Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is defined by the Australian Association for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy as a generally short term, focused approach to the treatment of many types of emotional, behavioural and psychiatric problems (www.aacbtwa.org.au). “It is a collaborative and individualised program that helps individuals to identify unhelpful thoughts and behaviours and learn or relearn healthier skills and habits. It examines all elements that maintain a problem, including our thoughts (cognitions), feelings, behaviour and the environment. CBT has been practised widely for more than 30 years. It has been researched extensively, and has demonstrated effectiveness with a variety of emotional difficulties” (www.aacbtwa.org.au).
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)gets it name from one of its most fundamental messages: Accept what is out of your personal control, and commit to action that improves and enriches your life.
The aim of ACT is to maximise human potential for a rich, full & meaningful life. ACT does this by:
a) Teaching you psychological skills to deal with your painful thoughts and feelings effectively – in such a way that they have much less impact and influence over you (these are known as Mindfulness, Defusion, Acceptance, Present Moment, Grounding skills).
b) Helping you to clarify and stay connected to what is truly important, meaningful & purposeful to you – your values – then use that knowledge and greater connection to your values to guide, inspire and motivate you to change your life for the better.
c) Set Specific SMART goals in line with your values, inform others about these goals and values and Commit to these/follow through with actions.
Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is a system of psychotherapy developed by Paul Gilbert that integrates techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy with concepts from evolutionary psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, Buddhist psychology, and neuroscience. “One of its key concerns is to use compassionate mind training to help people develop and work with experiences of inner warmth, safeness and soothing, via compassion and self-compassion.”[1]
The central therapeutic technique of CFT is compassionate mind training, which teaches the skills and attributes of compassion.[2] Compassionate mind training helps transform problematic patterns of cognition and emotion related to anxiety, anger, shame, self-criticism, depersonalization, and hypomania.[3]
Biological evolution forms the theoretical backbone of CFT. Humans have evolved with at least three primal types of emotion regulation system: the threat (protection) system, the drive (resource-seeking) system, and the soothing system.[4] CFT emphasizes the links between cognitive patterns and these three emotion regulation systems.[5] Through the use of techniques such as compassionate mind training and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychotherapy clients can learn to manage each system more effectively and respond more appropriately to situations.[6] There are an increasing number of empirical research papers that demonstrate the importance of compassion as a way of directing behavior to deal with threat and resolve conflict.[7]
Compassion focused therapy is especially appropriate for people who have high levels of shame and self-criticism and who have difficulty in feeling warmth toward, and being kind to, themselves or others.[1] Such problems of shame and self-criticism are often rooted in a history of abuse, bullying, neglect, and/or lack of affection in the family.[8] CFT can help such people learn to feel more safeness and warmth in their interactions with others and themselves.[1]
Numerous methods are used in CFT to develop a person’s compassion. For example, people undergoing CFT are taught to understand compassion from the third person, before transferring these thought processes to themselves.[9]