Threat VS. Compassionate Processing Worksheet
By
HappierTherapy
Author bio
The Happier Therapy editorial team is made up of Masters and PhD counselling psychologists. Each worksheet is created by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The worksheet then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
Download Worksheet
We generally experience multiple kinds of threats if the specific mindset is more functional than the positive one. Self-critical beings are more prone to experience negative states such as shame and lack of self-compassion. However, the healing impact of compassion has been irrefutable since life appeared on Earth. The Dalai Lama always stresses ‘wanted to make others happy – focus on compassion; wanted to be happy – focus on compassion’ (Dalai Lama 1995, 2001 as cited in Gilbert, 2009). The good news is that compassion is a skill one can learn, while evidence suggests practicing compassion has enormous benefits for mental and physical well-being.
What Are the Theories Behind This Worksheet?
Compassion-focused therapy provides the fundamental theoretical formation and process of applying compassion to psychotherapy and disseminates it through various forms of training. We will focus on one such approach, compassionate mind training developed from multiple observations. Our focus will be on the core feature of the training designed for those who experience shame and self-criticism due to the activation of a threat processing mindset as they are generally unable to be kind to themselves, to feel self-warmth, or to be self-compassionate.
How Will This Worksheet Help you?
This worksheet will help people who are self-critical and ashamed more often or feel threatened most of the time to help them understand their mental processing and change their focus from threat to compassion.
How Should You Use This Worksheet?
This worksheet is helpful for everyone being more critical of oneself or hopeless to take some time out and identify their threat mindset. This identification will help them to replace that negative approach with a positive, compassionate one.
