Enhancing Therapist Courage: Feasibility and Changes in Distress Tolerance and Equanimity Following Martial Arts-Based Radically Embodied Compassion Workshops

Abstract

The work of psychotherapy demands much of those who engage in it. Compassion provisioned by therapists requires varying competencies, yet remains a highly embodied and enactive endeavour. Therapist skill can be cultivated in this area and enhanced through a variety of body-mind trainings, including various forms of therapist personal practice. However, much clinical training/continued professional development centres on education workshops, emphasising knowledge above skill. Given this we present feasibility data from two deliberate practice/procedural learning, martial arts-based radically embodied compassion workshops aimed at enhancing therapist courage. Our findings show that conducting such training is feasible, with those attending able to participate in each practice. Participant self-report suggests the workshops can result in significant personal benefit, are able to deepen attendee understanding of compassion focused therapy and lead to an enhanced sense of how to apply it. Via self-report pre, post and 3-month after the workshops, significant beneficial changes in overall total clinical distress tolerance as well as specifically in absorption (the level of attention absorbed by distressing emotions) were shown. Beneficial changes were also noted in experiential acceptance and in total general equanimity pre and post workshops. We discuss limitations of the current study and potential future work that could follow from it, before concluding that training in this way represents an important first step in delineating a novel approach to therapist self-development. Practices drawn from traditional martial arts may be well suited to providing the context, relational safety and necessary skills for therapist development, in terms of enhanced distress tolerance and management of the self, to occur.