. Early life experiences
 Early experiences shape how well we can
regulate our emotions and to help
ourselves feel safe
 Early environments can teach us to fear the
connection with others that we need to feel
safe and worthy
 The way we learn to respond to early
environments is Not our Fault.

21. Learning to Feel Safe…
 Learning the “how and why” of emotions helps
us to make sense of them
 Compassion allows us to approach our
difficult emotions and work them out instead
of avoiding them
 Compassion allows us to begin to form warm,
nurturing relationships with others: the
foundation for feeling safe in the world