While many animals share abilities to be distress sensitive and caring of others, it is our newly evolved socially intelligent abilities that make us capable of knowingly and deliberately helping others and purposely developing skills and wisdom to do so. This book generates many research questions whilst exploring the similarity and differences of human compassion to non-human caring and looks at how compassion changes the brain and body, affects genetic expression, manifests at a young age and is then cultivated (or not) by the social environment.
Compassion: Concepts, Research and Applications
will be essential reading for professionals, researchers and scholars interested in compassion and its applications in psychology and psychotherapy.Paul Gilbert, OBE, is Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Derby, and has been actively involved in research and treating people with shame-based and mood disorders for over 30 years. He is a past President of the British Association for Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapy and a fellow of the British Psychological Society. He was awarded the OBE for contributions to mental health in 2011.