Compassion-Focused Therapy
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
— Dalai Lama
Compassion-Focused Therapy
Compassion-Focused Therapy, or CFT, is model of therapy bringing together: evolutionary psychology, somatic, and neuro-biology as well as attachment theory.
All this is to say, it’s a darn neat and holistic perspective into how and why we move through the world the way we do.
With this clarity comes greater choice in how we live in our minds and communities.
CFT Groups
Compassion-Focused Therapy, or CFT, is model of therapy bringing together: evolutionary psychology, somatic, and neuro-biology as well as attachment theory.
All that is to say, it’s a darn neat and holistic perspective into how and why we move through the world the way we do.
With this clarity comes greater choice in how we live in our minds and communities.
Structure of the Groups
Group work is quite powerful. In this era of isolation you might even call it essential. We’re social beings and we thrive when we’re able to be helpful to others while also allowing others to be helpful to us. These groups also focus on how to be helpful to ourselves.
In CFT we call this the three flows of compassion: out to others, in from others and toward ourselves, as in self-compassion. Each of us is naturally more drawn to one or two of these flows and benefit from working with the flow(s) that come to us less naturally.
We meet most weeks for 50-60 minutes. These groups are closed groups, meaning once we begin, new members won’t be added as the content builds from week to week. As participants you come to know each other and build community. It’s a very sweet process to engaged in.
Each group is be a mixture of didactic learning, personal practice, and group process.
Mindfulness – The practice of being aware of what is happening in this exact moment, on purpose and without judgment. We’ll learn many ways of developing mindfulness in formal and informal practices.
Somatics – We’ll practice various ways of focusing the breath to create an inner calm and emotional stability. We’ll also learn how body posture and voice tone can increase confidence to act courageously.
Compassion Exercises– By way of imagery, invoking memory and imagination, method acting, and somatic exercises we cultivate our compassionate minds and intuitive wisdom.
Participants will get the most from the group when working through all of the content. The CFT material will take four to six months to work through depending on how the group decides to spend its time together.
Then each member may decide to graduate, so-to-speak, or continue on in an alumni-type group which is less structured and more process and practice oriented.
Want to be a part of the next CFT group? Please fill out the form to the side if you’d like to participate in an upcoming group.
If you’re interested in compassion-focused work and live outside of PNW (OR/WA) then please check out the CMT Course.