The Compassionate Mind (Compassion Focused Therapy)

Product Information

Book Genre: Buddhism, Health, Mental Health, Nonfiction, Personal Development, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Self Help, Spirituality, Unfinished

The Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert | Hachette UK The Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert | Hachette UK

Facilitating open discussion on how to further promote a compassionate focus in many domains of human activity. develop different abilities (and vice versa). For example, with more compassionate attention and thinking, we might increase our feelings and motivations to be caring; or practising compassionate attention and thinking might increase our empathy and reduce our condemning tendencies.” Receiving kindness, gentleness, warmth and compassion tells the brain that the world is safe and other people are helpful rather than harmful. Receiving kindness, gentleness, warmth and compassion improves our immune system and reduces the levels of stress hormones. Receiving kindness, gentleness, warmth and compassion helps us to feel soothed and settled and is conducive to good sleep. Kindness, gentleness, warmth and compassion are like basic vitamins for our minds.”So for mammals, sexual competition, driven by the desire to both engage oneself and prevent others from engaging in sex, will texture their lives. Long before humans appear at the very twilight of our day, we will see the working of the archetypes that enable sexual competition, loyalties and betrayals, group living and tribalism, submission to leaders and fear of dominant males, the striving for status and social position, cooperative hunting and working together – all the themes that, when we eventually arrive, are going to play big time in the minds of humans. I find it amazing that so many of the desires that flow through me, and indeed all of us, were designed not only long before me but long before all humans.” According to Aristotle and ancient Greek tradition, the only people deserving of compassion are those who do not deserve their suffering, and that sentiment, which is alien to Buddhist compassion, has continued to ripple through Western thought.” As one of Britain's most insightful psychologists, Gilbert illuminates the power of compassion in our lives.' In societies that encourage us to compete with each other, compassion is often seen as a weakness. Striving to get ahead, self-criticism, fear, and hostility towards others seem to come more naturally to us.

The Compassionate Mind (Audio Download): Paul Gilbert, Rupert The Compassionate Mind (Audio Download): Paul Gilbert, Rupert

Liaising with those with specific interests in the scientific study of compassion and its underlying processes, and facilitate communication and interchange between them. Our Mission and Aim To promote wellbeing through the scientific understanding and application of compassion via: We provide workshops, conferences, and a number of different resources for clinicians and individuals to support their work and personal practice, and facilitate the open discussion on how to promote compassionate motives and behaviours across all domains.We need to recognize, however, that when we accept ourselves as we are, and life as it is, we may find it easier to find peace and contentment within ourselves. This is absolutely not a position of passive, defeated resignation but rather it is about looking around to see what we can do now with what we’ve got. It’s about ‘being in the moment’ as opposed to living in regret and with ‘if onlys’ or ‘isn’t it unfair’ or ‘I could have been . . .” We believe that one of the greatest challenges facing humanity is how to stimulate compassionate ways of thinking and problem solving for the benefit of all. When the Dalai Lama first came to the West, he was stunned by the levels of self-dissatisfaction, self-disappointment, self-criticism and self-dislike he encountered. For all our technology and comforts, he found us a people in conflict with ourselves.”

The Compassionate Mind - Paul Gilbert - Google Books

Now archetypes are no more than ‘rules of thumb’, ideas that are linked to the innate aspects of our minds. Personas, shadows, hero archetypes and so on are just ways of describing and thinking about different aspects of ourselves. In fact, psychologists are constantly debating and researching how best to describe and understand the interactions of what is innate in us and how our innate potential turns into lived experiences. The point here is to think about the ways that archetypal processes live in all of us and can be harnessed, often without our full awareness.” This ability to have empathy for difference, to be open to diversity, to work hard at thinking about how other people may differ from you is a key step on the road to compassion – and it’s not always easy.” That for me is a key to compassion – recognizing that we have not been designed, that we all just find ourselves here, not because we (or some other power) chose for us to be here.” A guiding principle of the Compassionate Mind Foundation is that our human potentials for creativity, love, altruism, compassion, but also for selfishness, vengeance and cruelty are all linked to the way our brains have evolved to solve various challenges to survival.It’s compassionate because, although taking what might seem an easier path in the short term (e.g. avoiding doing anything) might give us temporary relief, it doesn’t take us anywhere” We can learn to be open and even amused by some of what goes on in our minds once we are honest about it. However, acting out some of our fantasies, being taken over by some of our desires, wants, fears or vengeful feelings, can cause problems – so as we’ll see, we can learn to develop a way of becoming aware and honest but equally more in control of some of our feelings and urges. Our actions have consequences, and we as a species can understand that and (sometimes) foresee them. Life is about learning when to act and when not to act on our desires and emotions. This takes us to the heart of compassionate behaviour because it isn’t just about acting in kind, warm and friendly ways. It’s also about protecting ourselves and others from our own destructive desires and actions; it’s about being assertive, tolerating discomfort and developing courage”