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Therapy role-play · CFT
Paul Gilbert developed Compassion-Focused Therapy for clients so weighed down by shame and self-criticism that kindness towards themselves feels impossible, or dangerous. You practise introducing the three-systems model and working with the fears of compassion that surface as soon as you try.
Why this therapy
Some clients follow the logic of therapy perfectly and still feel worthless. Shame and self-attack block the change. CFT helps them build the capacity to soothe and support themselves, strengthening a soothing system that years of threat have left underdeveloped. Telling such a client to be kinder to themselves does not work; it tends to hand the critic one more failure to point at.
Each protocol follows its published treatment model, and so does your feedback.
Simulated clients are a training aid. They do not replace supervised work with real clients.
Each one is reviewed in your debrief, with one concrete thing to try next time.
Explain the threat, drive and soothing systems using the client’s own examples, not the textbook ones.
Ask what the inner critic is for before you argue with what it says. Attack it and it defends itself.
Respond when the client flinches from kindness towards themselves, calls it weak or selfish, or goes quiet. That resistance is the work, not an obstacle to it.
Guide the practices that build the soothing system, and watch for backdraft. Tears or shutdown when warmth arrives are not always a breakthrough.
Map with the client the background threats, the key fears, the safety strategies they built, and the unintended consequences of those strategies.
The same client carries across modes. Start where you feel comfortable, then stretch.
Each client comes with a history, a presentation and measures. Read the referral as you would on placement, then begin.
The client responds to how you work. Make your mistakes here, where they cost nothing; hints come only if you ask for them.
A clear debrief on the core skills of your model (the CTS-R for CBT). Then take any one skill into a focused drill and work on it until it holds.
People whose difficulties are driven by shame and harsh self-criticism, whatever the diagnosis.
Gilbert’s model of emotion regulation: a threat system, a drive system and a soothing system. CFT strengthens the soothing system, which is often underdeveloped in people who have lived under threat and shame.
Practise CFT with us
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