The Compassionate Mind (Compassion Focused Therapy)

by Paul A. Gilbert

It is this tribalism that can turn itself into the very antithesis of compassion. This is especially true when people take a sense of their self-identity from the group to which they belong and adopt its values. Research has shown that we form feelings of ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’ – ‘them’ and ‘us’ – extremely easily, and once we’ve identified an out-group, they then become the ‘not us’. To cut a long story short, we can become extraordinarily contemptuous of, cruel towards, and paranoid about, those we see as belonging to the out-group. We may even see their values and ways of life as potentially contaminating our own and then seek to identify, destroy and eradicate them. Whether you want to see this as an archetype, a social mentality or an evolved mechanism, whether you wish to focus on its genetic or social regulators, the fact is that our tribal psychology, tribal prejudices, tribal expansionism and tribal vengeances have been the source of immense suffering perpetrated by humans against other humans for thousands of years. And, of course, because we know that other groups can be as hateful and as paranoid as we can, we fear them . . . and so continues the cycle, from the drug gangs of Los Angeles to the genocides of the world. Our tribal psychology and fear of other tribes can cause us, in the relevant social context, to see cruelty as a virtue