Much self-blame and shame comes from a brain that is quick to sound the alarm and rarely soothed. That isn't your fault, but we can practise giving soothing and compassion more room.[1]
Self-compassion and self-improvement are two ends of the same spectrum… We can fully accept where we are right now… but there is always a wish to change it, to move towards something better.
Have you noticed that when a small thing goes wrong for a friend, you comfort them and help them work out what to do, but when it happens to you, what you say to yourself is far harsher? You know the logic: it was only one wrong figure, yet the replaying goes on all night. And underneath sits a worry: if I'm kinder to myself, won't I slacken and stop improving?
1The worldview
The situation at the start is exactly where compassion-focused therapy (CFT) begins. It was founded by the British clinical psychologist Paul Gilbert, first for people with intense shame and self-criticism. He noticed that some people learned in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to find more balanced thoughts, yet still said, "I understand the logic, but I don't feel any better." CFT holds that the problem lies not only in what our thoughts say, but in the tone in which we speak to ourselves.[1,11]
So what should the new voice be like? Gilbert defines compassion as a sensitivity to suffering in ourselves and others, with a commitment to try to relieve and prevent it. That has two sides: being willing to come close to pain, and actually doing something that helps. So compassion is not weakness or indulgence; it often takes courage. It also flows three ways: to others, from others, and to ourselves.[]
Now you know how it sees a person and how it works. The next questions: what is it actually like, does it work, and what is it not for?
You don't have to work through these practices alone. CFT can be one-to-one or in a group, and many studies use groups. A course roughly follows the order above: map your formulation, practise compassionate mind training, then carry it into life. The therapist models compassion: patient, non-judgemental, able to stay with strong emotion, so you first experience being treated kindly within the relationship. There is no standard length; it varies from person to person.[1,12]
Want to try it yourself first? These free exercises are simpler versions of the skills above, with you step by step.
Episodes are in Cantonese.
To read further, start with these.
Not ready to see a therapist yet? Start with these six steps at your own pace, one or two a week.
Different approaches treat that inner voice in their own ways. CFT deliberately draws on several traditions, so it overlaps with a number of them; start here to learn more.
You can do the exercises on your own. When you're stuck, a trained therapist can take you further.
Another line of work spells out "like a friend" more concretely, and comes from the American psychologist Kristin Neff. She studies self-compassion, which means treating yourself the way you would treat a friend who is suffering. It has three parts, each set against an opposite: self-kindness (rather than self-judgement), common humanity (rather than feeling you're the only one), and mindfulness (rather than being swept away by thoughts and feelings). The two lines of work have different roots but similar aims, and research and practice often borrow from both.[5,6]
So that night at the start isn't only a problem of thinking; it's more like an alarm going off. CFT explains it with a simplified picture: we are born with three emotion-regulation systems, and self-criticism and shame mostly come from the threat system. All three are useful, but they easily fall out of balance: alarm and chasing fill our lives, and soothing gets pushed into a corner. The soothing system is the one built to regulate the other two, so CFT's work is to give it room again.
2The method
The three systems are a picture that fits everyone, but it can't explain why your critic sounds the way it does; a formulation puts it back into your own story. A CFT therapist works through your background with you to see three things: what your experiences taught you to fear, the ways you learned to protect yourself, and the unexpected costs those ways have brought. Back at that night from the start, the harsh things you said to yourself each find a place in these three steps. Seeing symptoms as safety strategies that once made sense helps people recognise "this isn't my fault". Once they stop blaming themselves, there is more room to take responsibility for change.[1,9]
1The situation from the start: you get a figure wrong in a work presentation, and your manager corrects you in front of everyone.
The compassionate self"Being corrected in public really stings. Everyone makes mistakes; tonight I'll recheck the figures and mention it to my manager tomorrow."
The compassionate selfStill a bit embarrassed, but breathing slows and sleep comes
The compassionate selfCheck the figures; before the next one, do a run-through with a colleague
3The skills
Once you can see why the critic appeared, what comes next is what CFT calls compassionate mind training. The aim isn't to make alarm or chasing disappear, since they protect you and push you on; it's to strengthen the soothing system and let it balance the other two. The practices are grouped by system, to show where each one helps.
Self-criticism and shame run on the threat system. Pause, see it clearly, then answer in a different voice.
A short practice from Neff: when it hurts, tell yourself "this is a hard moment" (mindfulness: noticing what you feel as it is), remind yourself "other people feel this too" (common humanity), then rest a hand on your chest and ask what you need to hear right now (self-kindness).[7]
Rather than rushing to get rid of it, look at it with curiosity: what does it say, in what tone, whose voice does it sound like? If it were gone, what would you fear most? CFT often finds that self-criticism is the "safety strategy" described earlier: it is trying to protect you, at a high price. Once you see what it's for, there is room for a more helpful voice.[1,9]
You said that after getting the figure wrong, you spent the whole evening scolding yourself. Could we look at that scolding voice together? Not to get rid of it, just to see it clearly.
What did it say? In its own words.
If that voice had a face and a tone, what would they be like?
How do you feel in front of it?
Wanting to improve is fine; what changes is the tone you push yourself with.
Back to the difference at the start: picture a good friend going through the same thing. What would you say to them? Then look at what you said to yourself. The gap between the two is often the tone of self-criticism; try rewriting your line in the voice you'd use with a friend.[7]
People with a strong inner critic often see only how far they fall short. Borrowing from behavioural therapy, CFT practises noticing the effort you put in, however small, as worth seeing.[1]
Soothing can be trained: start with breath and posture, move to imagery, then to a compassionate self.
Compassionate mind training often starts here: sit steady, like a mountain; slow the breath, with the out-breath longer than the in-breath; then add a warm expression and tone of voice. It underpins the practices that follow. The aim isn't to go blank but to shift the body into a safer, calmer state.[9]
Imagine a presence that fully accepts you, wise, strong and warm: a person, an animal, even a tree or a mountain. Picture their expression and voice, and feel cared for by them. The image is usually vague and fleeting, and that's normal.[1]
The previous practice imagines someone else caring for you; this one imagines yourself becoming that person. Like an actor getting into a role, imagine yourself as someone wise, strong and genuinely wanting to help: how do they sit, what is their expression, their tone, their way of thinking? Practise a little each day, then bring this self into hard situations.[1,9]
The dialogues are illustrative composites, not real clients; skills that stir strong emotion or touch on trauma should be done with a trained therapist.
That voice doesn't only turn up after a wrong figure: shame and self-criticism run through many different problems, so CFT is seen as transdiagnostic: rather than one diagnosis, it works on the hostility towards oneself underneath. An early review found it seemed especially effective for people high in self-criticism.[1,11,12,13]
Most of this research comes from small trials, and everyone is different. If you are thinking of hurting yourself or ending your life, please call The Samaritans' 24-hour line on 2896 0000 first, or 999 in an emergency; to find out whether CFT suits you, talk it over with a therapist.
So does changing the voice actually help? CFT's claim is that less self-criticism and more self-soothing mean less suffering. It is a newer therapy, and most of its research comes from the last decade or so. Below, the claims run from the firmest evidence to the least firm, with what was found and what limits it, starting with the most direct one: whether self-criticism and self-soothing change.
Several meta-analyses (which pool many studies) found CFT did better than comparison groups, waitlists (people waiting without treatment) among them, on self-compassion and self-reassurance; counting only controlled trials, the effect on reducing self-criticism was small to moderate. But there aren't many trials, some were of "unclear" quality, and about three quarters of participants were women.[13,16]
Widening to Neff's self-compassion practice: more than twenty randomised trials (participants assigned by chance) show it helps moderately with stress, depression, anxiety and self-criticism, more so in groups than one-to-one; for compassion-based interventions as a whole, the effects held when studies whose comparison groups also received an intervention were included. The limits: the interventions varied widely, and publication bias may be present.[14,15]
Reviews found CFT promising for a range of problems, especially in groups of at least 12 hours, and well accepted by clients and clinicians. But of 29 studies reviewed, only 9 were randomised trials and 17 had no control group at all, and the research lacks a standard treatment manual. An early pilot had just six people, and showed only that the approach was worth studying further.[4,12]
We don't know yet. Most trials compare CFT only with a waitlist, and 24 of 29 studies did not compare it with another psychological therapy, so the gains may not be specific to CFT, and we can't say it beats established therapies such as CBT.[11,12]
Long-term effects remain under-studied. The better news comes from Neff and Germer's eight-week Mindful Self-Compassion programme: in a small randomised trial (25 people vs 27 on a waitlist), gains in self-compassion and wellbeing held at six months and a year. But that is a single small trial.[8,13]
People higher in self-compassion tend to have fewer mental health problems, and the link is fairly strong. But it is correlational: it can't show that raising self-compassion will reduce distress. Intervention trials are what answer that, and the trials above answer it only in part.[17]
To be frank, the evidence for CFT is still young. Most trials are small and many compare CFT only with a waitlist, so they can't yet tell us how it measures up against established therapies. An early review in 2015 said larger, high-quality trials were needed before CFT could count as evidence-based practice, and later reviews still make the same call.[11,12,13,14]
Compassion sounds gentle, but this path has its difficulties. For people with a harsh inner critic, being treated kindly can itself feel threatening; and reading self-compassion as "anything goes" leads astray. As for the worry at the start: research actually suggests self-compassion can increase the motivation to improve; the trouble starts when it is mistaken for avoidance.[1,3,10]
For some people, warmth brings a flood of grief, or a sense of not deserving it; research has also found that compassion imagery can raise some people's physical stress response. That doesn't mean they're doing it wrong; it means working through it at their own pace, with a therapist.
Self-compassion and self-improvement can be seen as two ends of one spectrum: accepting yourself as you are now, and wanting to be better. Lean only towards the first and it can become all about your own feelings: "this is just who I am", as if the problem were others needing to accept you. Research, though, finds that self-compassion itself tends to raise the motivation to improve; "this is just who I am" looks more like mistaking it for letting yourself off. Compassion in CFT already includes a commitment to act to relieve suffering.
Compared with CBT, CFT has fewer and smaller trials, many only against waitlists, and there are no clear answers yet on long-term effects or who it suits best.
So, back to that night at the start: compassion in CFT is neither indulgence nor escape, but being willing to see the pain clearly, then doing something that genuinely helps.
Compassion doesn't promise you'll stop making mistakes, and it isn't letting yourself off; it just lets you stay on your own side after a mistake, and then decide what to do next. The next time that voice starts up, ask yourself first: what would I say if it were someone I care about?
The compassionate selfMistakes are still faced, without paying for each one in shame
Both voices want you to do well; the difference is the tone and the system behind it. Self-criticism runs on the threat system, like a coach who never stops shouting. The compassionate voice faces the mistake just as squarely, but like a good teacher who is on your side and still tells you the truth. Read through the three steps above: the fear is being looked down on (key fear), so you scold yourself to avoid mistakes (safety strategy), and the more you scold, the more afraid and error-prone you become (unintended consequence). On the compassionate side, the soothing system has turned the alarm down; the sense of responsibility is still there, only the way of pushing yourself has changed. That also answers the two questions from the start: you wouldn't say the self-critical line to a friend, and being kinder to yourself hasn't taken the responsibility away. Rewrite one line in a friend's voice
Here's a slightly odd question: if from tomorrow this voice disappeared completely, what would you worry might happen?
So in a way it's trying to protect you, to stop people looking down on you. You probably learned to protect yourself like this a long time ago, when maybe it really helped. That isn't your fault. But we can also ask: does it actually help you do better?
Suppose someone you care about was learning something hard. Would you hire this voice as their teacher?
What kind of teacher would you look for? Seeing this mistake, what would they say?
How does it feel to say that to yourself?
Many people feel that at first: being gentle with yourself can feel unfamiliar, even uneasy. Notice the line doesn't say you didn't make a mistake; only the tone has changed. This week, when the voice comes back, would you be willing to pause, notice what it's worried about, and try what this teacher would say?
Notice: Continuing the presentation mistake above, this shows how to understand the critic as a safety strategy. The therapist asks permission and keeps to a small event. They don't argue with the critic; they get curious about how it looks, how it sounds and what it fears, and acknowledge that it is trying to protect the client ("this isn't your fault"). The "which teacher would you hire?" question lets the client find the other voice themselves. The new voice feeling "a bit fake" is common, and the therapist treats it as unfamiliarity that takes practice, not failure.
Today I'd like to try a practice called the compassionate self. About ten minutes, and you can stop any time. Is that OK?
First, sit steady, feet on the floor, back upright but not stiff. Slow your breathing a little, letting the out-breath be a bit longer than the in-breath… and bring a gentle expression to your face.
Now imagine you're someone with a lot of wisdom, who has been through a great deal and knows life isn't easy; strong, too, and genuinely wanting to help. You don't have to feel you already are this person; just imagine it, like an actor getting into a role. How would this you sit?
What's their tone of voice like?
Through this self's eyes, look at yourself last week, getting the figure wrong. What do you see?
What would this compassionate you want to say to them, or do for them?
A little is already good. At first the feeling is usually faint and the image blurry, like learning a new language. Slowly come back to the room… is there anything you'd like to remember from that?
This week, how long a day feels realistic?
Good, three minutes is enough. Next time we'll look at what happened, including the nights it didn't work.
Notice: The therapist starts with soothing rhythm breathing to steady the body, then invites the client step by step to "get into role": only imagining the self they'd like to be, not having to feel it. The client feels only a little, which the therapist treats as a normal start; then the compassionate self is brought to a concrete situation (the earlier mistake), and they agree on a daily amount the client can manage.
After a few minutes of soothing rhythm breathing, write a letter from the compassionate self you built in the last practice to the you who is struggling: acknowledge how hard it is; understand why you feel this way, which you didn't choose; then think about how to help yourself, step by step. These letters often take a few attempts before they feel truly warm.[9]
Psychology
Psychology
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