The Compassionate Mind (Compassion Focused Therapy)

by Paul A. Gilbert

if we want to engage in a compassionate and caring relationship with another person, the brain area that produces our ability to have empathy and understanding for them is turned on. We have feelings of warmth and concern for them; our attention is directed at how we can help them. The brain areas that produce our desires for aggression and to harm them are firmly turned off. If we could look in our brain, we would see various parts lighting up in mosaics of activity. But supposing that the person we are interacting with is seen as a threat or an enemy? The patterns in our brain will now be quite different. The systems for feeling empathy, care, concern and so forth are firmly turned off; the lights will go out in those brain areas and the systems for feeling anger and the desire to retaliate or hurt the other person or even remove them completely will be turned on. We will see a completely different mosaic. This insight tells us two important things. First, the social mentalities that are operating in (patterning) our brains have major effects on what we find pleasurable and rewarding in social relationships. Consider how it works. If we’re in the caring mentality, caring and helping others and seeing them flourish is rewarding and gives us a warm glow, and their suffering is painful to us. By contrast, if we’re in the competitive social mentality, seeing others hurt or do less well than us may be rewarding and seeing them flourish may be painful. We might only feel good ...