Compassion Focused Therapy

Compassion Focused Therapy aims to help people strengthen their inner resources of wisdom and self-compassion with a view to relieving suffering; the central approach used to achieve this is compassionate mind training, which teaches the skills and attributes of compassion. A CFT approach involves engaging with suffering rather than moving away from it, and helping clients to develop skills so that they can successfully reduce distress. As difficulties with shame and self-criticism are often rooted in histories of abuse, bullying, neglect and/or lack of affection, CFT also focuses on and works with the memories of such early experiences. This approach has been shown to be particularly beneficial for people who struggle with anxiety, depression, anger, and high levels of shame and self-criticism.