Have you ever encountered clients who express contradictory thoughts and feelings in therapy? Statements like:
“I want to improve, but I don’t feel strong enough,”
or
“I want to be kind to myself, but I don’t believe I deserve it,”
or even
“I want to live according to my values, but life feels too frightening.”
These apparent contradictions are quite common in therapy, and if left unresolved, they can lead to internal conflict, heightened shame, indecision, and an inability to progress in life.
At first glance, the solution may seem simple: focus on enhancing well-being, cultivating compassion, and engaging in values work. However, this logical approach often further entrenches the problem, leaving clients feeling even more stuck. This is because, as therapists, we may overlook the scared, sad, and angry parts of our clients’ selves.
To work more effectively in such situations, it is important to recognise the and work with the very different and powerful ways emotions like anger, anxiety, and sadness can organise our experience. It can be like we have different functional “selves,” with each self involving different emotions, ways of thinking and reasoning, and motivations. In therapy, these different selves can come into conflict, especially during times of high stress or after traumatic experiences. An angry self might dominate and become excessively critical, while a sad self may feel overwhelmed and hopeless.
If not handled skilfully, these different selves can take hijack our clients, and leaving individuals stuck in shame and paralysed by inner conflict. Many recent therapeutic approaches have emphasised the value of working with different selves to help clients compassionately understand and navigate challenging emotions and their impact on our experiences.
Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) takes an approach to such work that draws from evolutionary science, affective neuroscience, and Buddhist psychology. It explores how our emotions and their underlying motivations profoundly shape our experiences and sense of self. CFT aims to help clients understand their minds in a way that reduces pathologising and shame focussing on compassion to effectively work with these difficult aspects of the mind.
Within CFT, the “multiple-selves” intervention is employed, which involves differentiating threat-based emotions and exploring their conflicts. Compassion is then applied to the client’s emotional landscape, aiding in regulation and integration. This approach helps clients develop a more compassionate relationship with themselves and navigate the complexities of their internal experiences.
By acknowledging and addressing the various selves within clients and using compassion as a guiding principle, therapists can effectively support clients in their journey towards healing and growth.
About this workshop
In this workshop, we’ll explore how to compassionately understand and relate to these different, sometimes challenging versions of the self. We will introduce a method for working with these multiple selves through intentionally cultivating and inhabiting a superordinate version of the self that is organised by the processes of compassion – the compassionate self.
What you will learn
- Methods and exercises for engaging with and exploring different selves, their history, purpose and function.
- How to introduce the ‘Captain of the ship’ metaphor to build the compassionate self and shift from relating to threat-based “selves” with shame and rejection to engaging with them in compassionate and helpful ways.
- Tools and techniques to facilitate communication between different selves to increase harmony.
- Ways to identify and strengthen the compassionate self.
Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is for practitioners, including psychologists, therapists and BCBAs who work with clients that experience problems or issues related to multiple selves, and work through anxiety, depression, interpersonal problems, or other emotional concerns.