The Flow of Life
Understanding the Challenge
Compassion is typically understood as ‘a sensitivity to suffering in ourselves and others with
desires to alleviate and prevent it’ (see also
and
in this volume). This suggests
two different types of psychology. First, is the ability to turn towards suffering, to notice it, to be
emotionally connected with it and make sense of it without being overwhelmed. The second
psychology relates to the wisdom to know how to hold, alleviate and prevent suffering
(see also
in this volume). At the core of any effort for alleviation and prevention of
suffering is the understanding of
sources/causes of
suffering has no one cause and a range of
biological, psychological, social/cultural and historical factors interact in the emergence of suffering
and the conditions that give rise to suffering.
Evolutionary psychology has its own unique insights into the sources/causes of suffering. One is
that we are all to some extent ‘vehicles for genes.’ We are created from the combination of
parental genes, born to flourish for a while, reproduce leaving our genes to build a new ‘vehicles’
and then decay and die. In that short-lived journey, fraught with challenges, difficulties and
diseases, evolution has built into us a whole range of life-task pursuits to support our survival and
those of our kin. We need to spot dangers and take defensive actions; we need to seek out things
that are conducive to survival such as food and comfort, sexual partners and alliances. These life
tasks and motives are facilitated by different emotions that wax and wane over our life's journey
such as anxiety, fear, paranoia, anger, lust as well as joy, love and compassion.
Not only have our brains been created to pursue certain tasks and to experience certain kinds of
emotion and passions, but we have a very flexible brain that can sculpture itself to fit particular
social contexts and niches. The social context in which we grow up even affects our genetic
expression
and the neurophysiological maturation of our brains and bodies
We know that
people from loving, caring environments are likely to be more compassionate than those who
come from neglectful or hostile environments
n example I sometimes use with my patients is
that if I had been kidnapped as a three-day-old baby into a violent drug gang then the current
version of Paul Gilbert would not exist. I would probably be violent myself, might even have
tortured people or be dead or in prison - because for a high percentage of young males born into
these environments, this is their destiny. It gives us cause for thought as to what we mean when
we have the feelings of a self with ‘these’ values and a sense of ‘being a certain kind of person’
when so many other versions of us are possible – as creations of genes and social context?
Compassion begins with understanding just how arbitrary our self-construction actually is
(see
also
in this volume).So many of us are caught up in the dramas of life (be it mental
illnesses, diseases, poverty or the wars of one's tribe) and sense of self that we might never
choose and yet find ourselves trapped within. Compassion begins with recognising this tragedy at
the heart of humanity -that we have all just found ourselves here, with a kind of self conscious
awareness, and sense of self whose content is of being caught up in the dramas of evolution.
Mostly we have so little control of or insight into this reality that we simply live and die according to
our genetic and social contextual scripts.
Gaining this insight is key to a therapy called Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT
because so
many people carry a deep sense that they suffer because of things
wrong within them;
because
they can't think the right way; can’t control their temper, fear, or their eating; they're not mindful
127
