Compassion: a superpower
Developing compassion helps the pain of suffering be less overwhelming, supporting work with struggling clients and promoting more adaptive strategies and mind states such as motivation and hope, said researcher Kristen Neff at the recent Compassion in Therapy online summit.
In her presentation on The Power of Self-compassion, Neff described self-compassion as “a mind-state, an attitude we take towards ourselves when we struggle.
“It feels like a loving connected presence in holding the pain of ourselves and clients with that. When we do that, we feel the pain but it’s less overwhelming. Love is holding the pain like a buffer,” she said.
“This loving connected presence is absolutely protective against maladaptive strategies. PTSD reduces, so does depression and anxiety. At the same time, it generates positive states of mind, including motivation and hope. It reduces the negative and enhances the positive. It’s a superpower!”
“If we look at fMRI studies of people experiencing compassion, they’re feeling the pain, but also their reward [brain] regions are activated…there’s a bitter sweetness. We learn to find meaning and value in the love accompanying the pain.”
Compassion fatigue or empathic distress?
When caregivers, including health professionals, therapists and coaches, burn out in the face of the suffering of others, are they suffering from compassion fatigue, or empathic distress? And does compassion fatigue even exist?
These were among the questions explored at the Summit, including by self-compassion researcher Kristen Neff, psychologist Tara Brach, and Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University.
The term compassion fatigue was coined by Charles Figley to describe what happened as the result of secondary traumatic stress among those caring for people who are suffering (Figley, 1995). But this term implies it’s compassion itself that’s fatiguing, which isn’t the case, said Neff.
“His choice of term was a bit unfortunate. Compassion is not fatiguing. Empathy is fatiguing… because it activates lots of pain centres in our brain,” said Neff.
Brach too highlighted the difference in impact on brain regions between empathy and compassion. She said, “Empathy involves activity in the limbic system so we can get burnt out. Compassion involves activity in the pre-frontal cortex – it’s pleasant and rewarding because it serves our species.”
When people talk about compassion being overwhelming or draining, often what they’re thinking about is the intensity of empathy, said McGonigal in her session: The Practical Science of Compassion.
“When someone is suffering, we’re then in it with them…That kind of empathy can be difficult to be in. So we change the topic or we move to fix it, to make the suffering go away, or we’re looking for coping strategies,” she said.
“Lots of people when they talk about compassion fatigue are talking about overwhelm, about being stuck in that process of sharing in the suffering. It’s draining because it activates avoidance. You feel less vibrant courage, you no longer feel the instinct of touching others, your brain and body are trying to protect you.”
But she does believe compassion fatigue exists, and that denying its existence can have a potentially negative impact, including “when people hold the value of compassion, and something happens so they can no longer sustain it and [then they] hear someone say, compassion fatigue doesn’t exist, you’re just doing it wrong.”
“I think compassion fatigue is what arises when you’re fully in the flow of compassion but you’re not getting the energy back for whatever reason, or you need to engage in the suffering in a healthier way, or the suffering is out of proportion to what you can bring to the moment.”
Sometimes the problem for those in caring roles is that they feel they’re not supported by the system, perhaps there’s lots of red tape or a holding back of resources, she said, and this “sense of not being supported can be exhausting”.
“Compassion comes from believing in the good in human nature, that it’s possible to alleviate suffering. So [people] can feel fatigued when [they] feel cut off from that belief system.
“In those cases, it’s not about finding ways to deal with distress, but ways to access your support system, your practice, and moral elevation to counteract the moral outrage you feel about the world. See the compassion around you so it’s energising, celebrate it and feel like you’re part of it… really sense the ripple effect, and [that] you alone aren’t the cause or
the solution.”
Being able to distinguish self from other is also key. She said that some people “idealise compassion”, talking about “a total lack of distinction between self and other [there being] no more separation and [a sense of] we’re all one.”
“But when you look at the neuroscience for sustainable compassion and empathy that’s not overwhelming, you specifically see increased activation in the brain areas that help you distinguish self from other. We have a brain system that helps us create boundaries so we’re not merged but we can [still] have… mindful relationship and engagement.”
To sustain compassion, it’s also important to seek out joy: “Never think of [doing this] as self-indulgent.”
Reference
- C Figley, Compassion Fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized, Brunner-Routledge, 1995
In their own words
- Some people have the misconception that we only have five [say] units of compassion and if we give some away, the less we have but it’s not like that. The more we give to ourselves, the more we have to give others – Kristin Neff
- The prerequisite for transformation is beginning to soften and to hold ourselves with kindness – strong back and soft front and presence…[with] courageous compassion – Tara Brach
- Caring for others triggers the biology of courage and creates hope – Kelly McGonigal, quoting from her book, The Upside of Stress (Vermillion, 2015)
- We are not the survival of the fittest; we are the survival of the nurtured – Louis Cozolino (quoted by Brach)
- Compassion is the medicine the world needs. We’re all part of this wave that’s deeply necessary – Tara Brach
- As a therapist, or person attending to your own body, heart and mind, to pay attention in a way that leads to freedom requires that it has love in it…[otherwise], it becomes distant or cold or potentially judging – Jack Kornfield
- In India, they talk about the glance of mercy, in relation to gurus but it could be therapists that someone can look at you with such compassion for all the drama of your life, the suffering and successes and see you beyond that, and that changes everything, to see that secret beauty in another, that’s all – Jack Kornfield
- What would it be like if our clients all experienced the glance of mercy? It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it – Chris Germer