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Understanding Self As Context

This document discusses the relationship between psychological flexibility, self-compassion, and physiological flexibility. It argues that self-as-context and self-compassion rely on feeling safe and connected physiologically as well as psychologically. Physiological measures like heart rate variability can indicate our ability to respond flexibly between threat and safety modes, and practices like compassionate breathing can increase both psychological and physiological flexibility to support self-as-context and self-compassion.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
63 views21 pages

Understanding Self As Context

This document discusses the relationship between psychological flexibility, self-compassion, and physiological flexibility. It argues that self-as-context and self-compassion rely on feeling safe and connected physiologically as well as psychologically. Physiological measures like heart rate variability can indicate our ability to respond flexibly between threat and safety modes, and practices like compassionate breathing can increase both psychological and physiological flexibility to support self-as-context and self-compassion.

Uploaded by

egnagnes
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Self as Context
ACBS Montreal 2016
Psychological Flexibility

“The general goal of ACT is to increase psychological flexibility – the


ability to contact the present moment more fully as a conscious human
being, and to change or persist in behavior when doing so serves valued
ends.”
Synergy of Psychological and
Physiological Flexibility
• Recently there has been recognition that
the ability to respond flexibly
physiologically complements the ability to
respond flexibly psychologically.
• E.g. Porges polyvagal theory, Thayer
neurovisceral integration
Our Premise Here

• Self as Context is
Psychological
• And
• Physiological
“You are the sky

everything else,

it’s just the weather”


True?
False?
Premise:
To Be the Sky, I Must Feel Safe

Self as context is: “…a sense of self that is a


safe and consistent perspective from which to
observe and accept all changing inner
experiences.” (from ACBS website)

• We must FEEL SAFE ENOUGH in order to


OBSERVE & BE WILLING to have unwanted
thoughts, feelings, sensations.
• Feeling safe and connected is at
least a physiological as it is a
psychological state.
• Paul Gilbert makes this point:
Where do you spend most of your time?
This me on a good day.
The Safe, Connected Physiological
System is Where Self-Compassion and
Self as Context Reside
Our safe, connected, affiliative system is as
evolutionarily wired as the threat or drive systems.
It’s based in our early attachments and in the
importance of social connections and affiliation for
human survival.
Unfortunately, unlike zebras (who apparently don’t get
ulcers), human relational framing can make it difficult to
feel present, safe, connected.
Self-compassion allows us to feel safe
enough to be the sky
• What is self-compassion?
• “---being touched by and open to one's own suffering, not
avoiding or disconnecting from it, [and] generating the desire
to alleviate one's suffering and to heal oneself with kindness”
(Neff, 2003a, p. 87) …
• Does this sound like Self as Context?
The Relationship between Self as context
and Self-compassion

• “Upon considering the relationship between self-as-context and


self-compassion, we can note that returning to an awareness of
self-as-context offers us a non-attached and dis-identified relationship to
our experiences. This allows the habitual stimulus functions of our painful
private events and stories to hold less influence over us. From the
perspective of the I-Here-Nowness of being, I can view my own suffering as I
might view the suffering of another and be touched by the pain in that
experience, without the dominant interference of my verbal learning
history, with its potential for shaming self-evaluations (Vilardaga, 2009;
Hayes, 2008).”
• Neff, K., & Tirch, D. (2013). Self-compassion and ACT. Mindfulness, acceptance, and positive psychology:
The seven foundations of well-being, 78-106.
• SELF-COMPASSION AND THUS
SELF AS CONTEXT ARE BASED
ON FEELINGS AS MUCH AS
THEY ARE BASED ON A DEICTIC
I/HERE/NOW PERSPECTIVE.
The Psycho-physiology
of
Self-compassion
• Like the fight-flight-freeze of the sympathetic nervous system’s threat
system-CARING, SAFETY, CONNECTEDNESS, COMPASSION are hardwired
• Oxytocin
• Thayer’s Neurovisceral Integration
• Porges’ Polyvagal Theory

• Unfortunately negativity and threat


come more naturally and there is a clear
bias toward threat and negativity
Why Zebras don’t get Ulcers

• The critical feature that distinguishes the adaptive (zebra) versus


the maladaptive (human) response is flexibility.
• Physiological as well as Psychological Flexibility
Heart Rate Variability: A physiological
index of PSYCHOLOGICAL FLEXIBILITY

• If our hearts beat like a metronome,


with little variation between beats,
we are less physiologically flexible.
• We are less able to move back and
forth between threat (sympathetic
nervous system) and safety
(parasympathetic nervous system)
Heart rate variability (HRV) as a
physiological index of compassion & S-A-C
• Abstract from: Rockliff, H., Gilbert, P., McEwan, K., Lightman, S., & Glover, D. (2008). A pilot exploration of
heart rate variability and salivary cortisol responses to compassion-focused imagery. Clinical
Neuropsychiatry, 5(3), 132-139.

• The evolution of mammalian caregiving involving hormones, such as oxytocin, vasopressin, and the
myelinated vagal nerve as part of the ventral parasympathetic system, enables humans to connect,
co-regulate each other’s emotions and create prosociality. Compassion-based interventions draw upon
a number of specific exercises and strategies to stimulate these physiological processes and create
conditions of “interpersonal safeness,” thereby helping people engage with, alleviate, and prevent
suffering. Hence, compassion-based approaches are connected with our evolved caring motivation and
attachment and our general affiliative systems that help regulate distress. Physiologically, they are
connected to activity of the vagus nerve and corresponding adaptive heart rate variability (HRV). HRV is
an important physiological marker for overall health, and the body–mind connection. Therefore, there is
significant value of training compassion to increase HRV and training HRV to facilitate compassion.
Despite the significance of compassion in alleviating and preventing suffering, there remain difficulties in
its precise assessment. HRV offers a useful form of measurement to assess and train compassion. Specific
examples of what exercises can facilitate HRV and how to measure HRV will be described. This paper
argues that the field of compassion science needs to move toward including HRV as a primary outcome
measure in its future assessment and training, due to its connection to vagal regulatory activity, and its
link to overall health and well-being.
• So - unlike being in threat mode - caring and self-compassion requires a choice and
takes PRACTICE

• Many ways of practicing being in a self-compassionate. self as context state:


• Kristen Neff: http://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/
Chris Germer: https://chrisgermer.com/meditations/
Dennis Tirch: http://www.mindfulcompassion.com/what-we-do-1-1/
Paul Gilbert: https://compassionatemind.co.uk/resources/audio
Jason Luoma & Jenna LeJeune:
https://www.actwithcompassion.com/compassion_audio_recordings
• Today Paul Gilbert’s Soothing rhythms breathing & Heart Rate Variability:
• When you slowly inhale: fast heart beats – sympathetic arousal
• When you slowly exhale: slow heart beats - parasympathetic
• When you have kind thoughts with slow breathing: you can increase physiological
and PSYCHOLOGICAL FLEXIBILITY by moving flexibly to “self as compassion” when
you need to
• When we breathe slowly @ 5 sec inhale, 5 secs exhale we increase the variability
of the interval between our heartbeats
• This increase in HRV allows us to move more flexibly to self as context and
self-compassion
• So let’s do it:
https://soundcloud.com/compassionatemind/soothing-rhythm-breathing-practic
es/s-JA0g8?in=compassionatemind/sets/compassionate-minds
Gilbert Breathing mp3

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