Question 1

We recently witnessed panic buying on an immense scale. What role does compassion play when this behavior is rampant?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

Well the newspapers will suggest immense but actually it wasn't that immense - the vast majority didn't.  It's very important to recognise that panic buying is exactly what it says people are panicking so we have compassion too for the fact that some individuals have not had an opportunity to do much in the way of emotion regulation, they are easily overwhelmed and threatened by the world and don't know what to do.

They may have had early lives where they didn't get much support and had to be self reliant. So we have compassion for the fact that they're usually coming from a place of intense anxiety and uncertainty and can't work out what is the best thing to do and they can't connect themselves to a sense of community as a source of their safeness. So for them, it becomes very much about how they have to protect themselves.

Of course there are small groups of other people who do this because they plan to sell them on and make a profit and tragically there have been groups who have sought to make profit from this terrible crisis. Tragically even businesses are known to be profiteering and I see those as far more problematic than those individuals who panic bought toilet rolls.

Question 2

As our amygdalas are reacting to the threat we all face and our bodies produce a constant infusion of cortisol, can compassionate behavior drive dopamine release?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

Yes, you will see an answer to the question above on how to promote compassion in the body. You're certainly wanting to focus on your vagus nerve and if you want to, look on the Internet and look at things that will help the vagus nerve. Dopamine is more of a drive neurotransmitter -- people are beginning to get interested in acetylcholine and GABA.

Question 3

There have been many instances of unwarranted judgment in the world lately. Instead of feeling compassion, people are looking for someone to blame. What is the best way to address this type of behavior?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

It is true there are individuals who perhaps have underlying issues of anger or fear who, given the chance, will go on the attack with other people. It's tricky to address that behaviour because usually it's from a very threat focused position and so unless we can help people with what is threatening them or what is upsetting them it's tough going. Generally it's useful for us just to recognise there are people like this and to not get too caught up in it if we can avoid it.  People who blame others often are quite tricky people at the best of times.

Question 4

Self-compassion is associated with improved immune system functioning. In the bid to boost my immune system through compassion, what techniques would you suggest?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

The first is to work on your body, and that means finding out about your diet, doing exercise and breathing practises. Most of those you'll find on the Internet. Work on your body to support your immune system and there's all kinds of controversies over whether the different supplements can help. We know that our diets can be quite bad for our immune systems, particularly inflammatory diets that  involve high carbohydrates, sugars and so on. So body care is very important.

When it comes to breathing exercises, find ones that suit you by looking at exercises on the Internet such as parasympathetic breathing -- generally these invite you to breathe slower and deeper than usual, breathing down deep into the diaphragm filling the lungs gently and then allowing the breath to leave the body gently. You can go at 5 seconds in, hold for a little, and then 5 seconds out -- but there are other patterns you can use. Some involve longer out breaths - but the two things you're interested in is the rate of the breath, the depth of the breath and the smoothness of the breath.

Then, you can use compassion visualisations. Here you spend time sitting quietly and imagining yourself at your compassionate best, the self you would ideally like to be if you were at your most courageous, wisest and so on. Then you imagine yourself engaging with whatever life tasks are in front of you as your compassion self.

Another set of visualisations can be linked to bringing to mind certain individuals and focusing on a real wish for them to grow and flourish, holding in mind this wish for them to grow flourish and focusing on the joyfulness you would experience if they could it can be very helpful.

Question 5

In times of great anxiety are we more likely to only show compassion to those we love and trust?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

This is always the case. We will always show more compassion to the people we like than the people we don't; to the people we know than the people we don't and so on. Having said that, what we do know is that in this crisis people have laid down their lives for strangers in the medical and other professions. Part of this is because we have created a cultural understanding of the need for a certain kind of caring for those who have fallen to the virus.

Question 6

Hi Professor Gilbert, in your opinion will the fear and uncertainty of our economic future result in a business culture less compassionate than before the pandemic?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

It is a great question, but we don't really know. At the moment, many people are hoping that our discovery of a more compassionate way of caring and sharing with each other will become a template for subsequent change. The big question comes when we think about how we're going to pay for it all. Unless we raise taxes quite substantially we're going to hand future generations substantial debt. So the first test of compassion is the degree to which the wealthier individuals are prepared to pay higher taxes  -- if we don't see that then I suspect we're not going to see a huge change. To bring a more compassionate world we have to bring a much more socially just and economically fair world. We know that during the years of austerity in the UK it was the poor that carried the burden and the United Nations had been very critical of the UK for that. So, we'll just have to wait and see.

In regard to businesses we are working with, some we help adopt a compassionate motto which is simply they should be a business which seeks to be helpful, not harmful. Even if they take that very simple motto, that could have far reaching effects.

Question 7

Are there ways to specifically promote compassion in a group of remote workers?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

A lot depends upon how you communicate with these groups. By Zoom? We always suggest that there should be a direct discussion about what compassion is - so that everybody shares the definition and they know what they're talking about. You get problems when you aren't clear on definition as some people have very different ideas about it; some think it's just about being a bit kind, other people think it's about being soft or tender and they miss completely the fact that the key to compassion is courage and wisdom. So whenever you're doing work on compassion spend some time on definition so everybody knows what they're talking about. Once you've got that clear, then you can put to the group on Zoom (or wherever) how they would like to make that happen between them, and then you begin to develop a plan to embed it in your group. The more people can be innovative the more they will own it.

Question 8

Is the endless cycle of doom and gloom news we are being bombarded with affecting our ability to be compassionate?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

It's a great question - we don't know. It's certainly making us more depressed and anxious.  A lot depends whether these stories leave us feeling helpless or whether they offer ways in which we can find to be helpful.

Question 9

What areas of the brain are involved in generating compassionate behavior?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

There are some areas of the brain that seem specifically linked to caring behaviour such as the periductal grey - through to various areas in the frontal cortex. Often different motives are linked to how combinations of different brain systems are working rather than them being located in one area. It’s the pattern of brain activation that's crucial  Also, what's very interesting is the way in which the autonomic nervous system is organised and particularly linked to compassion is the vagus nerve, which is the 10th cranial nerve of the parasympathetic system. Oxytocin has been linked to compassion but it tends to be group focused. The hormone oxytocin is very linked to empathy and compassion behaviour but can actually make some people more aggressive to outsiders, or mothers more aggressive in defence of their children.

Question 10

Many of the worlds most powerful people have stepped up to fill needs as Covid19 wreaks havoc, but many more have not. Why is it that people with the ability to help others, often chose not to?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

Many of the people who get into authority in leadership positions do so because they have what might be called ruthless ambition or narcissistic personality.

There is a group of traits called the dark triad (you can look that up on google) which are machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopath and the higher up you go in organisations the more likely you are to run into these traits in people.

Capitalism rather rewards those with these traits. We also know from recent evidence that the more people have (richer) they tend to become less compassionate because they become more focused on controlling and holding what they've got or trying to make it even bigger. They become focused on not losing or letting go of their resources.

Question 11

As a species, are we evolving a more significant physiological infrastructure for empathy?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

No, evolution takes a lot of time, but what we are evolving perhaps is changes in the culture which makes these psychological competencies more likely to emerge. There may be epigenetic effects. So if you look at the Roman Empire, this was a very cruel society They may well have had empathy but it wasn't linked to a compassion motive. Indeed, part of the enjoyment of suffering (as in The Roman games of watching Game of Thrones) is because you have some empathy with those who are suffering in the sense you can have a sense of the fear they're going through, and that gives a sense of excitement rather than compassionate concern. So, empathy is a competency that we can use in many different ways. Manipulative people and people who want to be deceptive are going to be more successful if they are empathic. What's crucial however is the motivation of our behaviours. Compassion will be more effective if we come at it from an empathic than a non-empathic position – but empathy itself without a caring motive can be unhelpful.

Question 12

Hi, do you have any tips for promoting prosocial values in a newly formed team?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

Bring the team together and talk about the nature of pro social values and in particular the definition of compassion, and then develop ideas from the group as to how they could promote that between themselves. There are two types of promotion -  one is to promote it within the group itself; how they relate to each other and support each other. The second is how the group relates with the outside as it were. The most important thing for compassion is it should be bottom up; that people can come up with ideas that are then taken up by the group or manager, so they feel they are making a contribution.

Question 13

How do you know if someone is truly compassionate? I am hoping to be more discerning in future choices for volunteers in our organisation.

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it because we have so many different emotions and motives for doing things in us, some of which are unconscious. Some people think that because we tend to be more compassionate to people we like than people we don't; to our own children than those starving in another country, compassion is pretty self-focused anyway. We do things for many different reasons. Even going on holiday you might go because you want to rest, you want to see the country, you want to get some swimming in, you want to spend time with your family etc  -- so we very rarely do things for one reason and if we keep trying to workout are we genuine it will drive us nuts. We do compassion for a lot of reasons, partly because it makes us feel good when we are compassionate. So as the old saying goes - I'd rather be told to have a good day by somebody who didn't really care than being told to ‘sod off’ by somebody who did.  There is never a genuine versus are not genuine - it's always degrees, and of course it can vary from day to day. When people are very stressed, they may be less compassionate than when they are more chilled out. Compassion is not one thing or one process.

Question 14

I'm finding it more challenging to share warmth and compassion with my elderly clients while I am unable to reach out and hold their hands. How can this lack be negated?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

We are naturally designed to express our emotions through physical touch and so this is obviously sad that this cannot be done but there's an awful lot we can also do with voice tones and facial expressions. For example, having a slower voice than normal, sometimes sharing what you're feeling about them with them “I'm so sad I can't just touch your hand to offer you comfort” so can suggest “ you can imagine I'm doing that”. You can raise the issue with them so they know that you are sad about not being able to maybe touch their hand or whatever  - so you're not trying to negate it as such but you're trying to acknowledge it between you and work out ways to compensate rather than negate.

Question 15

As a supervisor how can I best lead with compassion?

Paul Gilbert · Accepted Answer

What would help you is to first be clear about what you understand compassion to be, because there are lots of different definitions and approaches. In Compassion Focused Therapy we see it as a basic motive that involves: 
1. Sensitivity to suffering and distress which is followed up with. 
2. Working out how to be helpful.

In the first part we enter into the world of the person who is suffering (or maybe focus in on our own) but once we have a sense of what's going on for that person then we switch our attention into what was likely to be helpful. Sometimes, wisdom requires us to recognise that we don't know the best thing to do so we are prepared to go and find out. For example we don't know how to make a vaccine at the moment but we are working on it.

Both the engagement aspect of compassion and the action part of compassion  require a degree of empathy. So you lead by showing your interest in the issues and difficulties people are having and then you invite them to collaborate with you on what would be helpful to them. There are useful questions you ask them:

- what do we understand by compassion  -- then offered them the definition and why we use that definition. -- distinguish between compassion and ways of being compassionate. For example, kindness and assertiveness are ways of being compassionate but are not compassion themselves.
- what would be the compassionate goals for our team?
- how could we make our team more compassionate to meet those goals.

The essence of compassionate leadership is this. I like the fact you are interested in them and how they are coping not just work output  - which I'm sure you are. Ensure you highlight the courage and wisdom aspects of compassion

I'm finding it more challenging to share warmth and compassion with my elderly clients while I am unable to reach out and hold their hands. How can this lack be negated?

We are naturally designed to express our emotions through physical touch and so this is obviously sad that this cannot be done but there's an awful lot we can also do with voice tones and facial expressions.

For example, having a slower voice than normal, sometimes sharing what you're feeling about them with them “I'm so sad I can't just touch your hand to offer you comfort” so can suggest “ you can imagine I'm doing that”.

You can raise the issue with them so they know that you are sad about not being able to maybe touch their hand or whatever  - so you're not trying to negate it as such but you're trying to acknowledge it between you and work out ways to compensate rather than negate.

Compassion and Connectedness in a COVID World

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