Author: isabelle leboeuf

“Sexual Compassion” was edited by psychreg. You can read it here.

How do you feel about giving yourself sexual pleasure? How about talking about it publicly? Do you feel perfectly comfortable tackling the subject?

In high school, I raised this subject with two friends and their reaction was outrage. I dared to talk about a taboo subject! To be honest, I would have forgotten about it if they hadn’t reminded me of it a few years later after watching a few episodes of  Sex and the City. 

They had discussed together and thanked me. Having had the opportunity to simply talk about giving themselves sexual pleasure had made them feel less lonely and released from a feeling of shame.

The association between shame and sexuality is common. It can of course be linked to sexual assaults but can also include sexual orientation, type of sexual practices, sexual body, fantasies, transgressed consent (suffered or acted), also fertility, infertility, termination of pregnancy, contraception – everything related to sex can be the source of a feeling of inadequacy, of being impossible to love or even a feeling of self-hatred. 

Shame is an emotion that teaches us social norms and prevents us from being perceived as different, unsuitable. But the burning of shame leaves us with the feeling that our behaviours if they are deviant make us bad. In fact, it has been shown in one study that it pushes us to secrecy and favours ruminations.

Sexual shame is probably the most widely shared experience of shame among human beings. The good news is that it is possible to reinvent a secure interindividual space, in which to be, to feel, to create and to take pleasure; a space of sexual compassion.

Because ultimately sex is nothing more than a pair of socks. It’s really a crappy image, but all the better, let’s go straight ahead by adding a yellow colour and a cartoon logo. Yellow socks may be appealing to some, but will never please everyone. And it’s fine like that! Let’s keep the joy and the pleasure of putting on the socks that excite us!

To approach our sexuality with self-compassion is to do it with the kindness of a good friend. It is being present to the pain, without judgement, trying to understand our history or that of our partner. It is also to keep in mind that we are not alone in the face of this feeling. 

Social networks are today a great tool for witnessing sexual suffering. Many people find the courage to expose themselves by refusing to be judged and thus allow everyone to realise that they are not alone in feeling embarrassed or ashamed.

To free oneself from shame is also to face our own gaze, our own criticism which fiercely tries to protect us from the judgement of others. We are sometimes tempted to flee or hide ourselves; to conceal a belly, an imperfection. But to avoid seeing oneself, or to show oneself, is also to avoid loving oneself, or feeling loved. Finding the courage to smile in the mirror or to the gaze of others is to risk reconciling with yourself.

Sexual self-compassion is welcoming our own suffering related to sexuality. Put it in perspective of our history: Why is this withdrawing hand so violently painful? I very often hear in my psychotherapy practice the pain of rejection that is replayed in sexuality. If the other doesn’t desire me, is it still possible to be loved?

I often explain that there are three sexualities in one. The sexuality of the body, that of the heart, and that of the spirit. You may want (the heart) chocolate cake but not be hungry (the body) and tell yourself that it is bad for your health (the mind). Likewise, you can love sex but be tired or worried that there will be negative consequences. All combinations are possible!

Listening to and differentiating our three sexual experiences and those of the other can allow us to better understand ourselves and better accept a certain confusion or ambivalence. Our mind is complex, delivered without instructions just like the beings sharing our sexuality.

Paul Gilbert defines compassion as a sensitivity to suffering and a motivation to relieve our suffering (self-compassion) or that of others. How is it possible to deal with the shame of having transgressed the consent of the other? 

Going from shame to guilt and from guilt to responsibility. I have sometimes received this type of testimony with great emotion, as much by the sign of confidence that was offered to me as by the courage to face the experience of shame. Shame tells us that we are the problem. To go to guilt is to realise that we are more complex than our actions and to face the problem and its consequences. 

Getting out of a form of fusion with our actions, leads us to see that our behaviour is problematic, but also that we are able to have different behaviours. By putting this problem in the future rather than in the past and moving from the observation of deconstruction to planning a reconstruction action; we really start to take responsibility. 

It is not a question of denying but of confronting the reality with courage and finding the appropriate answers. What if, true sexual liberation was the liberation of a speech that testifies courageously and unleashes the energy of desire?

From fear to love was edited by Psychreg. You can read it here.

What are you afraid of? Allow your thoughts to bring out something that could activate this emotion. How do you feel in your body when you’re afraid? How is your breathing? Are you tense? Are your shoulders perfectly relaxed?

If you have an intense urge to avoid this thought and you feel a strong fear that seems irrational, you may have a phobia.

Bravo for your courage! You just exposed yourself. That is to say, you have just mentally moved toward your fear rather than running away from it.

Cognitive behavioural therapy has shown that exposing ourselves to our fears is effective in freeing us. It’s counterintuitive but it’s a bit like if by going toward our fears, we could recreate a sense of security. We then learn something new.

Psychologists have long believed that it is through habituation (being present to the object of our fears) that fear disappears. Eric Morris, a researcher and expert in exposure therapy, points out that there are only a few studies that go in this direction. 

He specifies the importance of making new associations which will inhibit the old ones (the inhibitory learning model) and of approaching what scares us with psychological flexibility (that is to say with an openness to new experiences, uncertainty or with an open attention)

My patients have made me discover over the years of psychotherapy that the easiest way to access these two dimensions is joy.

Let’s take a concrete example. Suppose you have a crab phobia. Just seeing a photo of a crab makes you want to run away. If you want to break free from it, you’re going to have to go out and meet crabs. But how do you find the courage when you’ve been avoiding your seaside vacation for years?

Sharing attention with someone who isn’t afraid of crabs is a first step. We are often less afraid when we are with someone we trust. Why? Because sharing of attention or presence activates social joy that will help us regulate our negative emotions. 

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson in particular have long shown that positive emotions regulate negative emotions. With this trusted person who is not afraid of crabs, maybe even loves them, you can gradually look at pictures of crabs.

By discovering another vision of crabs, through the eyes of the another, you will learn new things. Gradually the crabs will associate with positive emotions. Van Kleef, a researcher working on the interpersonal dynamics of emotions, has shown that the emotional reactions that we observe in others allow us to create a new emotional conditioning. 

Watching someone find crabs ‘cool’ will help your brain associate crabs with a positive emotion that will counteract your fear. For example, you could watch videos of people handling crabs or warmly interacting with these adorable little animals, learning about their function in the ecosystem, or why some people love them.

Your brain will thus gradually make a new learning. You will more and more easily watch the crabs. You may even discover that you are starting to love crabs and why not plan a vacation by the sea? 

Isabelle Leboeuf is a psychologist and psychotherapist. In her practice she integrates hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and compassion-focused therapy.

“Cultural Compassion” was published on Psychreg; clic here to read it.

Let me tell you how I discovered the concept of ‘cultural compassion’ – While walking through Paris, during strikes, with Ben Harper (or let’s say, a young man who looks a lot like him, I don’t have his permission to share his name).

You may have noticed that culture is often thought of as an accumulation of knowledge. We sometimes forget that it is actually a sharing of experiences, thoughts and emotions. It is the emergence of common knowledge, a mental resonance that creates a music score.

Do you think that culture as I have just defined it, can be healing? Could it free us from our suffering, and therefore be a form of compassion?

I move away from a small Parisian sidewalk, under a light drizzle, the yellow lights of the lampposts are reflecting on the puddles, when this idea appears to my mind: ‘cultural compassion’.

This story that I’m going to tell you illustrates the creation, the emergence of a concept as something shared, a common creation. We often think that concepts emerge in isolation, that they belong to us personally, in other words that we have a good idea. But conceptual history has shown that one concept has appeared at the same time in different places on the planet at a time where communication did not exist as it does today while the idea couldn’t have yet been shared. 

One way to interpret this phenomenon is to say that the concepts emerge from a convergence of historical, cultural or biological factors – From the access to knowledge more than from the individual who embodies this idea. It is the alchemy of the moment and the interactions between an individual and his environment that makes it emerge, that makes thoughts emerge in general.

So here’s my story, I had the chance to attend the conference of Matthieu Villatte, brilliant researcher studying psychology and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). He is more specifically looking at the Relational Frame Theory, which is a model linked to a behavioural science of language. Matthieu presented through a monistic materialist approach of spirituality, a model allowing transcendent integration of different models of therapy.

To translate, it means that he tries to explain the world from the world itself and is relying on scientific knowledge of language behaviour to understand spirituality (the human behaviour of giving meaning to what seems beyond our ability to rationalise like personal growth, sacred meaning or one’s won ‘inner dimension’). 

Materialist philosophy is opposed to an understanding of the world by God or something that would exist beyond the world, but it is in the approach of Matthieu Villatte, to better understand the development of mental constructions of what is beyond our scientific knowledge. Instead of invalidating these constructs, this perspective makes it possible to better understand them and to overcome the dogmatic cleavages linked to the institutions which hierarchise their beliefs sometimes leading to wars or to extremism putting ideas before the reality of the suffering of beings. Or more simply, between different therapeutic fields, the ‘Parish’ quarrels.

In short, fascinated by his presentation and by the personal interest I see in it, my study of the links between compassion and love being in the midst of conceptual oppositions, I went to chat with Matthieu Villatte and Ben Harper by the end of the congress. As the discussion was slow to finish, I proposed to ‘Ben’ to walk a long way and let Matthieu find his friends (Matthieu is brilliant but he also has the patience of an angel).

In short, ‘Ben’ told to me about his experience of therapy, I was hypnotised by his lucidity and by his experience of therapy. It is quite rare for us, psychologists, to hear without filter how a patient experienced his therapy.

I reformulated what I understood using the metaphor of a tree. When we are threatened, our negative emotions tighten us, tense us up to protect us, like the trunk of the tree which hardens not to be devoured. Our positive emotions if we listen to them, guide us, like the branch of the tree which feels the direction in which it must push to go towards the sun. “Ben” replied that it was very cultural, that this image resonated with his African culture.

We looked at each other, and the idea appeared: ‘cultural compassion’. And we develop it together. Matthieu began his presentation by talking about the different ways of perceiving men and women across cultures. I am often embarrassed that people who fight stigma list negative cognitive biases towards a subgroup. It is of course necessary to be aware of our biases, but it is even more important to go beyond.

But how? Well, through cultural compassion, that is, through the creation of shared experiences that will take us beyond our biases. Without erasing our differences, we can collect our points of shared humanity.

Do you know the story of this person who was chronically ill until the day he or she fell in love? And that of new grandparents who found meaning in life when their youngest reaches out to them for the first time? Perhaps you have felt a special sense of well-being the day you bought an animal?

All these examples illustrate the underused power of social joy. The joy of a shared attention or presence (Leboeuf, 2017). Human beings have a thirst to exist in the eyes of others, to be seen or to share a direction. It’s as important as food needs. This need has been well studied in the Attachment Theory. Social joy is the emotion that emerges when this basic need is satisfied. It indicates a space of growth or expansion of oneself in the relationship. It not only allows the emergence of a feeling of well-being and relaxation, but also a better regulation of our negative emotions. You have surely noticed that spontaneously a child who is afraid, snuggles in the arms of a parent. Feeling the presence of others calms us down and we can, as we evolve into adulthood, use this strategy to better deal with stressful or scary situations.

But our culture disconnects us more and more from those around us. We are encouraged toward autonomy and interdependence is seen as a weakness; while there is a form of joy and perhaps even happiness to grow within harmonious relationships.

A simple strategy to strengthen the social joy in our lives is to pay attention to others by returning to the present moment. Take time for a break with colleagues or at home. Close the « to do » lists and look at the people around us.

When we are present to the beings around us, a silent process occurs, synchronization. Our brain will not only regulate our heart, respiratory and cerebral rhythms but also the rhythms of those around us. A bit like an invisible dance. Our body will vibrate to the pace of our loved ones and this especially if we show empathy.

To explore this process, as part of my doctorate I developed a simple exercise: « the smile exercise ». Visualizing a caring person who smiles at us increases our positive emotions but also reduces our negative emotions. The image in introduction of the paper is what participants felt when they did this exercise.

The joy of being together, around a table or a firework, walking together or laughing; allows us to recreate a “secure”, non-judgmental space from which we can explore while feeling supported.

It is this space that opens the door to play, to appeased learning, or exploration. But it is also a space that will be beneficial to therapy and will allow to welcome, validate, and integrate the suffering (a space of compassion). 

It’s a treasure from which we so often seem to have lost the key. TO find it, we travel very far, cross mountains and torrents and finally discover, at the foot of a tree that it never left us.

And you? What are your sources of social joy?

Lovers’ hearts beat in sync

When modern-day crooner Trey Songz sings, “Cause girl, my heart beats for you,” in his romantic ballad, “Flatline,” his lyrics could be telling a tale that’s as much physiological as it is emotional, according to a new study that found lovers’ hearts indeed beat for each other, or at least at the same rate.

When lovers touch, their breathing, heartbeat syncs, pain wanes, study shows

When an empathetic partner holds a lover’s hand, their heart rates and breathing rates sync and her pain subsides, new research shows. Authors say such ‘interpersonal synchronization’ could play a role in the analgesic impacts of touch.

Eye contact with your baby helps synchronize your brainwaves

Making eye contact with an infant makes adults’ and babies’ brainwaves ‘get in sync’ with each other — which is likely to support communication and learning.

Isabelle Leboeuf, Psychologist, Psychotherapist

In my therapy practice I integrate Hypnotherapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Compassion-Focused Therapy. As I continue to work toward my PhD in Psychology, I’m studying the links between Compassion and Positive Social Emotions from the point of view of experimental psychopathology and clinical applications.

I’m the happy mother of two kids and the aunt of three. I live in the northern part of France. Compassion and Love are the Values that guide me. 

My friends, I’m going to ask you courage.

Imagine spending some time watching TV, news …

A feeling invades you gently. Your throat tightens. You breathe a little less well. It’s fear. “Terrorism, unemployment, cancer, natural disasters …” Your mind is focused. You can’t turn off.

A second feeling appears when you finally switch off. A feeling of heat rising. You feel stronger. It’s anger. You think: “All rotten, corrupt, inflation, scams …” The anger shrinks without you noticing your space for reflection and your thoughts become certainties. This fear and anger bring out a new thought: “the others”. Without them everything would be fine.

Then you realize what you are thinking. And a malaise wins you. Shame. You know that you should not think like that.

You connect to the internet to try to understand, am I alone to react like that?

And you observe two things. On the one hand, the medias despise what you think and feel, and on the other, a smiling woman kindly tells you that all of this is normal, you are just right-wing, very right. What are you doing?

Of course, you are tempted by the reassurance of an identity. To be part of those who will protect you, those who are like you, who understand you.

Fear and anger are powerful weapons to convince and politicians have long understood it.

In addition, two emotions form a balance to regulate our social interactions, our place or our status: shame and contempt. He who is at the top of the balancer expresses contempt for staying in the upper position and the one below is feeling shame that paralyzes him.

Shame is a fundamental emotion that helps to regulate deviant behaviors in relation to the group. It is an unbearable emotion and we are all trying to avoid it. Whatever the price. It will create a movement towards the norm and create a strong need for identity in relation to the group. It plays a dominant role in the psychology of nationalist voters.

It is fundamental to understand that scorn reinforces shame.

In the aftermath of the elections, an American Frenchman was interviewed by a French journalist and he explained that he voted Trump in response to the terrorist threat and the lack of reaction from politicians. At the end of the interview the journalist insinuated that he was drunk and tired because he was repeating the names of some Brittany cities. The emotion is there. Contempt.

And this contempt reinforces nationalist ideas. He crystallizes them.

The psychology of compassion helps us to understand and to come out of criticism and shame towards responsibility.

Compassion is a motivational process that develops the ability to think, confront and relieve suffering (of others or of oneself).

Fear, anger and stigma are part of being human. It is always easier to judge than to think deeply and we all fall into this trap. In a threatening situation, we seek support and compassion in our close group and we lose all compassion for others. They are no longer humans like us but enemies.

It’s necessary to move away from contempt and to treat the nationalists with a sense of responsibility. A serious dialogue is necessary to be able to hear, to recognize the suffering and needs that are real. It is only through a dialog of Compassion that the suffering of everyone can be heard.

Isabelle Leboeuf is a Psychologist, Psychotherapist

In her therapy practice she integrates Hypnosis, Cognitive Behavioral Therapies and Compassion-Focused Therapies. As she continues to work toward her PhD in Psychology, she is studying the links between Compassion and Positive Social Emotions from the point of view of both experimental psychopathology and clinical applications.

#365daysofcompassion

Have you ever felt Angry with someone who did not follow your advice with the urge to comment “I told you so”.

Perhaps you have withheld this comment, or perhaps you have done it. Were you surprised by the Sad reaction of the person you wanted to help? Why are we so angry at someone’s suffering that we can’t help?

Most of us naturally feel an inclination to help others. Studies of Empathy (Eisenberg, Strayer, 1990) show that from early childhood we have a natural tendency to intervene in a situation where someone if facing a handicap situation. Yet this tendency is not expressed continuously, and we lose it very quickly when our personal interest is at stake in the situation (Green, Kirby, Nielsen 2018).

We feel Joy, even pride in helping a friend or doing a volunteer action that we know is for the benefit of the group or a person in pain.

This motivation is called Compassion. It is a motivation that brings us to relieve suffering. We sometimes develop professional skills to meet the needs of living beings, animals or humans. This motivation can bring us to incredible achievements.

And yet we all have met a doctor who was angry because we had not followed his treatment, a teacher exasperated at our inability to understand his method or an angry parent not to be able to reassure us. Psychologists and psychotherapists can also have this type of reaction. Relieving suffering is the heart of a therapist’s motivation. And yet many question the continuation of therapy when a patient is not motivated. I have often wondered about this reaction when the lack of motivation is part of the symptomatology of many patients. Personally, I feel anger at people who work on compassion without following their own recommendations. This anger makes me with some Irony in the position of those I would feel like criticizing because I then lose my compassion.

Why this Anger? Why can we become aggressive, even violent while our motivation is rooted in compassion?

All simply because our personal interest goes before compassion. And if our personal interest is to free the suffering of the other and that despite our efforts of compassion it does not meet our expectations, we feel frustration. Our own suffering takes us away and we become rigid.

How to overcome this paradox?

By creating a space to become aware of this reaction. We can thus slow down, reconnect ourselves to the sensitivity in the present moment of the person we want to help, and to our own suffering. Most often, simply allowing suffering to be, creates a space for negative emotions to be integrated and a form of Joy emerges.

The Joy of compassion.

Eisenberg, N., & Strayer, J. (Eds.). (1990). Empathy and its development. Cambridge University Press.

Green, M., Kirby, J. N., & Nielsen, M. (2018). The cost of helping: An exploration of compassionate responding in children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

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Francis Gheysen is a French Psychiatrist working in a private practice and part time in a teaching hospital. Francis is integrating Mindfulness, CFT and the psychiatrist’s clinical tasks and teaches CFT and Mindfulness.

Isabelle Leboeuf is a French clinical Psychologist. She is integrating Ericksonian Hypnosis, CBT and CFT. She is doing a research PhD studying Compassion and Positive Social Emotions.