The Compassionate Mind
The Compassionate Mind
Tags: Compassionate, Mind
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on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 6:11 am and is filed under Books.
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Helped me to get the most out of my own therapy. Interesting approach and one I found useful.
Rating: 5 / 5
Too many books promise a lot but dont deliver. This seems to be helping me!! Along with stuff on mindfullness.
Rating: 4 / 5
The Compassionate Mind by Professor Paul Gilbert gave me fresh dimensions on Compassion. I had read Psychology at LSE 50 years ago, and then trained as a Social Worker, Senior Probation Officer and Director of a Counselling Service. I have met hundreds of people who demonstrated great compassion – but never really tried to analyse the components and antecedents of “The Compassionate Mind”. It was a facinating journey through this weighty yet readable tome. As a practising Christian who has studied and talked with people brought up following several other faiths, I have found many compassionate attitudes we share.
However I was very sad that the specific and unique compassionate actions and teachings of Jesus Christ are given so little emphasis. Professor Gilbert does emphasize that each faith school produces iconic stand-points which claim special uniqueness – so you would expect me to say that , wouldn’t you Professor? Your book was brilliantly written and well argued – and I was extremely glad i bought it and devoured it – even though the skimming over of what I deemed important was provocative – as you intended…! Thank you!
Rating: 3 / 5
This is a good book but beware it is very long and parts of it are quite hard to digest for an amateur. Aimed more at professionals in this field.
But very researched and laid out, thought provoking content and style.
Rating: 3 / 5
This is an important work. Written in such a non academic style it can be easily approached by anyone. Yet the references are very full and can be followed up for greater in depth research on Compassion. The practical exercises are straight forward and build a personal resource. The only issue that one can take up, is the use of words like “designed” when refering to the brain’s development. Adapted, evolved, emerged or developed would seem more appropriate. However Professor Gilbert is canny in many ways. He may be wooing the Creationists among us, or just making it such a comfortable read. Certainly he is approaching mankind’s next step in development, both from the individual level of mindfulness, to an understanding of a phenomena that will stop the human race from destroying itself. Politicians would do well to read this work. When is it being translated into Arabic and Chinese?
Rating: 5 / 5