ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the method of self-compassion processing that is used in mindfulness- and compassion-oriented integrative psychotherapy (MCIP). In this method, clients with the help of self-compassion process unresolved and painful issues and create a safe and loving bond within themselves. The authors propose two different ways for the client to bring self-compassion to themselves: by promoting the client’s real or imagined compassionate touch of themselves and by a self-compassionate inner dialogue. Frequent markers for initiating self-compassion processing are inner critique and inner pressure to work hard. In the chapter, the authors present two transcripts of psychotherapy sessions showing the transforming power of self-compassion processing, which leads to memory reconsolidation and integration of a personal sense of self. The first therapy transcript shows self-compassion processing in the context of internal criticism. In the second transcript, the client is processing trauma by bringing self-compassion to her “lonely and abandoned” Child self-state and establishes a loving bond with this previously exiled part of herself.