Recipients of affiliation usually experience a calming of their threat system
.
Diagram 1. From P, Gilbert (2009)
The Compassionate Mind
. With kind permission Constable Robinson
These types of emotions will occur in various combinations in social relationships and change over
time. For example even a loved person can at times feel like a threat if they are critical of us; or
stimulate drive emotions in doing things together that are exciting (rather than alone), whilst just
being with loved others can be calming and offer a sense of safeness and peaceful well-being.
Affiliative emotions are important to the experience of compassion. Imagine how compassion
would be if one couldn't have affiliative emotions and feelings of kindness were difficult to generate
(see also
in this volume)? However, compassion is not just about affiliative emotions
because emotions associated with compassion can be quite different according to context. This is
why motivation is the core to compassion. For example, the emotions that are associated with
compassionate behaviour in those who are in the rescuing services (e.g., fire service) that require
considerable courage and physical action are likely to be quite different to compassion that arises
in psychotherapy as one is making sense of distressing, internal mental states. Iindividuals who
138
