Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) in Glasgow

What CFT is and how it works

Compassion-Focused Therapy was developed by Professor Paul Gilbert to help people who experience persistent self-criticism, shame, and difficulty feeling safe or soothed. It is grounded in an evolutionary understanding of how our minds work, recognising that many of our emotional struggles are not our fault, but are the result of brains that evolved to prioritise threat detection and survival.

CFT is built around the idea that we have three emotion regulation systems:

• Threat: detects danger and drives anxiety, anger and shame
• Drive: motivates us to achieve and acquire
• Soothing: helps us feel calm, safe and connected

For many people, particularly those who grew up in critical, unpredictable, or emotionally unavailable environments, the threat system becomes dominant, while the soothing system remains underdeveloped.

The goal of CFT is to help you strengthen your soothing system and develop what is called the "compassionate mind," the ability to notice your suffering with courage, understanding, and warmth rather than harsh self-judgement. This is not about being soft on yourself or lowering your standards. It is about learning to motivate and support yourself in ways that actually work, rather than relying on self-criticism that often makes things worse.

Who CFT helps

Compassion-Focused Therapy can be particularly beneficial if you experience:

• Persistent self-criticism: a harsh inner voice that tells you that you are not good enough, that you have failed, or that you should be doing better
• Shame: a deep sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with you, often connected to early life experiences
• Trauma and difficult early experiences: particularly where these have led to feelings of worthlessness, self-blame, or difficulty trusting others. CFT integrates well with trauma-focused approaches
• Depression: especially where low mood is maintained by relentless self-criticism and a sense of inadequacy
• Anxiety: particularly social anxiety, where fear of judgement and rejection drives avoidance and distress
• Perfectionism: where impossibly high standards and fear of failure create a cycle of striving and self-punishment
• Eating difficulties: where body shame, self-criticism, and emotional regulation difficulties maintain unhelpful patterns around food and weight

What a CFT session looks like

Therapy begins with a thorough assessment to understand your difficulties and the experiences that have shaped how you relate to yourself. Your psychologist will help you develop a compassion-focused formulation, a shared understanding of why self-criticism and shame have become such dominant features in your life.

CFT sessions typically include:

• Psychoeducation: learning about the three emotion regulation systems, how evolution has shaped your mind, and why self-criticism often feels automatic and difficult to shift
• Compassionate mind training: guided exercises to develop and strengthen your capacity for self-compassion, including soothing rhythm breathing, compassionate attention, and compassionate self-talk
• Compassionate imagery exercises: creating a vivid sense of an ideal compassionate figure or a compassionate version of yourself, which activates the soothing system and provides a felt sense of warmth and safety
• Behavioural experiments: testing out compassionate ways of responding to difficult situations in everyday life, building confidence that self-compassion leads to better outcomes than self-criticism

Throughout therapy, your psychologist works with you at a pace that feels safe. Developing self-compassion can sometimes feel uncomfortable or unfamiliar at first, particularly if you have learned to see kindness towards yourself as weakness or self-indulgence. Your psychologist will help you understand and work through these blocks with patience and care.

Our CFT-trained psychologists

Our psychologists bring specialist training in Compassion-Focused Therapy alongside their doctoral-level clinical qualifications. Dr Aisha Tariq and Dr Zounish Rafique both integrate CFT into their clinical work, drawing on its principles to help clients develop a more compassionate relationship with themselves and their experiences.

View our full team to learn more about our psychologists and find the right fit for you.