Psychotherapist's Journal - Thoughts and Tools to Inspire Wellness in Mind and Body - by Karen Gorrin

In the News: Compassion

Why do some people roll with life’s punches, facing failures and problems with grace, while others dwell on calamities, criticize themselves and exaggerate problems? This is the question asked in an article posted this week at physorg.com

I appreciated reading this article, which I found fascinating and very valuable to my work as a psychotherapist. The answer, according to recent research from Duke and Wake Forest Univeristies, may be our ability to self-soothe with compassion. Referred to as self-compassion, it is the ability we hold to be kind to ourselves, even when things are going badly.

In one of the first major studies of self-compassion, Duke and Wake Forest Universities published the results of their research in the May 2007 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In my psychotherapy practice I often encourage my clients who are experiencing distress to imagine compassion gently flowing over themselves. To feel a sense of compassion for the pain and dis-ease we are experiencing often helps to lessen the pain, and returns our attention to a still and calm place within ourselves.

“Life’s tough enough with little things that happen," says Mark R. Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke and lead author of the paper, which includes five peer-reviewed studies. "Self-compassion helps to eliminate a lot of the anger, depression and pain we experience when things go badly for us.”

The Buddhists have long understood the virtue of compassion for thousands of years. In fact, there is even an entire meditation tradition devoted to the practice of compassion and loving-kindness known in Pali as Metta. (I'll write more about this practice in an upcoming post.)

“American society has spent a great deal of time and effort trying to promote people’s self-esteem,” Leary said, “when a far more important ingredient of well-being may be self-compassion.”

Read more about this research at by clicking here.

In the News: How the Brain Rewires Itself

Thank you to my Lifespan Integration colleagues for telling me about the article, How the Brain Rewires Itself by Sharon Begley, in the January 19, 2007 issue of Time Magazine. A fascinating read, especially for those interested in neuroscience. What interested me most about this article was the information about nueroplasticy, meaning, the ability of the mind to change the brain.

As a holistic psychotherapist, I have been trained in a mind/body psychotherapy called Lifespan Integration, which helps people heal the effects of neglect and abuse without re-traumatizing. The reason Lifespan Integration works, believes it's developer Peggy Pace, is due to this same nueroplasticity, or the brain's ability to adapt and change.

The article traces the journey of scientists understanding about how the brain works. Until recently, writes Begley, the adult brain was considered to be hardwired and fixed in form and function. But research over the past few years tells a different story. We now know the brain has the ability to change its structure and function in response to experience.

The idea that the mind can actually change the brain could have an enormous impact on health and the healing process. Something we may otherwise have viewed as an insubstantial thought, writes Begley, could affect the very material of the brain itself, altering neuron connections in a way that can treat mental illness or increase ones capacity for empathy and compassion.

Yet all of this would be little surprise to the experienced mediator. The practice of single-point focus, and releasing the thoughts of the grasping mind, can actually change the way we think, feel, and experience the world. The possibility in all this? Emotions, moods, and more, may turn out to be trainable skills. This really does prove the idea, that anything is possible.