Paul Gilbert
Founded compassion-focused therapy for shame and self-criticism.
Founder of compassion-focused therapy, an evolutionary, neuroscience-informed approach that cultivates self-compassion to quiet shame and threat.
terms
techniques
Compassion is not a weakness; it takes courage and strength to be compassionate.
Who they were
Paul Gilbert is a British clinical psychologist who researched evolutionary approaches to mood, shame and self-criticism for over forty years. He developed compassion-focused therapy and compassionate mind training, drawing on attachment, evolutionary theory and affective neuroscience. He headed the Mental Health Research Unit at Derbyshire and founded the Compassionate Mind Foundation; he was awarded the OBE in 2011.
Terms they cared about
Ideas worth knowing
Their techniques
How the work was done
Their big idea
Compassion-Focused Theory
Three emotion systems — threat, drive and soothing — fall out of balance; compassion restores the soothing system.
The approach they founded
Compassion-Focused Therapy
Builds self-compassion to quiet shame and the harsh inner critic that keeps the threat system on.
Questions in their spirit
What they’d ask you
Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.
Carry the idea forward
Gilbert — What they’d ask you
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.