The Compassionate Mind

"I know Paul personally and I’m fortunate to have collaborated with him in writing some academic papers. It’s been lovely to read his work, be a fan of his work, and then to collaborate with him. When you read The Compassionate Mind , you get a very strong sense of him as a person. It reads almost like a fireside chat. I asked Paul how he managed to convey this very personable, engaging style in writing the book, and he said he used audio dictation. I hope I’m not giving away his secrets, here! So, it comes across like he is having a conversation with you, or that’s certainly how I read it, and that made it very accessible for me. He bases his approach to self-compassion—which differs a bit from Kristin Neff’s, although they were writing at similar times—as he comes at it from an evolutionary psychology point of view. He draws a distinction between three emotion regulation systems. The first of those is the ‘drive’ system. It’s akin to the ‘get’ mode I talked about earlier. The drive system is reward focused and has helped us to thrive through the aeons of history that humankind have been around. But there’s also a ‘threat’ system, which allows us to be sensitive to danger—if the caveman didn’t respond to the sabre tooth tiger on the horizon, he was lunch, right? So, it was important to respond appropriately to danger and avoid it if it was there. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Finally, he talks about the ‘soothing’ system. The prefrontal cortex, which is involved in higher order cognitive processes implicated in the soothing system, is the most recently evolved part of our brain. Reptiles, for example, don’t have that anatomy, and arguably don’t have the capacity to nurture that mammals do. Arguably, it’s mammals sophisticated ability to nurture that has allowed them to prosper in recent evolutionary history. When they are newly born, mammalian newborns are quite vulnerable and require a lot of parental care to thrive. Paul is a clinical psychologist, like myself, and his work has been focused on depression, shame and self-criticism. He used to use more traditional forms of cognitive behavioural therapy to help people identify what are referred to as ‘negative automatic thoughts’, to weigh up whether there is evidence in support of those, and then to generate alternative, potentially less negative thoughts. Over time, he began to see that there was a piece missing—something about the coldness and harshness of how people were relating to themselves that needed ‘warmed up’. That’s where he spotted the potential for this soothing system, the attachment to oneself that is often shaped by our experiences in childhood and the care that is modelled to us by significant caregivers. That doesn’t mean that we are lost causes if care hasn’t been modelled to us. Many people have difficult upbringings and relationships that may have been critical, not even necessarily in the family—there might have been bullying at school. We can all internalise this internal bully, so it is about using techniques to strengthen our capacity to be kind to oneself. Again, Paul’s book is very practical. It focuses on strategies that we can use to help ourselves. He’s been involved in research that has shown the efficacy of these approaches, and he’s been at the vanguard of the development of a particular approach which sounds fantastic: Compassion-Focussed Therapy. Isn’t that great? Again, these ideas have influenced my work. In The Tree That Bends , there is a strong nod towards the importance of techniques and tools drawn from Compassion-Focussed Therapy. It’s a great book for psychologists like me, but also for all those who struggle at time with that inner harshness."

"Overthinking is often accompanied by lots of shame. When I work with people, they’ll often say to me, “… and then I thought, ‘God, why was I even worrying about that?’” In the heat of it, it’s difficult to see things in a different way, but then afterwards can come shame and recognition that actually the situation wasn’t what they thought it was, or that other people were right about what they said. Often, when you’re overthinking, you also become very self-critical and harsh. So one of the key things for helping with overthinking is compassion – it’s a really good antidote. Paul Gilbert is amazing when it comes to this work. He’s done so much research, he’s so thoughtful about it. Two key ideas of the book are, one, that you don’t choose the life you’re born into; and two, that there are ways of coping and managing. He divides the brain into three different parts. Those three systems are threat detection, the drive system and the soothing system. Generally, modern life activates the first two. We’re programmed to notice threat, so we respond quickly to the things that are problematic, whether they’re real or something we’re thinking about. We’re also very much in the drive system: being busy, working hard, being productive. Being in that system can make you feel good as you achieve or do better, or feel a sense of self-worth through productivity. But we’re missing out on the third part, the soothing system, and that’s where compassion comes in. Gilbert talks about compassion as a skill and introduces what it means. It’s a great way to help manage your emotions better. Often, when I work with people, they hate the idea of compassion. It’s a bit like Marmite: some people are totally on board with it, but most people just don’t really like the idea of it. Gilbert talks about how compassion isn’t just letting yourself off the hook or saying, ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.’ It’s coming from a place of wisdom. You’re still looking at the things you’re finding difficult, but from a standpoint that’s encouraging and looks at your strengths. It shows you where you can improve, and how to move forward without the blame and shame that can come from overthinking. I agree, that’s the bit people don’t like the idea of – ‘Oh, I shouldn’t be too nice to myself, because I’m going to slide down into not caring and not doing anything.’ But again, his research shows the opposite: you do much better with compassion."