Overcoming Obstacles

Many clinicians are unaware of the potential of compassion exercises to cause side effects in individuals with high levels of shame and attachment trauma even though this has been well documented: “It is only the dose which makes a thing a poison or a remedy”. Paracelsus’ words also apply to the medicine of compassion. These side effects usually show up as blocks and fears to compassion.

From working with clinicians over the years, I have come to understand that this common oversight is part of a developmental process of learning to embody compassion from the inside out. After some initial self-compassion practice, clinicians typically generalize from their unique experience and attachment conditioning to that of the client, rather than adapting them to the attachment conditioning of the individual client. Another common reason for accidentally exacerbating symptoms in clients through an overdose or other misapplication of compassion is the lack of embodiment of common humanity in the clinician due to being trained in an exclusively disembodied mechanistic approach. This can easily be remedied by internalising the lessons of Module One and Two at one’s own pace before embarking on the lessons in Module Three. This is not our fault. The predominant mechanistic model of therapy seeks to instrumentalize any therapeutic technique to optimize outcomes. Self-Compassion is not a technique however. It is a wise and kind relationship to our suffering parts that helps us to tap into our innate wisdom and self-healing power over time.

To help you progress, I have put together Module Three so that you can safely and effectively integrate self-compassion into individual therapy with clients with high shame, attachment trauma and low mentalisation. This is based on my many years of pioneering clinical and teaching experience in this field (Braehler et al., 2013a,b; Braehler& Neff, 2020; Braehler, 2023). You will not only learn about the theory, key research findings, but you will also be given practical principles and materials to put this into practice with your clients. You learn to identify fears of compassion, to determine the level of mentalization and to find safe starting points for the training of self-compassion for the individual client on the basis of the attachment experiences and to dose it right. Krishnamacharya’s words can help us remember:

“Teach what is within you. Not as it applies to you, but as it applies to the one in front of you.”