Your brain's three emotional systems
Consider a typical weekday for a parent in Tunbridge Wells who also works in London. The alarm goes at six. There is a rush to get children to school, a sprint for the train, back-to-back meetings, a delayed train home, emails at nine, and a mind still running through the to-do list at midnight. Nothing terrible has happened. Yet by Thursday they feel frayed, irritable and oddly empty.
The British psychologist Paul Gilbert, who founded compassion focused therapy, has a useful way of explaining this. He describes three emotion regulation systems. The threat system scans for danger and produces anxiety, anger and vigilance. The drive system pushes us to achieve, acquire and get things done. The soothing system is the one that lets us rest, feel safe and connect. It is what is active when you are relaxed with someone you trust.
All three are useful, and problems tend to come when they are out of balance. The parent above is living almost entirely in drive and threat. Their soothing system barely gets a look in, so there is nothing to balance the other two. Many people try to fix this by driving harder: a better morning routine, a stricter workout, more productivity tips. That often feeds the same two systems that are already overloaded.
Compassion focused therapy works on building up the soothing system deliberately. That can sound soft, but Gilbert describes compassion as something closer to courage: the willingness to turn towards difficulty rather than away from it. In sessions this can include breathing and imagery practices, understanding where your threat responses come from, and learning to respond to yourself the way a wise, supportive person would.
CFT was developed in the UK and is used across NHS services. If you feel permanently switched on, it may be worth exploring. Read more about compassion focused therapy, or get in touch.