be more present with what is actually happening at any given moment, but also increase the
awareness of our own emotions and those of others – two abilities that are fundamental to
compassion (also see
for the neurological underpinnings of empathy and compassion).
Affect
Within the affective domain of the ReSource model we distinguish between three skills that are
crucial to compassion: generating feelings of benevolence and warmth; accepting and being with
difficult emotions; and generating prosocial motivation.
Opening the Heart: Generating Feelings of Benevolence
An important aspect of compassion is the ability of an individual to generate or open to feelings of
love, warmth and benevolence towards oneself and others. This ability is probably rooted in
biological systems that phylogenetically evolved for the care of offspring (“care system”
or
“affiliative system
). Mechanisms in this system assure that the care of offspring is intrinsically
rewarding. The neurochemical bases of these affiliative and caring systems are associated with
the release of dopamine, oxytocin and endogenous opiates that induce states of reward and
quiescence in the care-giver
(also see
.
Naturally, the care system is particularly developed in primates where intensive and sustained
care-giving behavior is required over much longer stretches of time than in other species. This
system forms the basis for what has been termed “attachment” in developmental psychology
that is, an intimate affective bond between the care-giver and the infant. Later, this system is
involved in forming and maintaining affective bonds between romantic partners
. It can also
generalize to friends or even strangers, such that we may experience feelings of connectedness,
feelings of trust, warmth and benevolence towards them or in turn feel soothed by their
presence
When we speak of opening the heart, or generating feelings of benevolence, we
mean tapping into these innate systems that dispose us to care for others, accompanied by a
feeling of warmth, love and connectedness that is in itself rewarding.
Neurologically, Panksepp has implied the anterior cingulate, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis,
the preoptic area, and the periaqueductal gray to be constituent of the mammalian care
system
As
discuss in this volume, the voluntary generation of
feelings of warmth and benevolence in humans may activate additional areas (medial orbitofrontal
cortex, striatum, ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra, and globus pallidus) which have
previously been associated with affiliation, love and reward.
Accepting and Being With Difficult Emotions
Classical psychological literature on emotion regulation
describes various strategies to
downregulate negative emotions, such as distraction, suppression and reinterpretation. In the face
of somebody else’s suffering these strategies may seem unethical, as they are likely to reduce our
propensity to help. Also, in the face of our own suffering they may counteract our desire to be fully
present with reality and reduce our ability to constructively approach the roots of our suffering. A
compassionate way of coping with difficult emotions thus takes a different approach: it aims at
mindfully perceiving and accepting the emotion and turn towards it with an attitude of curiosity and
care. Hölzel and colleagues have proposed that the processes accompanying accepting, non-
reactive awareness of an emotion can be described in terms of cognitive-behavioral therapy as
exposure, extinction and reconsolidation
When an organism stays with a negative emotion
(exposure) without reacting and while observing the actual consequences of the eliciting event, it
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