Sheesh make up your mind, people.

I just thought of something else. Maybe another point to all of the different studies etc is just to get people thinking and talking with one another. Seems to work here!

excellent point, LW, I very much hold to this. Thanks for the reminder!!

[quote=(JD);2735313]To me, the person who wrote the first is just believing something they have been told, and maybe worked out for them. no, Brown is a researcher. She writes that she has extensive data to back up what she says (and even had trouble accepting it herself but finally had to do so because of the evidence compiled). I have to stick with the PhD (of course ) Brene Brown is a PhD also. So.. ?? /quote]

made more sense to answer within the text than below it.

From the person who has a Brene Brown quote as her sig line...

I don't necessarily believe what Brown said in the first quote; and I am speaking from experience. However, I don't necessarily agree with the other either. I believe there is a link, but as many other posters have mentioned, psychology is not a game of absolutes.

However, I am much more interested in Brown's shame resilience theory than anything else.

Chopin -
My T doesn't seem to be familiar with Brené Brown's work but I noticed that she resonated very favorably when I quoted this:

Shame erodes that part of us which believes that we can change. - Brené Brown

Are you whispering?

I turned my T on to her. I like and agree with the quote.

no sorry about the teeeeeeeeny font - no idea about that, it looked perfectly normal when I posted it. PCgremlins??

Perhaps it means more of an equality of love....

Like you have a jar of love and it should be spread proportionately over your self and your neighbor? IMO the world is about balance , in my case I use so much love from my jar on others and leave nothing for me...

So love our neighbors as ourselves, may be the same as , love ourselves as our neighbors? In my case....

Chopin - to make a big paraphrase - St Thomas Aquinas says that you shouldn't criticize yr neighbor for gambling, or drinking, or some other excess, if this is something you do yourself; in other words, you grant someone else the same that you allow yourself . apparently this has something to do with it. and I can see that it works both ways? If you grant someone else this, you can also grant it to yourself? that makes some sense; if you feel an outrage at yr neighbor's being abused, then you should feel the same for yourself. Hmmm..... maybe there is an insight coming on. !!

Exactly!! I actually believe that one should not criticize or judge another at all, including oneself. It's very hard to do; it's as if we're programmed to do it. I try my best not to. I am hardest on myself...and I know now that I shouldn't do it...but I do.

I think it's very difficult to understand and recognize true compassion. Much of what we may think is compassion may instead be attitudes and actions in the service of cathexis--those we are motivated to do because they return good feelings to us. There's nothing wrong with that, and we all do it, but it isn't compassion because it is primarily self-interested.

I think compassion is selfless, and without any self-investment in outcome. I'm not sure it's possible to feel compassion for self because it can't be selfless. I do think it's possible to be nurturing to oneself, to be kind to oneself, to be patient with oneself. And I suspect that those qualities can't be fully extended to others without extending them--or experiencing another extending them-- to oneself.

FK, can you say more about this? I am not getting it, sorry.

I'm not so sure I'm getting it, either! I rushed it before heading to class.

What I'm thinking may be pushing a semantic argument. But I'm not sure because I think compassion and empathy are different psychological/spiritual concepts.

Anyway, compassion literally means "co-suffering." It is a virtue beyond empathy (which is a feeling) because it encompasses a need to take action in the service of the other without regard for self.

There is no cathexis in compassion because there is no concern with one's self in compassion.

There may very well be cathexis in empathy--maybe most of the time. But taking action to relieve pain isn't inherent in the feeling of empathy, though feeling empathic may be combined with or lead to taking action.

I think most Ts are sympathetic; many are empathetic; I think very, very few sustain compassion, though some may engage in isolated compassionate acts.

So I guess I think it's not possible to feel compassion for self because compassion is inherently selfless. But I'm not sure how one could feel compassion for others unless one has been the recipient of compassion. And I don't think this is a very common experience.

I think it is much more possible to feel empathetic, nurturing, kind, etc for self and others, especially if one has experienced such nurturing, but even without much experience because of the cathexis that is often part of the empathic, nurturing, kind experience. So it's possible to learn empathy and kindness even if one has experienced little empathy or kindness from others. Not sure it would be possible if one had experienced zero empathy or kindness--but that's too horrible to contemplate.

I love Brene Brown and very much believe that self-compassion is healing. I haven't read through the thread yet, but wanted to offer my thoughts. I think it's a little more complex than saying you can't have one without the other. I see it as you may not be able to offer compassion completely and fully unless also feeling it for yourself. It's deeper when given completely. This is my personal belief. I'm not sure there is a right or wrong answer, though. I think that what fits best for you is your truth.

I see people on PC offering compassionate help to others on PC all the time, and am sure that there are many more offers sent by PM that no one ever sees - someone in cyberspace reaching out to another not for praise, not for pushbutton hugs, but because of compassion - they suffer with the sufferer.

and most impressively, not because they were recipients of compassion. On the contrary, because they were victims of trauma.

I'm a proud heathen, but I do question whether my empathy and compassion for others is genuine sometimes. I don't think it's the kind of question that has a cut and dried answer. I don't think the question of whether something is authentic has a cut and dried answer either. Most the time these questions are not worth worrying about too much, but I do appreciate when people question themselves about these things at least to some extent. (I don't mean to imply that anyone here doesn't question themselves.)

I wonder how your understanding of most therapists as not compassionate affects your opinion about therapy?

let's stay on topic

wasn't it Kahlil Gibran who said something about, your capacity for joy is proportional to the depth of sorrow you undergo... maybe that's sort of to the point...
it seems possible that surviving some kind of blatant brutality can to inspire a deep capacity for compassion.
Odd thought, that.
I guess it goes under the drawing-good-out-of-evil category.

I think this is absolutely true--but I would characterize it as empathy, not compassion.

Cathexis isn't a negative thing--it isn't selfish. It's simply a psychological construct that exists.

I have a very positive opinion of therapy. But I don't think compassion is necessarily part of the therapy experience. I think empathy is very important and probably necessary for real growth and change; I think compassion is maybe too much to expect between most relationships in general. When it does occur, it's an extremely healing and humbling experience.