Compassion Focused Therapy for Neurological Conditions

The key aim of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is to support clients to develop a more compassionate relationship with themselves and others in light of their suffering. CFT is an integrated biopsychosocial and multimodal approach to psychotherapy that draws from evolutionary, Buddhist, developmental and social psychology and neuroscience. CFT combines emphases on social psychology, positive psychology, evolutionary theory and neurophysiological models of affect regulation to understand our emotional experiences. Fundamental to CFT is research that shows that this system is linked to feelings of a sense of 'peaceful wellbeing' and is often referred to as the soothing-contentment system. CFT fits well within a neurorehabilitation approach in that it can be structured well according to the client’s needs. CFT is a relatively new approach with clients with neurological conditions so it is hard to determine what, if any length of intervention may be most effective and individual differences play a vital role in this decision making.