What is compassion, how does it affect the quality of our lives and how can we develop compassion for ourselves and others? Humans are capable of extreme cruelty but also considerable compassion. This book looks at how compassion may have evolved and is linked to various capacities such as sympathy, empathy, forgiveness, and warmth.
Key Features
- Explores integrative evolutionary, social constructivist, cognitive and Buddhist approaches to compassion.
- Considers how and why cruelty can flourish when our capacities for compassion are turned off, especially in particular environments.
- Focuses on how therapists bring compassion into their therapeutic relationship and examines its healing effects.
- Describes how to help patients develop inner warmth and compassion to alleviate psychological problems.
Additional Information
Compassion provides detailed outlines of interventions that are of particular value to psychotherapists and counsellors interested in developing compassion as a therapeutic focus in their work. It is also of value to social scientists interested in pro-social behaviour and those seeking links between Buddhist and Western psychology.
