Emotional memory, mindfulness and compassion

Paul Gilbert

pp. 99-110

in: Fabrizio Didonna (ed), Clinical handbook of mindfulness, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

This chapter considers the role that mindfulness and compassion can play in helping people who come from difficult and traumatic backgrounds. These individuals often have a highly elevated sense of threat – both from the outside (what others might do to them) and from the inside (feeling overwhelmed by aversive feelings or memories; or their own selfdislike/ contempt for themselves). The basic view is that traumatic backgrounds sensitise people to become overly reliant on processing from their threat systems.