October 2026 Clinical Supervision Topic: Self+Compassion after Complex Trauma

I am on the last few pages of When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Jewish rabbi Harold Kushner. It was handed to me by my dad who picked it up at a yard sale (which is very on-brand for him).

In it, Kushner talks about his experience of having a baby born with a degenerative disease, leading to early death in the child’s teenage years. He explores his own depths in trying to understand why such a horrible thing would happen to an innocent child.

To make sense of his own experience, Kushner explores the ancient story of Job. In this story, Job is a man doing everything the “right” way (according to the strictures of that time), yet tragedy upon tragedy happens. I won’t spoil the ending.

What I find very interesting about Kushner’s gentle, clear, non-dogmatic, open-ended exploration is that many of us (both client and clinician) are grappling with these questions quite constantly. Why is this bad thing happening to me? Did I cause it somehow? Is it my fault? Am I bad? How can I prevent bad things happening to me and those I love?

Many of us with complex trauma had bad things happen to us quite young. The messaging in those situations was often that the bad things were happening because the child caused them somehow, sending the message that the child is inherently bad/annoying/deeply wrong. Messaging like that can stick long after childhood is over. When life’s inevitable bumps in the road happen, it can feel to the person with complex trauma that they caused it, and perhaps it’s happening because they are just bad. It can confirm those childhood messages.

For clients who struggle with this sense of I’m bad, it’s my fault, etc., we’re going to look at this through the lens of self-compassion. (Please see several past years of self-compassion posts here.) Most clients I’ve worked with seem to respond positively to the idea of self-compassion only after they understand what it actually means and feels like. (Most of them seem to resist it at first, understandably).

There is good research to support choosing the intervention of self-compassion for sticky shame. In one study, shame-prone participants who practiced self-compassion while working with a shame-inducing experience experienced less intense shame in the moment. After repeated practice, they also showed a significant reduction in their overall tendency toward shame at a two-week follow-up, something that wasn’t seen in the control groups (Johnson & O’Brien, 2013). Another study found that mindfulness and self-compassion were both associated with lower levels of shame, with self-compassion accounting for the relationship between mindfulness and shame (Sedighimornani, Rimes, & Verplanken, 2019).

In other words, the point isn’t simply to tell ourselves nicer things. Practicing a different way of being with ourselves when shame gets activated can decrease the intensity of shame and, over time, change our tendency to fall into it as much.

You might be wondering: what about my clients who generally are causing some fo their own problems? Shouldn’t they be studying cause and effect instead? Well, self-compassion actually leads to behavioral change. Brené Brown has long distinguished shame from accountability: shame gets us stuck in I am bad, while accountability requires us to be able to look at what I did and make a different choice. So for all of us (again, clients and clinicians alike) who have behaviors and habits we genuinely need to change, self-compassion isn’t necessarily letting ourselves off the hook. It may actually help us become more able to face what happened, take responsibility, and do something different because we know we are loved, supported and good, regardless.

Self-compassion is 3 simple components (based on Kristen Neff’s work):

a. Noticing something in painful. Being with it, especially on the sensational level. Words help here too: ouch, this really hurts, I don’t like this, I’m feeling _____.

b. Realizing our common humanity. This is easier to do when we contextualize the suffering happening. Contextualizing can require a bit of zooming out.

c. Using touch and words to soothe and be with the pain. For example, a hand over your heart and words of comfort or understanding, like I’m so sorry this is happening, it’s not your fault (and you will figure out how to solve this!), I love you, I’m here for you.

A 3-5 minute practice which makes a big difference!

Come ready to discuss, to practice, and to figure out how to apply this in your various settings.