CCARE, Stanford
I’m finding that being in California might just present a way back home. Because it is here that one idea that is all about fostering connection is being talked up, examined and sent back into the world again to flourish. And that idea is compassion. Which when I first came across it sounded somewhat woolly, an unsustainable state of just being nice, rather than a real strategy for dealing with something tough and realistic. But, I’m finding it’s the reverse. Compassion is not only about connection, but it’s also about courage, and it’s rigorously academic.
Here in San Francisco much of this work is focused on one institution: CCARE based at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (or CCARE) was founded in 2008 by Dr. James Doty, Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery. Collaborating with peers in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, economics and the contemplative traditions, CCARE’s aim is to study the positive aspects of the human mind. Which includes making the scientific, and therapeutic, case for the benefits of compassion.
So what is compassion and why it is so important: Let’s leave it to a Brit, Dr. Paul Gilbert, visiting Stanford’s CCARE program, to explain:
Here Dr. Gilbert defines compassion as ‘a sensitivity to the suffering of self and others with a deep commitment to try to relieve and prevent it.’ In short it’s about taking an interest in the wellbeing of another person, being open to and aware of their distress, and showing that we care.
According to Dr. Gilbert, to feel compassion, we need to imagine ourselves in another person’s position (empathic bridging), to move towards being in touch with the suffering of another, without judgment. But this is easier than it looks.
Dr. Gilbert argues that we often block this impulse, we don’t want to enter that space, maybe it hurts too much, maybe it’s too upsetting, and maybe it affects us in a way we don’t like, or want. So we stay away, keep on the outside. And that’s where this fluffy thing that could be compassion actually becomes the tough approach. It’s not just about being nice, it's about the courage to stay with something difficult, to engage with situations that might frighten us.
So in order to develop compassion we need to make a shift in our thinking: ‘Do I want to be like that? Do I want to go with that response?' And if the answer is no, we don’t want to be the person that turns away, we need to learn to connect to suffering, to learn to tolerate and feel someone else’s pain. And this is key, as with all things counterintuitive, it takes practice. Dr. Gilbert suggests that we need to rehearse the positive emotions, which, ‘just don’t turn up in the same way as the negative ones.’
In the Bay Area CCARE has developed a program for teaching compassion that is aimed at professionals and lay people alike. This 8-week course, ‘Compassion Cultivation Training’ (CCT), focuses on developing a ‘compassionate attitude’, which ‘can greatly reduce the distress people feel in difficult situations’ and that can ‘become a profound personal resource in times of stress.’
For now, here’s one suggestion that Dr. Gilbert has for therapists training in compassion: He suggests that they imagine being their patient for one minute before engaging. Sitting quietly, slowing down and imagining that this is you sitting there, and seeing how you can feel in their situation. As he states, empathy isn’t ‘Yes I understand it’, but rather 'I’m going to imagine I am you, how much can I contact in myself of what it’s like to be you.' It is not compassionate to engage with distress on the outside, but compassion because you can feel it on the inside.
And that very simple suggestion struck a chord.
So we need to, and I need to, do this: sit with it, with another person’s situation. And then, if able, to take a step closer, to feel their struggle, and to stay with it, without taking that step back again. Then we can learn to take another step. And then another. To move closer, as a way of offering support. And then maybe we can start to bridge those gaps that prevent us from caring. To learn to be compassionate, even across continents, or whatever those other things are that divide us.