ABSTRACT
This opening chapter outlines some of the key ideas that have informed compassion focused therapy (CFT) over many years. It highlights the way in which CFT is a multidiscipline, integrative therapy, the technical term for which is consilient. It explores some of the crises in psychotherapy in terms of the multiplicity of approaches and theories and how an evolutionary informed, biopsychosocial approach can provide a scientific basis for integration. The chapter also outlines how compassion focused therapy emerged from recognising how difficult clients, with complex problems, found developing a compassionate approach to themselves.
