Created by world-renowned psychologist Paul Gilbert, compassion-focused therapy (CFT) is extremely effective in helping clients work through painful feelings of shame and self-criticism. However, the theoretical aspects of this therapy-such as evolutionary psychology, attachment theory, and affective neuroscience-can make CFT difficult to grasp. This book provides everything you need to start implementing CFT in practice, either as a primary therapy modality or as an adjunctive approach to other therapies, such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and more.
CFT has unique strengths, and is especially effective in helping clients work through troubling thoughts and behaviors, approach themselves and others with greater compassion and kindness, and feel safer and more confident in their ability to handle life’s challenges and difficulties. This book articulates the theoretical basis of the therapy in simple, easy-to-follow language, and offers practical guidance and strategies on how to tailor your CFT approach to specific client populations.
As a clinician interested in the benefits of CFT but wary of the dense theoretical principles that lay behind it, you need a user-friendly guide that will let you hit the ground running. CFT Made Simple is that guide.
CFT has unique strengths, and is especially effective in helping clients work through troubling thoughts and behaviors, approach themselves and others with greater compassion and kindness, and feel safer and more confident in their ability to handle life’s challenges and difficulties. This book articulates the theoretical basis of the therapy in simple, easy-to-follow language, and offers practical guidance and strategies on how to tailor your CFT approach to specific client populations.
As a clinician interested in the benefits of CFT but wary of the dense theoretical principles that lay behind it, you need a user-friendly guide that will let you hit the ground running. CFT Made Simple is that guide.
Reviews
"An excellent book. Well written, easy to read, insightful, and inspiring. And bursting with practical ideas that will be useful for any health professional with an interest in compassion and mindfulness. A valuable contribution to the field of health and well-being."—Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap and ACT Made Simple
"A clinician's ability to be compassionate, to help clients face their pain with kindness and courage, is at the core of all effective therapies. Bringing together evolutionary psychology, affective neuroscience, attachment theory, behaviorism, and mindfulness approaches, Russell Kolts provides a compendium filled with heartfelt wisdom, step-by-step guidelines, and exercises that therapists of any orientation can use immediately to help their clients reclaim warmth, affiliation, safeness, and hope in their lives. This indispensable volume is a must-have in any clinician's library."—Robert Kohlenberg, PhD, ABPP, and Mavis Tsai, PhD, codevelopers of functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP)
"This book is not just simple. It is elegant and powerful. Through engaging didactics and detailed clinical examples, Russell Kolts demonstrates how we can bring compassion to clients' lives by applying innovative and precise techniques of compassion-focused therapy (CFT). You will learn to use perspective-taking shifts and imagery techniques formally and through natural conversations. You will learn to help clients understand and overcome their struggles using evolution and contextual sciences. Be kind to yourself and to your clients: read CFT Made Simple."—Matthieu Villatte, PhD, coauthor of Mastering the Clinical Conversation
