Compassion-focused grief therapy

ABSTRACT

Training in compassion can lead to an enhanced ability to tolerate distress, maintain focus, and discern clinical interventions for clients in a variety of clinical scenarios. Cultivating a compassionate stance provides the opportunity to engage clients with full attention and presence, allowing openness and receptivity for both the painful and adaptive aspects of the grieving process. Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) applies principles of compassion from an evolutionary, neurobiological approach, which is of specific interest in situations of loss and grief, due to the intensity of the work and the need to provide clients with a secure base from which to they can begin the process of rebuilding their lives after a significant loss.

KEYWORDS:

• Grief
• bereavement
• compassion
• self-compassion
• psychotherapy

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Darcy Harris

Darcy L. Harris, R.N., R.S.W., Ph.D., FT, is a Professor of Thanatology at King’s University College in London, Canada, where she also maintains a private clinical practice specialising in issues related to change, loss, and transition. In addition, she is a faculty member of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, dedicated to post-graduate training in grief therapy leading toward Certification in Meaning Reconstruction in Loss and a member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying, and Bereavement. She is a series co-editor for Routledge Publishing Company’s Death, Dying, and Bereavement Series and she is an internationally-recognised speaker and author.