From where I sit, even the so-called sciences have this sort of disagreement a lot of the time. In lawsuits for medical malpractice, one MD with scads of degrees and other qualifications says procedure caused death, another equally laden with an important vita, says it didn't. One engineer says X caused the plane to go down, another says Y. Only in a lab where conditions are carefully controlled does "science" seem to be exact. In real life, which is messy and generally occurs outside the scientific laboratory, very little can be predicted with much regularity. And everyone can always model the adversarial position that a lawyer takes-- use what makes sense to you and supports your own theories, and leave aside the rest.

I think there is something to Brene Brown's position, as I have experienced things. I also think there is something to the other position that one can be compassionate for others and not oneself; this was true for me for many years. I have also experienced increased compassion and perhaps more importantly, understanding as my own self acceptance and compassion has grown. In general, I find it less interesting whether the absolute relationship between self and other compassion is or isn't related, and more interesting to understand how we can increase self-compassion as well as compassion for others.