compassion focused therapy worksheets: Compassion-Focused Therapy: Forms, Goals, Benefits & More

This involves a deep and compassionate process of exploration, probing your inner self about the beliefs and values at your core, and connecting your beliefs to a person or situation that is causing you pain. Paul calls this process “inner bonding” and notes its powerful healing abilities. All you need to do is practice these six steps regularly to gradually enhance your ability to love yourself. In his book, Deeper Dating, Page notes that loving ourselves is inherently dependent on those around us. We may not struggle to appreciate our easy-to-love side, positive traits, and good characteristics, but we all likely struggle to love our flaws and weaknesses. This is where the care and compassion of others can open us up to the possibility of loving even the most unlovable aspects of ourselves.

These worksheets are helpful for the individuals for correcting their perceptions about themselves and being kind to themselves. Fillable PDFs are great for clients who want to work with resources online instead of on paper. Your client can fill in and save the resource on a computer, before sending it back to you without the need for a printer. This format is also useful if you have remote sessions with clients and want to work through a resource on screen together.

Practitioner Tools

I have never tried CFT myself, however, I do practice cognitive awareness and guided meditation. Appreciation exercises – these are exercises that encourage the client to savor the activities they enjoy. In the “Primary Fears” section, you must write down the fears that they struggle with most in terms of shame, blame, and criticism. Internal fears relate to anxiety, panic, shame, depression, or rage. External fears relate to the power the external world has over you, including rejection, shaming, and the potential to hurt you (Gilbert & Procter, 2006).

Identifying your false beliefs is a vital step towards challenging these beliefs, accepting yourself, and loving yourself. Fortunately, it is not all that difficult to cultivate a sense of compassion for others. It’s fairly easy to develop compassion, beginning with those we love, moving on to those we like, continuing to those we don’t know, and finally widening our compassionate circle to encompass those we actively dislike.

Over time, the human brain has evolved in a way that serves primitive life well. Humans have developed the capacity to think about and mull over the past and the future . Look for a therapist that specializes in compassion-focused therapy or find a training program that may be offered online. If you already have a therapist, discuss incorporating compassion training into your sessions. The person may also be advised to play the role of a deeply compassionate person and project that image through facial expressions, tone of voice, posture, and words.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. It will take some time because you are learning and breaking habits all at once. CFT helps an individual develop kinder approaches in how to view themselves and interact with others, void of blame and criticism.

Cft session 1

People who are compassionate towards others are often less likely to engage in behaviors that could be harmful to themselves or others. Compassion-focused therapy aims to promote a compassionate response, rather than a self-critical one. This piece covered a ton of information on Compassion Focused Therapy, including exercises, worksheets, techniques, and training.

However difficult you find it to love and accept yourself, there are steps you can take to enhance your compassion, acceptance, and love for yourself. There are many people who will readily acknowledge their love for themselves, without shame or reticence. Once you’ve finished the letter, read it back and consider the emotions you’ve expressed and are currently feeling. If you’re more of a “fill in the blanks” type of person, or prefer following along on a handout or worksheet, you may find this section helpful. Think about what you tend to criticize yourself for, perhaps in the hopes that being hard on yourself will motivate you to change. Open yourself up to the emotional pain that this criticism causes and offer yourself compassion for the feeling of being judged.

The final exercise in this PDF is Creating a Compassionate Ideal. It will be helpful to complete the other exercises before moving on to this one, especially the initial exercise, the exercise in which you cultivate a compassionate expression, and the safe place exercise. Imagine time gradually moving, and see yourself gradually reducing your anxiety until enough time has passed that the anxiety is all gone.

We also include useful information and descriptions for clinicians to help them use the resource most effectively. The therapist versions of each resource contain therapist guidance, prompts, instructions, and full references. They outline how the resource can be used and what types of problems it could be helpful for. Some resources also include case examples and annotations where appropriate. Each guide provides essential information related to the difficulty or topic so that client can develop a better understanding of it. Teach clients new skills such as ‘self-monitoring’ or ‘thought challenging’.

Exercise 7: Identifying what we really want

The therapist will then help the client develop the key skills of compassion, self-compassion, and mindfulness via a technique known as compassionate mind training, or CMT. Clients will also learn how to recognize self-criticism and develop techniques for defusing it when it arises. This may include visualizing their internal critic or identifying compassionate images to call to mind during moments of self-criticism. The ‘Formulation’ series provides a client-friendly adaptation of cognitive behavioral models for disorders including panic, PTSD, and social anxiety. These useful tools can help you and your clients come to a shared understanding of their difficulties, and can help you to develop a roadmap for therapy.

Even when the facts of a situation are clear, they might be rejected at an emotional level. In dialectical behavior therapy , radical acceptance means accepting information both mentally and emotionally, without judgment…. Dialectical Behavior Therapy takes a structured, skills-driven approach to managing anxiety and improving emotion regulation. A key focus of these interventions is distress tolerance, which is the ability to accept and allow uncomfortable emotions.

Psychology Tools develops and publishes evidence-based psychotherapy resources and tools for mental health professionals. Our online library gives you access to everything you need to deliver more effective therapy and support your practice. This therapy requires a lot of effort at first because many types focus on changing behavior rather than just accepting what one already does or thinks. People who experience early trauma can come to feel that their internal and external worlds are almost always on the brink of hostility, Gilbert posits. For some people who have experienced early trauma, Internal self-berating and fear of outside rejection can lead to depression and anxiety, he notes.

Focus on that for another minute, if you can and would like to. Spend a minute thinking about the expressions of the person who was kind to you and mimicking them, if that helps. If you’re having trouble remembering them, imagine the person moving toward you with a smile on their face or their head tilted to one side.

For clients, that means using clear, user-friendly language, as well as plenty of visual and case examples, illustrations, diagrams and vignettes that readers can relate to. They include information on how the resource can help them, how they should use it and other useful tips. Keeping a daily journal in which you process the difficult events of your day through a lens of self-compassion can enhance both mental and physical well-being. This exercise will help make self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness part of your daily life.

• Simply find the resource you want to use, then explore which the languages that resource is available in, or you can see all the resources available in a particular language by using our search filters.
• People who are recovering from addiction may find that this type of therapy increases their risk of relapse.
• You may not have complete control over them, but you get to choose how to respond to them.
• This is useful when individuals are feeling overwhelmed by negative feelings that make it difficult for them to cope with whatever situation they might be facing at that time.

The goal of CFT is to help individuals develop their care-giving system, which helps them to be at peace with their thoughts and comfortable in their own head. Practice this exercise as much as you need to tap into your compassionate self and surround both yourself and others with love, acceptance, and compassion. Imagine how you might like to help that person, what you might want to say to help them deal with their anxiety. You might say something to validate their emotions, or you may say something encouraging to help them recognize their ability to pull through the anxiety. This exercise can be focused on one of two different “selves.” You can do both if you wish, but focus on only one at a time. Next, focus on the feeling of the emotion in the person – what they really felt for you at that moment.

Find a Therapist

Think of all the qualities you would ideally have as that compassion focused therapy worksheetsate person. Paul Gilbert says “compassionate mind training helps people develop and work with experiences of inner warmth, safeness and soothing, via compassion and self-compassion.” Our resources are informed by evidence-based treatments, best practice guidelines, and the latest published research.

• It is best to use an object or idea that is NOT a REAL person.
• Open yourself up to their compassion and let yourself experience it, soothing and comforting you.
• When we injure a part of our body, we immediately do something to help it feel better.
• This piece covered a ton of information on Compassion Focused Therapy, including exercises, worksheets, techniques, and training.

Put on your https://1investing.in/ate expression and adopt the compassionate body posture you have cultivated as you remember the compassion you received. Once you are ready, think of a time when someone was kind to you. Bring to mind a specific time when you felt compassionate towards him or her. Imagine yourself expanding, as if you are becoming calmer, wise, stronger, and more responsible, and able to help him or her. Finally, imagine that your safe place actually finds joy in your presence as well.

Feel how your safe place rejoices when you arrive, and feel your own pleasure at being there mirrored back to it. Create an emotional connection with this place, and return to it whenever you need to feel safe, loved, and at peace. End the exercise by taking a deep breath, moving your body around a little, and notice how your body feels now, especially in comparison to how it felt when you began.

Not only is this friend completely understanding and compassionate, but they know all about your life. They know how you got to where you are, they know about all the millions of little choices that you made along the way, and they understand that several factors have contributed to the person you are today. Imagine a friend who is unconditionally loving, kind, compassionate, and accepting. Next, imagine they have all of your strengths and all of your weaknesses, including the feelings of inadequacy you just wrote about. In this exercise, individuals identify any negative thoughts or emotions that they are experiencing.