ABSTRACT
Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is a multimodal, integrative approach to psychological difficulties. It integrates Western scientific and evolution informed understanding of psychological processes and therapeutic interventions with Eastern insights into the causes of ‘suffering’ and its alleviation. In this chapter ‘suffering’ refers to dissociation, a heterogeneous group of experiences relating to a particular kind of ‘awareness’ (Dell and O'Neil, 2009). There are two major forms: detachment, with feelings of depersonalization and derealization associated with feelings of being ‘unreal’, ‘spaced out’ and compartmentalization which relates to what can and cannot be acknowledged in consciousness, integrated or connected, so that certain types of ‘information’, memories or emotions exist almost in separate ‘places’ and cannot be brought together (Holmes et al., 2005).
