Compassionate Inquiry® is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr. Gabor Maté and it’s a program in which I am currently training. You can follow that link to read more about it in their words.

But every CI practitioner has their own style, their own way of implementing what they learn.

In the subsequent questions, I’m going to describe CI in my own words, the way I practice it.

Compassionate Inquiry starts with an intention. The framing is up to you.

Do you want to…

…explore an idea?
…understand something that’s been gnawing at you?
…get insight on a problem, or why you’re stuck?
…feel better or more at peace with something troubling you?
…bring something to light to be witnessed and grieved in the compassionate presence of another?
…find the permission you’re having trouble giving yourself to really feel?
…change how you feel about things that trigger you?
…learn how to be present with unpleasant sensations?

What a CI session looks like depends on the intention you bring. This gives us a starting trajectory which, in combination with the state in which each of us arrives, what you’re ready for, and what feels right to you, will completely change what/how a session might be/feel.

I’m here to help you explore and realize your intention. Or, if either of us senses there’s something missing in that intention, to help you clarify first.

If you want my help, pushing you to go deeper, to inquire further, to stay with your experience longer, I’m happy to do that, but it’s always based on the agreement we come to together based on clarification of your intention.

I have no agenda in the session, I simply & humbly offer to help you realize your intention. It’s not for me to try to make you see anything, or share insights with you, or give you advice. I’m not there to help you feel better, to heal you, to cure you, to solve your problems. That’s not my role.

If you come to a CI session, presumably you would like these outcomes, and I’m not there to deny you any of this, either. But let’s be honest at the outset about who I can be and how I can be of service to your needs.

At the beautiful core of Compassionate Inquiry is the basic premise that healing is a naturally occurring process, one you’re already in the middle of. You are going to recruit many people to accompany you on this journey, and it is the very nature of healing that it is a communal process. In every tradition around the world, from those of hunter-gatherers to major religions, grieving and celebration have always taken place in community.

It is my belief that as your Compassionate Inquiry practitioner, I am just one of many people who can commune with you as you navigate this process.

I hope to reflect back to you what I see, hear, notice, and feel in our communication, and some of this may appear as insight, but I believe it emerges naturally in the space we create together of deep presence and listening.

Compassionate Inquiry is informed by many schools of thought, including Internal Family Systems, Buddhism, and Nonviolent Communication, among many others. It is a way of seeing the healing and self-discovery process that incorporates and synthesizes the work of all the great thinkers in psychology and the trauma-informed literature, as well as honoring much ancient wisdom, often from a modern scientific evidence-based frame.

If you know anything about me, you know that I am a voracious reader and I cast a wide net, bringing together much knowledge from so many wise people. Gabor, like me, reads endless books, but he’s been at it much longer. He’s read every book I’ve read, and probably hundreds more. Plus he has written several of his own wonderful (important!) books and has lots of experience with people as an M.D. in his unique way, which ultimately came to be known as “Compassionate Inquiry”.

From what I’ve read (which is a lot), his approach is consistent with the latest evidence base that has emerged in the field. Though there are specific points of departure from various authors and modalities, when we consider the picture that emerges from a skillful and compassionate synthesis of the literature, Gabor’s CI approach reflects that greater knowledge base, rather than one particular practice or approach. He brings much respect for all of the many authors whose work informs his own.

Compassionate Inquiry is less about me (as the CI practitioner) inquiring into your experience for my own knowledge, and more about helping you see where you’d benefit from inquiring into yourself, your feelings, your felt experience, your implicit memories.

The word “inquiring” may seem to imply a cognitive or insight-driven process, but it’s a whole-self experience of turning inward, sensing and feeling what’s real for you, learning to expand your self-compassion, and increase your ability to be aware of and present with your feelings and sensations.

This is generally understood to be valuable for giving you greater ability to choose your response, one that aligns with your values and intentions, instead of simply reacting (often in defense or to escape from unbearable sensations).

But there’s a lot more to it.

Because every client arrives with their own intentions, this may not be one of their needs or goals for our session. Sometimes people just need to be heard, seen, felt, resonated with, and to receive empathy, reassurance, human kindness—compassion! There are many ways that CI can support you, but it’s not prescriptive.

It may, however, be helpful to engage in a deeper inquiry of your intention, such as in the case of just wanting a safe place to share. When the intention is clear, it’s more likely we can allow that need to be met in our time together.

We’ll start with clarification of your intention, and go from there. We’re not aiming to accomplish anything just because it’s “what CI does”. I’m happy to offer suggestions of what we might be able to accomplish if that’s helpful to you. And you can always change your mind as we go.

Once we have clarified your intention, I will always be honest with you about what I think I’m able to do.

I’m a human being and no amount of training will change that my ability to be present with you will be circumvented by my own past, my own limitations, my own triggers, and where I’m presently situated within my own ongoing healing process.

But as I continue to engage in my own Compassionate Self-Inquiry, it is a reflection of my own skill, honesty, and ability to be vulnerable, that I can be clear with you about my limitations as we confront them. I will never pretend to know something I don’t or to be capable of something I’m not. If I’m not sure, I’ll let you know that, too. You and I can decide if we think it’s worth exploring together, maybe something that we learn collaboratively through a mutual dedication to honesty and vulnerability.

This is what I love about CI. Within this framework, I’m encouraged to be honest about the fact that we are just two human beings, each with our own strengths, weaknesses, and challenges. I’m not the one who knows better or is wiser or more healed than you. I hold no keys to healing, and I don’t offer advice. This is deeply honest about what people can be to one another. But it’s not a problem to solve; we evolved to need other humans accompanying us on our life’s journey through growth and healing!

It is my intention to show up as another human being by your side in whatever way I can. I will draw on the knowledge base and wisdom I have gleaned from much training and reading. But, ultimately, my intention is just to be a person who is truly present, with compassion, to you and all your inner parts, seen and unseen, heard and unheard.

I hope that our time together is an enriching component in your journey through healing, parenting, and exploration of self.

I am trained, first, in child development and as a parenting educator. I hold the Child Development Master Teacher permit for the state of CA (I am qualified to teach young children and to supervise other teachers). I am trained in RIE and am a certified parenting educator with the Center for Nonviolent Education and Parenting (CNVEP), dba Echo). CNVEP/Echo is an organization that teaches a trauma-informed, nonviolent approach to caring for children.

I am also a voracious reader and have educated myself extensively, having read much of the academic literature and over 120 books on psychology, trauma, child development, parenting, education, social justice, and spirituality.

However much knowledge I may bring to the table, I see the education piece as only part of my role. Parents may need information to fill in missing pieces in their knowledge base, but at the end of the day, parents are the ones who know their own hearts, and who their children are.

The answers you seek cannot come from me, but will come from inside of your self. I hope to help you uncover these truths, in a safe container of compassion & nonjudgment, bound by accurate knowledge of child development.

Many parents find themselves at the place where they know who they want to be as parents, but they struggle to make that a reality. That’s really where the Compassionate Inquiry process comes in: to help you discover what gets in the way of your intentions.

The tl;dr is: I am not a therapist, and do not offer therapy.

That said, the kind of support we need as we move through our lives, our journeys, will take many forms. Some of it may be grief work we do in community spaces, support groups, the caring presence of a close friend, an elder, a person within our spiritual or religious community, a person who offers medicine, a shaman—there are so many ways to find accompaniment, acknowledgement, holding, compassion, and other kinds of support along our paths.

The idea that "therapy" is the place we find what we need is a narrative I think is constructed by a modern Western paradigm that I don't align myself with.

So when I say I don't offer therapy, I am not disparaging myself, or saying I'm "less than"; I mean, who I am and how I show up for you is not bound within that framework, and while it may contain overlap, I'd rather show you who I am without referencing Western psychology.

That said…

Although I have many critiques of the limited frame of Western psychology and its tendency to diagnose and pathologize, to put the practitioner in a bit of a superior position as the healer, I don't think that makes therapy a useless institution. It's just that it's got its limitations and there are aspects of it that don't resonate with me.

This is true with most of my greatest teachers, though. Every book I love has bits that are pure gold and parts I think, hmmm, I wonder what they'd think if they merged their understanding with this other wisdom I found over here? I wonder if this is a blind spot for them?

It’s fair to say, I think of Western psychology the same way.

And, allow me to add: I have a therapist myself, and she is one of the most important people in my life! She occupies a space like a mother/grandmother in my heart. My feelings for her are so tender. I don't love everything she does, and I tell her so, and she's flexible enough to put the relationship first, and honor my discomfort as a valid part of my recognition of what I need. Going to "therapy" is one of my favorite things I do with my time.

And this co-exists side-by-side with my many critiques of the institution of therapy. 😉

One final & important piece: the regulatory environment is such that, as a coach, I have to be very clear that what I do is not therapy, because you can't practice therapy without a license!

And I don't. I don't diagnose, I don't treat, I don't cure. In fact, I don't operate within that frame at all.

I don't see my clients as defective.

I wish that all of us could stop seeing ourselves as self-improvement projects. This goes for me, too! I find it more helpful to notice my striving for betterment as a place in me that needs a little extra tenderness, and just acknowledge that feelings often arise of unworthiness or not good enough and know, this is who I am, this is my experience, and this is hard. There is pain, there is grief there; it needs a caring witness; it needs love and tenderness, from myself and my community. Especially when I'm "supposed to know better", especially when I "should be" striving toward radical self-acceptance, setting a perfect example of equanimity for my clients!

But of course it's much easier to bring this tenderness to others than to myself. So, my clients are definitely not improvement projects in my eyes. 🥰 And I think this puts me squarely outside the frame of therapy.

I love this concept from James Hillman, that people go to therapy (or other space-holding) not to have what is broken fixed, but to have it blessed.

And, I have also studied trauma theory extensively! I’ve read the same books that trauma therapists read (probably more, because I am a voracious reader); I’ve attended the same trainings; I’m constantly digging through the academic journals to connect dots on fledgling ideas and understandings. I’m always reading more and learning more. I like to know the wisdom that everyone is collectively accumulating. Just because I have critiques of many facets of modern Western psychology doesn’t mean I haven’t found tremendous value in the many offerings found gathered under its umbrella!