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Being A Compassionate Person

Being A Compassionate Person is an exercise taken from the Psychology Tools For Developing Self-Compassion audio collection. Being connected with your compassionate self encourages a pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting which can have a powerful, positive impact on our wellbeing and how we deal with difficulties. In this exercise, the listener is guided through the process of imagining what it would feel like to be their ‘compassionate self’, and how they would act.

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Audio track (MP3)

A therapy audio track designed for skills development.

Audio script (PDF)

The script for a therapy audio track. Read along with an exercise, or record in your own voice.

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Languages this resource is available in

  • English (GB)
  • English (US)

Techniques associated with this resource

Introduction & Theoretical Background

The ‘compassionate self’ is a part of us which can contain any strong emotional reactions in a wise and grounded way, and it can be cultivated and developed with practice. Being connected with your compassionate self encourages a pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting which can have a powerful, positive impact on our wellbeing and how we deal with difficulties. There are a variety of exercises that can be used to develop your compassionate self.

Being A Compassionate Person is an exercise taken from the Psychology Tools For Developing Self-Compassion audio collection. This exercise is designed to build familiarity with the listener’s ‘compassionate self’ by using imagination and visualization to experience it in detail. This exercise builds on the previous exercises in the collection, in which the importance of breathing, posture, wisdom, strength, and caring commitment were discussed. The listener is directed to imagine and experience the posture, voice tone, expression, and other qualities that their compassionate self would exhibit.

Therapist Guidance

The Psychology Tools For Developing Self-Compassion audio collection is for anyone who wants to learn more about the ideas and practices of compassion focused therapy. It has been designed to be versatile, so it is suitable to support work with therapists who have been trained in compassion focused therapy, or to be used as a stand-alone collection of exercises. To assist the integration of the exercises into their clinical work, therapists can download the scripts for each exercise and use them in-session.

Individual tracks from the audio collection can be downloaded as .MP3 files, which can be played in most media player apps.

The simplest way to share an audio track with your clients is by using the Psychology Tools ‘Email a client’ function. After obtaining their consent, you can send it directly from this page by clicking ‘Send securely to my client’. Your client will receive a secure email containing a unique link, and when they click the link, they will be prompted to download the .MP3 file onto their device.

References And Further Reading

  • Gilbert, P. (2014). The origins and nature of compassion focused therapy. British Journal of Clinical Psychology53(1), 6-41.
  • Gilbert, P. (2020). Compassion: From its evolution to a psychotherapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 3123.
  • Irons, C., & Beaumont, E. (2017). The compassionate mind workbook: A step-by-step guide to developing your compassionate self. Robinson.
  • Irons, C., & Heriot‐Maitland, C. (2021). Compassionate Mind Training: An 8‐week group for the general public. Psychology and psychotherapy: Theory, research and practice94(3), 443-463.
  • Leboeuf, I., Andreotti, E., Irons, C., Beaumont, E., & Antoine, P. (2022). A randomized controlled study of a French compassionate mind training. Mindfulness13(11), 2891-2903.
  • Savari, Y., Mohagheghi, H., & Petrocchi, N. (2021). A preliminary investigation on the effectiveness of compassionate mind training for students with major depressive disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Mindfulness12(5), 1159-1172.