Self-Compassion

Mental Health @ Home book review: The ACT Workbook for Perfectionism

Book Review: The ACT Workbook for Perfectionism

The ACT Workbook for Perfectionism by Jennifer Kemp aims to boost self-compassion and improve psychological flexibility using acceptance and commitment therapy. The author is a therapist who has dealt with perfectionism herself, and she incorporates her own experiences to provide examples of the concepts being covered. She had tried cognitive behavioural therapy and didn’t find […]

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Mental Health @ Home book review: The Self-Compassion Workbook for OCD

Book Review: The Self-Compassion Workbook for OCD

The Self-Compassion Workbook for OCD by Kimberley Quinlan looks at how to use self-compassion in conjunction with exposure and response prevention (ERP) to manage OCD. The foreword is written by Jon Hershfield, co-author of The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD, which I’ve previously reviewed. Like that book’s use of mindfulness, this book uses self-compassion as a

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What Is... Series (Insights into Psychology)

What Is… Self-Esteem

In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is self-esteem. Self-esteem refers to the extent to which we perceive the various elements of our self-concept positively. It incorporates our physical self-image, how we feel about the things we’ve accomplished, how successful we consider ourselves to be

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Mental Health @ Home book review: Radical Compassion by Tara Brach

Book Review: Radical Compassion

Radical Compassion by Tara Brach is her latest book; I’ve previously reviewed Radical Acceptance. This book focuses on RAIN, which can give you the gift of “living from your full potential.” I did a post not long ago about RAIN, which involves Recognizing, Allowing, Investigating, and Nurturing. Brach explains that basic mindfulness meditation involves the

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It’s RAIN-ing Mindfulness

My friends at WeDIDitPTSD recently brought up Jack Kornfield‘s approach to RAIN, a mindfulness meditation for dealing with overwhelm, and I thought I’d explore that further in a post. RAIN, which is based on Buddhist teachings, was first described by Insight Meditation Society teacher Michele McDonald. Rain acronym R: Recognition The R is about exploring

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How Does the Inner Critic Get Started?

I’ve noticed that a lot of people in the blogging world have quite a strong inner critic. I don’t, and II find it fascinating when it seems like people believe that they should self-criticize in order to do things properly, or in order to avoid being a bad person. So let’s chat about it. To

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Mental Health @ Home book review: Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff

Book Review: Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself is written by Kristin Neff, a prominent researcher in the area of self-compassion. It includes research findings, a variety of exercises with room to complete them in the book, and stories from the author’s personal experience. The author draws on Buddhist teachings, and she writes that:

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Compassion-focused therapy: threat, drive, and caregiving systems

What Is… Compassion-Focused Therapy

In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is compassion-focused therapy. Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) was developed by Paul Gilbert and draws on compassion to eliminate suffering, including shame and self-criticism. The theoretical basis spans a number of fields and incorporates both Western and Eastern philosophies. Part

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Mental Health @ Home book reviews: Mindfulness for Insomnia

Book Review: Mindfulness for Insomnia

Mindfulness for Insomnia by Catherine Polan Orzech and William H. Moorcroft lays out a day-by-day four-week meditation program to facilitate sleep. I’ll start off by saying that I read the book because I was curious about the method, but I didn’t actually practice it myself. Aside from the sleep education in the first part of

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