Compassionate Inquiry
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“The purpose of Compassionate Inquiry is to drill down to the core stories people tell themselves—to get them to see what story they are telling themselves unconsciously; what those beliefs are, where they came from; and guide them to the possibility of letting go of those stories, or letting go of the hold those stories have on them.”
Compassionate Inquiry is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr. Gabor Mate. It is trauma-informed and using a relational approach, the goal is to create a safe space to explore with compassionate curiosity so that we may “gain insight, clarity and choice in our behaviour” and ultimately, can recover the connection to our authentic selves. It focuses on the cultivation of self-awareness and presence, curiosity and compassion, both in the therapist and in the client. It takes us out of our “story” and turns the focus to what is going on in the body. Creating a safe space to express long hidden memories from the past, and once found and felt, dis-identifying with those feelings and bringing ourselves into the present-day self, with a new sense of understanding and acceptance of our rejected parts and sheds light on coping strategies that have outlived their usefulness and are now causing harm. In this way, we can see how our addictions, habits and choices, have been an attempt to feel better, sometimes by not feeling anything. It is not enough to “know” the root of the core belief or story, one must re-experience the feeling in the presence of an attuned, compassionate other, a witness, to heal it. In fact, bypassing the conscious mind through the doorway of felt sense, we can find insight and deep wisdom in the body, and allow that to guide us back to what we already know. With compassionate inquiry, we look for the way this old disconnection shows up in the present-day self, the stories we tell ourselves, our perceptions and how we are in the world.