A mentor of mind, Kelly Wilson, said the following years ago about himself and it’s always stuck with me. The levels of self-deception are endless. There are certain phrases that stick with you because they resonate deeply. I’ve had so many times in my life where I thought I knew the answer and yet my knowing … Read more
Those of us who struggle with shame and self-criticism often believe that we are alone and different from others. We may also be more likely to be lonely and to have fewer close relationships, since shame and self-criticism can interfere with connection. In our groups for people who are highly self-critical, we have found that … Read more
Many researchers in English-speaking countries describe shame as uniformly maladaptive, and guilt as uniformly adaptive. In fact, a quick Google search of the terms pops up headings such as, “Shame is Lethal,” “Why Guilt is Better than Shame,” and “Guilt Versus Shame: One is Productive, the Other isn’t…” And, in fact, research does tend to … Read more
In addition to the sequence of lovingkindness meditations we have created for use with highly self-critical clients, we have found that it is often powerful for the phrases used in lovingkindness meditations to be customized for a particular person. The goal is to identify personalized lovingkindness phrases based on the client’s own idiosyncratic experience that … Read more
One of the core processes in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is “self as context” work, or, as we prefer to call it, flexible perspective taking. In our work with those struggling with chronic shame and self-criticism, this flexible perspective taking is key to helping individuals to develop a more compassionate perspective towards themselves and … Read more
We are grateful and humbled that last month we reached 1,000 likes on Facebook! As we celebrate this milestone, we wanted to take a moment to thank all our supporters over these last few years who have helped to spread the word about ACT With Compassion. We are also incredibly grateful to those of you … Read more
As mentioned in our previous post about guided meditations for highly shame-prone and self-critical clients, high self-critics tend to have under activated social safety systems. Under activated social safety systems are associated with loneliness, chronic alternation between striving toward achievement and fearing failure (e.g., perfectionism), depression, pervasive anxiety, and other issues that tend to bring … Read more
Several of the folks following us at ACT with Compassion have expressed an interest in learning about how ACT with Compassion can help clients who are dealing with the effects of interpersonal trauma. Some of you have noticed that survivors tend to experience high levels of shame. Others of you have shared that compassion-focused work … Read more
We at ACT with Compassion have been working out how to understand and describe the ways we could use personal perspective taking frames (from relational frame theory) in our work with shame and self-compassion. A few months ago, we wrote a post that described some examples, especially focusing on perspective taking between client and therapist. … Read more
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and its related theory of language and cognition, Relational Frame Theory (RFT), outline three ways of thinking about the self. Self as process refers to the ongoing awareness of one’s experience and the description of thinking, behaving, feeling, and sensing. Self as content (i.e., the conceptualized self) involves describing and evaluating … Read more