Compassion-focused therapy aims to help us cultivate certain skills, qualities, feeling states, and motivations (e.g., skills and qualities compassion, feelings of safeness, the motivation to show care and to alleviate suffering). These we can then use to help work with particular difficulties or situations such as shame, self-criticism, or difficult emotions. Compassion-focused therapy also aims to help address and alleviate the fears and blocks we may have to experiencing compassion Read more ›
I pledge to spend the rest of my life focused on developing and promoting ways to increase compassion among millions of people worldwide.
—Dr. Yotam Heineberg (May 2013)
I really enjoyed this book by psychologist, Lynne Henderson. You can find the book’s publication details, as well as a brief summary of my praise in the IC resource section here!
This weekend, I had the great pleasure of candlelight, a handmade quilt, and a book (as well as other things). I read the book, How To Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers, by Toni Bernhard. I heard about the book on Facebook of all places and via Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance. Read more ›
This week, I would like to share a video I came across in the spring that I found interesting and inspiring. It’s a documentary of a pilot program that was run through Veterans Affairs in Seattle teaching to veterans mindfulness meditation, loving kindness meditation, and concepts related to compassion for oneself and for others.
The veterans in the group were all suffering in various ways, which you learn snippets of over the course of the video. The group members also experience positive changes over the program, Read more ›
Thomas Heinsius and Mirjam Tanner have just started a website on compassion in German to disseminate information on compassion-focused therapy and compassion-based psychotherapeutic work in German speaking countries. Read more ›
Recently, I read the book Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle (2010, Free Press). I do not remember how I learned of the book (I am thinking it may have been a library search) but for whichever way it came across my path, I’m glad that it did.
Gregory’s writing is filled with insights I could spend the next decade (if not the rest of my life) reflecting on and trying to live by and inspire. He is an ordained Jesuit Priest who worked for 20 years in the Boyle Heights of Los Angeles: Read more ›
I imagine that the Forever inscribed and placed on this bench refers to the love and bond someone (or a group) has with another who is no longer living– a bond that will last forever. Encountering this bench made me feel quiet, and it made me also reflect on other bonds that we have and other commitments. Read more ›
It’s been a while since I’ve written. The mid and late fall were taken up with seeing clients and with supervision meetings–preparing for what did end up being my final exam to complete my registration for autonomous practice with the College of Psychologists here in Ontario. (Note: I’ve passed. I’m done!) Tragically, a week later I experienced a heart-breaking loss in my life. Then it was the holidays. I’m unfolding from all of this and am both getting back to routines, as well as consciously and deliberately working to create some new ones.
Today I would like to share a quote from a wonderful little book I read in the fall by Jon Kabat-Zinn called Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness. Read more ›
Today I watched the talk “How Economic Inequality Harms Societies” given by Richard Wilkinson at TED.com and I wanted to share it. The presenter speaks of the compelling relationship between the degree of income disparity in a country and the degree of health of the individuals who live there. Over and over again, the findings suggest that the greater the disparity, the poorer will be all the people’s health in that country, including people’s mental health. Read more ›
