← Compassion in a T-Shirt
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- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Dr. Stan Steindl and welcome back to Compassion in a T Shirt where we explore the science and practice of compassion and how it can really transform our lives. Today, I'm really delighted to be joined by Dr. Elaine Beaumont. Elaine is a psychotherapist who has made a deeply meaningful contribution to the field of compassion focused therapy, particularly in the way she has helped bring these ideas into everyday life. Through her work, she has supported people to move from self criticism and shame towards greater kindness, understanding and care for themselves and others. Elaine is co author of the Kindness Workbook, written with young people in mind, offering creative and accessible ways to build self kindness during what can be a really challenging stage of life. She's also co authored the Compassionate Mind Workbook which provides a step by step guide to developing the compassionate self grounded in cft. And more recently, she's been involved in developing the Self Compassion app, helping to bring these practises into people's daily lives in a really practical and accessible way. In this conversation, we're going to focus on young adults, particularly university students, and explore the pressures they're facing, how self criticism and shame show up, and why kindness might be such an important place to begin. We'll also come back to her workbooks and the app a little later and there may even be a special appearance from a certain little helper named Roy. Get ready for a thoughtful and grounded conversation about kindness, compassion and what it means to support ourselves through some of the most challenging stages of life. And so I bring you Dr. Elaine Beaumont.
- [01:57]
B
Doctor Elaine Beaumont, welcome to Compassion in a T shirt.
- [02:01]
C
Oh, thanks for inviting me, Stan. It's lovely to see you.
- [02:04]
B
Elaine, it's such a pleasure to speak with you. You've made such a contribution, really to the compassion focused therapy community, not only through your clinical work and the research and so on, but through the way you've helped help to translate kindness and compassion into practical everyday tools. There's the Kindness Workbook through to the Compassionate Mind Workbook and the Self Compassion App. And so you've helped to really bring compassion out of theory and into every people's everyday lives. I think what I'd like to do today is have a bit of a focus on young adults, if that's okay, and what you're seeing in that sense space right now, the pressures they're facing, how self criticism and shame might show up, and why kindness might be such an important place to begin. We might circle back to the workbooks in the app a little later. And I'm also curious about a Certain little helper named Roy. But I'll just leave that for now. So perhaps to begin, when you look at, at young people today or young, young adults that you're working with, what pressures do you see shaping their worlds, their inner worlds, their lives at the moment?
- [03:23]
C
Well, it's a really good question, Stan. I think quite a lot. I think it's totally different to when you and I were young children and young people, a young person, you know, I remember we'd get up over weekend and we'd be out playing football and having fun and we'd be out all day. And now with the kind of introduction and the invention of things like mobile technology and mobile phones, I think there's a lot more scope for comparison. And if we're comparing ourselves to other people, that can potentially be really, really tricky because it can lead to self criticism and I think that's really, really difficult. And what we. Well, what I'm trying to do with, I guess with the work I do with young people and that's including the university students at Salford University, is try and help people learn to become a little bit more of their own best friend. You know, we live with ourselves as, you know, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, but sometimes we get so caught up in loops and we know that sometimes as adults, but for young people and children that can be really, really tricky. It's interesting actually because as I was kind of reflecting on kind of meeting up with you today, Stan, I was thinking about how social media is a little bit different now in Australia. Is that right? There's been some kind of ban on, with phones with, with young people and social media content.
- [05:03]
B
Yes, that's right, yeah, yeah.
- [05:06]
C
Is that helping do you think, or.
- [05:08]
B
I must admit I haven't looked at the latest kind of data or outcomes with that, but yes, that's been something that was brought in relatively recently that, that young people have to be over 16, I think it is to be able to be on social media accounts and, and so on and it bit of uproar. I think in different ways some people were very, very for it and others against it. But yes, it, it. The thing that strikes me is the difference between our childhood and, and what it is to kind of grow up and especially be an adolescent or a young adult today is that you just never away from it. It's always, it's ever present and, and this, this weird thing that you, you sort of with yourself 24 7, but you're also with everyone else 24 7. As well. And it's this kind of, it's overwhelming really. And the social comparison. Tell us a bit about social comparison. Like, how does that play into young people's lives?
- [06:16]
A
Just before we hear Elaine's answer to that last question, I thought I'd just mention that if you're interested in more information regarding the social media age restrictions in Australia, you can go to an esafety.gov au website and I'll include the link in the description below. There's also a very recent article in the conversation, early wins for the social media new survey claims, but the full picture is far more complicated and so I'll also include a link to that particular article in the description as well.
- [06:55]
C
Well, I guess what I had in mind was if you're kind of using your phone to scroll through, you know, kind of images, I don't know, of pop stars or, you know, kind of even, I guess with friends and looking at their Instagram and, you know, different media accounts, I guess sometimes you might see a, or believe something that might not actually be, be true. You know, you and I know that we, we're not happy 24 hours a day. You know, we have ups and downs and during the day we might have moments of anxiety as well as moments of joy and happiness. But I think sometimes, particularly the young people that I've worked with, sometimes you can get in a loop of, I'm less than, other people are better, other people have it all. Why can't I achieve that? Why can't I look? And I guess that's, that must be really, really tricky for people. You know, if somebody was bullied as a, as a child in, in, in our day, at least potentially, you've got respite. When you got home, it still obviously was wrong and, you know, wouldn't make anybody feel good. But now with people having phones, it's like that in that bully can be there with them kind of 20. So yeah, it is something that concerns me because when we're comparing ourselves to other people, we're forgetting how similar we are. And, and I think in the world at the moment, there's quite a lot of negativity generally and you know, people looking at comparisons and maybe making some people in society feel less than or not good enough as opposed to looking at the things that make us similar, that make us human. And you know, I thought a few years ago we were moving more towards that, but in recent years, I don't know, I just think there's so much, so much pain and sorrow in comparing different groups or you know, comparing for young people, particularly comparing themselves to other people.
- [09:17]
B
Yeah, I mean whether, whether they're, whether they're celebrities or friends from school, we all have such curated accounts, don't we? And so you know, all you see is that everyone else is having such a wonderful time with delicious meals and, and Instagram worthy views and things like that. And, and we compare what we know of our whole life to this curated version of, of others lives and we feel. And actually to be honest, it, I'm not sure that I'm even immune to that really. You know, like it, it, it just, there's, it's. Well, it's a, it's a part of the human brain, isn't it, to have those sort of social comparisons and the social rank, the focus on where do I sit in, in the, in the whole hierarchy of things. And, and if you're comparing yourself to this much more idealized version of everybody, then it's really easy to, to start to feel down on oneself.
- [10:14]
C
Yeah, I guess there is a positive side as well with this. I'm just thinking about, thinking about young people and pop stars like Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga who really had struggles as children, kind of fitting in I think at school and within the education system. And I don't know, I think I read somewhere that maybe one or both of them had kind of been picked on and been bullied to, to an ext actually felt less than. And it's almost like, well, look at them now. You know, even in, in sort of, in spite of everything that they've been through, this is where they are now. So potentially like really good role models for young people. You know, just as a reminder of it's not where we start in life, sometimes it's where we finish. And just kind of for them to hold that in mind. And I think sometimes it's good with young people as well to get them to think about examples of that. They're just two people that I can think of off the top of my head because I've, I've read something recently and I saw something. I think it was, it was Taylor Swift on Instagram. She'd done a video and she, she was makeup free, you know, so, you know, so maybe that's helpful as a, as a role model as well for people to say this person doesn't look like this all of the time. You know, here's another side of this. I think it's great when, when, when people in the public eye do that.
- [11:54]
B
Yes, I'm a, I'M a big Taylor Swift fan, actually. Sometimes I cop a bit of, bit of flack of because of that online, but I just think she's quite a. Just an excellent role model in some ways. And she does do a lot of that. She posts things and, and talks to her fan base and has a kind of authentic relationship with them. And when I went to her Sydney concert with.
- [12:22]
C
Oh, wow.
- [12:23]
B
With my daughter. Yeah. Oh, there was just, it was just a stadium full of, of joy and happiness and togetherness and belonging and so. You're right, that is true. I do need to remind myself sometimes of the, the, the, the, the real positives of, of social media.
- [12:42]
C
Yeah, it's interesting because of kind of like thinking about creativity when we're using CFT and compassionate mind training and this idea of how we can use music to, you know, kind of change or, or help help us. Whether it's regulate emotion or, you know, just get something, you know, kind of creatively off our chest if we want to write something and sometime do multiple cells, if, if I know the person's kind or, you know, chair work, you know, that kind of shake it off, you know, Taylor Swill, get up. If we're doing, or even if I'm doing workshops, let's shake it off, you know, and, and have a bit of fun with that. And, and sometimes, yeah, you end up looking a little bit silly, but, you know, it just lightens the mood and helps instigate some kind of change or, you know, moving on to the next thing.
- [13:40]
B
Yeah, playfulness, isn't it? The role there of playfulness and so on. It really does help to bring us into the soothing system if we can create that sort of atmosphere. And you alluded, I guess, to the other side of it too, which is the aspects of the state of the world at the moment and some of the divisions there. What have you sort of noticed there or heard there in terms of how young people are feeling about the world at the moment?
- [14:13]
C
I think it's tricky because with social media, I mean, and I'm, I'm not great with kind of social media accounts. I'm on Instagram and kind of dip in and out of like Facebook and things like that, but not very often. But apparently what young people are kind of saying to me is that. Or actually parents, you know, my friends that are parents, kind of these algorithms that there are on social media. They were advertising a program a couple of days ago in the, in the news, one of the morning shows here in the uk and it was, it seemed quite Scary to me. And I only saw the advertisement, it was like a little snippet of an interview and it's when 13 year olds kind of set up a social media account even, even when they just put a few things in about what they're. So if it was a male they were saying, you know, a boy might put in football might put in, whereas a girl might put in beauty or music or just by putting those interests in they're getting fed a lot of information and some of that is like really, really negative. Boys should act a certain way and girls should act a certain way and actually it just wasn't very kind at all. So I am really concerned about that. But it's good in the UK that the, it seems like the government are kind of looking at that at the moment and there might be change. Know that they've been kind of, well I've heard that they've been in communication with, you know, whoever in Australia, presume it's the Australian government about how things are going there, you know, so, so be interested in that.
- [16:02]
B
You mentioned university students and you mentioned self criticism and I was wondering about self criticism and perfectionism there and, and how those processes are interacting with, I guess with all the stuff that we've been talking about and what impact do they have really on well, being at that stage of life?
- [16:25]
C
It's a really good question actually. I think because I teach in counseling and psychotherapy we have a mixture of ages that come to the university. So we've got people that come straight from college. They have done the RAY levels at College in the UK so they're around 18 years old. But the courses are also open to mature students and people with life experiences. So we'll get kind of older adults on the courses as well. And even there, there's this comparison, the older students thinking, oh my God, the younger students are going to know more than me. They've just come out of education, they'll know about systems, they'll know about, you know, kind of how to do things online and things like that and I've got no idea. And then the, the younger students are looking at the, the older students, you know, or the more mature students and thinking well I've not got that life experience, you know, look at everything they've done. I've just come from school to college to university. So what's really good thing to do with them really is think about actually what are our similarities. Obviously there's one easy similarity, one thing everybody has in common. They all want to work in the helping professions because they care about people and they want to make a difference. So we kind of start off there really. But it was interesting because many years ago, I'm going back to. I don't. Maybe over 10 years ago now. Anyway, we did. I was part of a group of people that did a project looking at student nurses, student midwives, student cognitive behavioral therapists and student counselors where we looked at the relationships between self compassion, burnout, general well being, compassion fatigue, which is really a term I've changed my views on. But, but we. And it was just a correlation study. So, so, and how that had started was because I was doing a, I did a class for, for a colleagues where I was teaching student nurses or midwifery students. It might have been about self care and self compassion. And I was talking about kind of symptoms of burnout and stress. And these were a fantastic bunch of students. But a lot of them when we had this open conversation were talking about how they felt kind of high levels of stress and anxiety and how they had symptoms of burnout. And I thought, well, you know, this is really troubling because the students who are trying to make a difference, but they're juggling so much. So, you know, some of them have young families or elderly parents. So there was so much going on. But I guess when I heard that just actually just from doing a couple of classes, I felt like I just wanted to do something about it. So we did the studies and what we found was the people with higher levels of self compassion had lower levels of stress, burnout, etc. The people with higher levels of self criticism had more symptoms of burnout, compassion fatigue, et cetera. Which is no, you know, for anybody listening or watching this from the CFT community will think, well, yeah, well, so, so what? I kind of would guess that. But I guess it gave us a platform then to think, okay, we know this for sure. The midwifery sample of students was a. Was something like 103 students. So it wasn't really a small sample based on just one university and over 50 of them reported high levels of self criticism and negative symptoms associated with that. So then we kind of instigated things like doing compassionate mind training. And sometimes it was people would volunteer to come. And you know, that kind of evolved into me doing bits with people on my compassion focused therapy module and our CBT programs that seemed to make a difference. So when the, when the self compassion app came out, I thought I want to try this with the staff and students at the university. And what was super interesting for me wasn't all the stats. You know, we have two papers out, one is the stats paper and one is the qualitative paper. And one of my colleagues ran the focus groups for the, for the paper. And it was things like how they weren't aware of self criticism and how cultivating and learning about self compassion helped them befriend the inner critic a lot more than they think they would have done. You know, realizing that the inner critic had a purpose and potentially that purpose was to try and be helpful. You know, people were kind of talking about how they'd name the inner critic. So I think somebody said, I just see it as a bit of the Grinch, you know, and now I've kind of, I'm able to respond to it in a, in a different way and say, I don't need you right now, but thanks anyway. So I think all of those things. So kind of noticing that students were having a tricky time and then trying to help to do something about it and then seeing the results of that and, and then kind of seeing cohorts that have come through sort of since then kind of, you know, we work with them thinking about what we got that's in common rather than this comparison. And they become much more friendly with each other. So instead of having little pockets of groups, you may be the mature students do things like, you know, do you work more together as a team? So does that answer your question? Have I gone around that in a bit of a long winded way?
- [22:43]
B
No, that's, that's a beautiful, comprehensive answer to the question. It is. There is this, this burnout factor with young people and with university students. And one of the things that's a little bit behind it is this self criticism thing. And it's interesting to hear that in a way the self criticism is there, but people felt like they were unaware of it actually. So it kind of is there. It's churning and burning and so on and really making things harder, making something that's difficult even harder. And yet when self compassion was brought in, it not only brought self criticism into awareness, but it went beyond that and actually tried to befriend or to understand and to make sense of that self criticism in a way that I guess still validated perhaps some of the concerns behind the self criticism, but without the self criticism then being kind of so shaming that we then end up anxious and depressed and, and burnt out. We did a study actually this year that's not, or last year actually, that's not published yet, where we measured self compassion at time one and then measured major life events three months later at time two. And then the psychological outcomes at time two. And yeah, similar sort of finding that self compassion moderated the effect of those major life events. This was for university students as well because they're there, they're at uni, they're trying to study and pass and everything, but things are also happening in their lives and, and you know, kind of coping with, with all of that. You, you've talked about self compassion, but I wanted to hone in on kindness as a, as a concept and maybe go back to the compassion piece in a sec because the Kindness workbook is, is for young people but also young adults, I think. And it, and I, yeah, wonder how are you seeing kindness or self kindness? You know, what, what, what, how might you present that? And yeah, how might kindness offer something more than a performance driven or a kind of, you know, problem solving kind of way of approaching things?
- [25:07]
C
I guess for us, when we were starting off writing the book, Mary and I were mindful that we were kind of really wanting to focus on the things we wish we'd have known when we were younger. So we wanted to talk about, you know, kind of thinking about values. And so yeah, when I was growing up in Salford, just outside Manchester, as a young person, we didn't really have much. I grew up on a sort of a council estate in Salford and. But what we were always taught in school was think about your goals, what your short term goals, what your long term goals. Nobody ever talked to us about values. What are the things that matter to you? That wasn't talked about at home, it wasn't talked about in school. And so for some people thinking about goals, it would set them up potentially to fail because, you know, sometimes if the goals are achievable, it can be really, really tricky. So Mary and I wanted really to kind of include things in the book that we wish we'd have known as well as some of the kind of traditional CBT stuff, but done through the eyes of compassion focus work. And we've got a section on compassion focused and compassionate mind training. But we thought that was really, really important. So people, young people reading the start to think, okay, so I value my friends, that that's something that's important to me. I value fun or a value connection or a value justice. Where will that leave me in the future? You know, if those are the things that are important to me. So I've got my goals as well potentially. But the, this is how I would like to live my. My life moving forward. So. So kind of. So that that's why we chose the word. Well, another reason we chose the word kindness really was because actually a lot of young people wouldn't understand necessarily, or have compassion as a regular phrase or topic. That was kind of talked about in school. But funnily, funnily enough, when we think about kindness, I've just wrote something down before. The Oxford Children's Word of the year in 2024 was kindness. So children had chose that word as the most important word and the most influential. So whilst Mary and I obviously know that there's a difference between kindness and compassion, how fantastic that that could be a base that they could under. They knew what being kind was and so we thought that that was kind of a really good kind of weigh in to help people start, first of all, thinking about how can I be kind to myself and other people. Funnily enough, though, Stan, even when I do workshops with adults and we talk generally about acts of kindness, and I say to people in the workshop, what does an act of kindness mean to you? And it's always 95 plus. Doing an act of kindness for somebody else, holding the door open, sending somebody a nice text, buying somebody flowers. It's very rarely anyone says doing an act of kindness for me. You know, like, I had one person who said, actually, if I think about me as well, it would be just having a break from social media. You know, that was. That's an act of kindness for me. So, so, yeah, I mean, I know compassion we think of more as a kind of. Is a motivation wanting to instigate change. I suppose kindness is more of a showing care and friendliness, showing somebody that they matter. Compassion's more a motivation to change something and to, you know, to notice suffering and try and do something about it.
- [29:30]
B
Yes, it's. It's interesting to think about the, the distinctions there, but I, I think what you're sort of saying is that kindness is sort of the hook, in a way with the book. You know, like, people understand kindness and, and there is a popularity around that word and concept and, and people will just intuitively see the benefits of kindness and not so much the benefits of kindness to self. Maybe by the sounds of it, it's sort of. That's harder to at least just spontaneously come up with, but certainly kindness resonates. But then within the workbook itself, you're exploring values and you're looking at different cognitive strategies or behavioral strategies. You're moving into compassionate mind training and so on. So sort of within itself is all of that, that good stuff as well.
- [30:25]
C
And mindfulness, you know, to do a lot more mindfulness in schools in the UK now. You know, so we've got kind of calm, peaceful place, you know, kindness crusaders rather than compassionate other, you know. So we've played around with the terminology and we've. And, and because within the Kindness Workbook because it was written for young people, Mary and I really kind of, we often with publishers as you know they have their own in house illustrators and Mary knew a young person who was a brilliant illustrator I think called Phoebe Monday. She was, I think she was only about 14 at the time and she eventually the publisher agreed for Phoebe to do the images and she did these fabulous images for us of kindness crusaders and so that young people could relate to. So I think one was we had a couple of superheroes and they all, the thing they all had in common was he had the kindness bad John little K. We had a cheerleader, you know, where young people could relate to that. You know, friends that have always got the back. Somebody that's kind of cheering them on. We had a teacher that was a kindness crusader and we had an animal because not everybody would feel maybe want or want or kind of think of a, of somebody with kindness or compassion. So we decided to use an owl that was a kindness crusader as well that also had the little K badge on. So it's very cft but we've just used if different terminology and to our surprise actually the Kindness Workbook then started. Older people, adults. We had somebody in the 70s really kind of finding benefit and finding the Kindness Workbook helpful even just thinking about the future self. So yeah, so actually surprised Mary and I fun. Funnily enough Stan, I don't know whether you know this but the, the Kindness Workbook was published in Korea. It's done really well. Yeah, it was published in Korea. There were certain elements we needed to take out. But the Korean Publishers association voted the Kindness Workbook as one of the most outstanding non fiction books for young people in 2025 in Korea. Mary and I would never have even thought about anything like that. You know, the fact that it would be helping people in another country but not just that. It was voted one of the most outstanding non fiction books for. For young people. So yeah, I was super, super thrilled with that.
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B
Congratulations. I mean I, I was just looking at my bookshelf here to, to madly see where my copy is, but I think my copy's at work because I use it at work and I work with adults, you know, so I do think it, it, you know, translates across the, the various age groups and cohorts and, and so on because it's just really good practical fundament. Some of the fundamentals of, of developing this, this notion of self compassion. What, what do you, what are your thoughts? And maybe, maybe this is me getting a bit caught in the difference between kindness and compassion, but sort of, at what point does kindness really evolve into something that we might think of as more as compassion or self compassion?
- [34:24]
C
Well, I suppose when you move from just kind of generally thinking about I'm doing something kind of holding a door open for somebody or you know, so, so it moves away from an expression of care and friendliness to a motivation to do something about suffering to help alleviate suffering. And often, you know, it, it will cross over for that. And even with young people, you know, they really care deeply for the friends, you know, and, and I guess sending a supportive te them saying I'm here for you, can I, do you want me to come along when you're kind of struggling or facing a challenge, that could be an act of compassion rather than just a kind act?
- [35:17]
B
Yeah, no, it's, I think that's, that's really helpful. The kindness is, is still involving care and friendliness and doing things for the benefit, I suppose of the other person. But compassion then is more about maybe that person is suffering. And so the motivation is to notice and be aware of that suffering and do something kind of specifically to alleviate or prevent that, as the definition goes, I suppose. And in a way, compassion. I wonder if compassion is a form of kindness that's just giving attention to suffering or, or the other way around or whether compassion involves some kindness at the heart of it, but also, you know, with this focus on suffering.
- [36:07]
C
But of course, I mean, I want to be compassionate and I want to be kind.
- [36:11]
B
That's true, that's true.
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C
I don't want one without the other. I want both.
- [36:16]
B
Yes. Young adults who are, you know, highly self critical and so on. I mean often that can be a real block for self compassion and they feel uncomfortable or even undeserving. What have you noticed there with young people or young adults resisting the idea of self compassion? And are there ways that you found that can be helpful in gently moving them towards more self compassion?
- [36:48]
C
Yeah, so we wanted to kind of. This is really, really tricky in therapy, isn't it? Because for a lot of people, particularly young people, but for, also for adults, they may not have experienced compassion or even kindness or care from another Being so it may be alien to them. Going back to the image that Phoebe did with the Kindness Crusaders, you've also got the image of the animal, you know, potentially could we kind of think outside of the box, could have think of a time when, you know, another being, whether it's kind of, you know, something in nature or you know, another being showed care, care or kindness or compassion to us. So I guess sometimes it's, it's, it's thinking about actually what is the fear block or resistance here? Is it to do with. I've never experienced it, so I don't know what this would look like for me. Is it. Well, I have experienced this but, but actually somebody else had ulterior motives in this situation. I'm thinking about grooming and you know, people showing kindness or compassion and then something leading to kind of abuse or maybe sometimes people in therapy kind of reporting that they have, you know, maybe they've done something wrong, they've made a mistake, maybe they feel shame and therefore I don't deserve compassion, I don't deserve this, to give myself this. So again, so I guess it's working with those but doing so in a way that's kind of cultivating the grounding first, you know, so maybe introducing things like soothing rhythm, breathing and kind of doing the groundwork and the, you know, because that's really painful stuff then, isn't it? If people are then kind of getting to the stage where, you know, they're writing about fears, blocks and resistances. I think in, in, in one of your books you, you talk about issues with faith blocks and resistances too.
- [39:00]
B
Yeah, no, it's all of those, it's sort of shaped by life experiences as they say, isn't it? And, and if we've had certainly shame based experiences or, or trauma or fear based experiences growing up, especially in and around that caring system, it can make it very difficult to approach self compassion. And then there's that funny thing whereby you mentioned before that self criticism was sort of out of the outside the awareness and really just a very automatic thing, you know, like people, people know what it means to be self critical really. But often with self compassion it's sort of like what do you even mean by that? Or what is it that I would do to be more self compassionate and, and trying to just gradually step by step, set the groundwork, create a sense of safeness, move towards those strategies, just slowly but surely helping people to gradually habituate to it a bit and, and also learn the actual practical, practical skills.
- [40:10]
C
Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah.
- [40:14]
B
And I love that about your self compassion app with Chris Irons. I suppose.
- [40:18]
C
Yeah, yeah we're super thrilled with, with the app. We've got some stats recently. It's been downloaded something like 80,000 times over around 1500 reviews and downloaded in I think there's 197 countries in the world and it's been downloaded into something like 188.
- [40:49]
B
Yes.
- [40:51]
C
That's so amazing.
- [40:52]
B
Incredible. That's incredible. What, what reach. You know it's, it's sort of spine tingling to think about that, that this, the way that it's, it's putting those ideas out there. Yeah, yeah you, you mentioned a. I know this is me being a bit nerdy but you did mention some of the stats. There was a stats paper on it. Did you say, is that, was that to do with the self compassion app?
- [41:16]
C
It was, yeah, it's. I can send it to you if you've not seen it. But yeah, it was with the university students and staff at Salford.
- [41:27]
B
Oh yes.
- [41:28]
C
And they, they had access to the app for. There's a little bit of a flaw really in our, in our research plan. I do it a little bit differently. I think we gave people access to the app for 28 days because the app is for 28 days. It's built on 28 CFT sessions. So we talk about the science of the model research and the theory, the philosophy, these kind of daily wisdoms and lots of different tools. The app company that we collaborated with have done a fabulous job and yeah, so the paper looked at it was just basically a pre and post study. So we used different scales, you know that and looked at the differences pre and post and it did make a difference I think on most scales the kind of well being improved compassion. There was something where there wasn't a statistical difference. I can't remember which part off the top of my head. But yes, certainly self compassion improved and criticism etc reduced. So yeah but the, the problem really is with that study is in reality as human beings do we always have time to kind of engage with a nap or a book every day for you know, over a specific time. And the answer is probably no. So you know with the studies that we're doing now we're leaving it open ended so that people are not feeling pressured to do something every day. And in reality when we have an app on our phone often it's an app that we have access to for 12 months. So it might not, you know. So I mean the good thing is with, with us saying okay, let's just have access for 28 days. We can see that there was something in the app potentially that was making a difference, you know, rather than something potentially outside of that.
- [43:40]
B
Yeah, no it's, it's wonderful. I've just, I've just brought the, the paper up evaluating the impact of the self compassion app has on levels of compassion, psychological distress and well being and increases in self compassion, self reassurance, emotion regulation and well being and reductions in self criticism, anxiety and stress. And post study participants became more open to receiving compassion from others. So yes, lovely results. I'll actually put the link to that paper in the, in the description. It looks like it's an open access paper so that's actually really great. That'll be a nice little, a little thing for everybody to have a look at.
- [44:23]
C
I think both, I think both of the papers that we've got published currently are open access. So the qualitative one is as well beautiful. I think so, yeah.
- [44:34]
B
Now, before I let you go, I wanted to come back to Roy because I'm very much a dog person and well in fact a Labrador person. And you've been exploring how dogs can support well being and compassion. Especially compassionate sort of, not, not so much in the therapy space but you know, kind of caring visitations and things like that through this animal assistance work. So, so tell us a bit about what you're doing there and, and what, what you found and what that experience is like.
- [45:16]
C
There's a nice little project actually, I'm calling it my pet project.
- [45:19]
B
Very clever.
- [45:24]
C
And it's. We're doing some charity work for a charity in the UK called Therapy Dogs Nationwide. And so Roy was training to be a guide dog and came to us when he was 18 months old. He didn't make it as a guide dog. We don't say failed. It didn't make it as a guide. I was a bit anxious on the, on the roads. So if there was a bit a boss or a wagon or a lorry or something going by, he'd be a bit jumpy. And partly that, partly the reason for that is because he was born during the pandemic and the roads were a lot quieter so he probably didn't get used to the, the noise. So when he came to us with such a wonderful temperament, we decided to kind of think about, I mean we're on a wait list actually for two years for, for a guide dog that didn't quite make it. Sometimes it's because of physical health, but I'd had in the back of my Mind for a while the impact that, that animals can often make in people's lives even within compassion focused therapy. Often, you know, in my work, and you possibly found this yourself, that people won't think about a compassionate other as another human being. Often it's a pet, you know, so, or a part of nature. So I feel like we're missing a bit of a trick really in the actually could we use animals a little bit more kind of to boost well being and even from a CFT perspective. And I can't see that we kind of doing that at the moment. So what Roy and I are doing and my partner is with the volunteer work, we go into care homes and I mean we really wanted to interpass something. So Roy and I passed our therapy dogs training which was really good and we made sure everybody in guide dogs knew that he'd passed. And he actually has his own Instagram because it was that many people when he came to us from guide dogs that were really invested in his well being and wanted to know what he was up to. Instead of back and forth with WhatsApp messages, we said we'll set up an Instagram. So he's got his own Instagram page called Walks with Roy. If anyone just looks likes looking at fun pictures of dog adventures. And yeah, so we go into, we do things like we go into care homes and, and I kind of feel really, really sorry for people in care homes who often they may have lost one of their animals because they've had to be admitted to a care home and you know, the care homes won't let them take the pet with them, you know, so it's a double whammy. You know, they might be struggling with dementia or something and then this animal has been taken away from them. So, so, so we do that, we go into local kind of communities. Roy represented the animals who lost their lives in the war in the, in the Remembrance Sunday event in the uk. So the big poster, you know, that was put up about the animals that lost their lives in the war and Roy with his therapy dog uniform, I don't know whether people will be able to, to, to see that picture. Oh, there he is, his little tag on and yes. And yeah, I'm just trying to do some fun nice things at the moment. So you know, he can go into schools, he's been into, he's been into hospitals, his, his foster family. So the people that have him when we're on holiday, they kind of have known Roy longer than us and they take him and Sarah Thornton who was his foster family. She's a doctor so every now and again she's able to take him into work and that is a big difference. And helps with patients. So yeah, we do little things like that with him really. And we're potentially doing some things with another charity called Anxiety uk, which is a charity that helps people with variety of different anxiety disorders and some people have phobias of dogs. So being able to kind of meet and work with a dog as good natured as Roy can really, really help them. So yeah, I'm just doing a, I'm just writing an article for a magazine. The magazine's connected with the babcp, which is the British association for Counseling and Psychotherapy here in the uk. But it's just a fun piece kind of just talking about how animals, you know, can it. How. Well, how they've impacted all of our lives throughout history. You know, from, you know, being carrier pigeons in the war or being kind of mascots, you know, for troops and, and things like that to, to, you know, how it's evolved now and we have, have kind of donkey sanctuaries that people can go to and pet the animals. So. So yeah, it's just, it's just a bit of a nice thing to do. It's a bit feel good and it's, you know, it's cultivating compassion and kind of using compassionate mind techniques as well. So, you know, if people are talking about kind of the sadness or the suffering, you know, then, you know, they've got potentially a little helper there that can help alleviate that suffering, albeit for a short time.
- [51:18]
B
Yeah, dogs sort of domesticated us, didn't they? In a way. They sort of came in with their wagging tails and their little floppy ears and we just fell in love with them. And I think they, they do create something very special I suppose is a feeling of moving from threat to soothing in a way. And they create a sense of soothing and calmness and connection and in fact, in some ways that feeling is temporary in a way, like you said, or when the dog is there with you. But in some ways it just really plants a seed, plants a feeling, plants a memory. And, and you know, I have a couple of dogs that are not with me anymore but who for various reasons, yeah, bring them to mind and they become, they are a compassionate friend. And, and there's, there's something very, very compassionate in terms of the, the impact of, of having, having a dog around. Cats, not so much. People might get up upset at me for saying that, but they'll give you compassion if they feel like it. Whereas dogs are just so generous with their. With their love.
- [52:42]
C
Yeah, they're so happy to see you, aren't they? Yeah. I read your piece that you've kind of sent. Sent round about Bruno, which was beautiful and kind of using Bruno as your compassionate other.
- [52:57]
B
Sometimes it's hard when they go, but in another way they do leave you this gift of what it feels like to be so unconditionally loved and to be able to just stroke their little velvety ears. I shouldn't go on otherwise. I might. I might start to upset myself. But. But I have requested to follow walks with Roy, so thank you for that, but. Yeah. Dr. Elaine Beaumont, thank you for the wonderful contributions. People should definitely check out the Kindness workbook and of course the Compassionate Mind workbook as well, and the Self Compassion app. I mean, that's just so that the dissemination there that it's, it's managed to achieve is, Is wonderful. I know Chris Irons has been posting lately that there's just a few final countries to get to and so hopefully it'll be around the world. But also, thank you for speaking with me on compassion in a T shirt.
- [54:00]
C
Oh, it's been a pleasure, Stan. It's so lovely to see you. Thank you. Thanks.
- [54:04]
B
Lovely to see you. My pleasure. Thank you very much.