Acting into Compassion
Dr Korina Ioannou & Gareth Kennerley
Zip, Zap, Boinggggg!!!!
What does that have to do with Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)?!
When I decided to sign up for Amateur Acting classes, I was looking to play! Just that. To be able to take off my psychologist hat (brain, if possible!), and have a place where I could take life, and myself, a bit less seriously. To play more. And think less!
Let me be clear – I never aspired to be an actor, or felt that I was the ‘performer type’. Since childhood, I would shy away from anything that required being the focus of an audience. This is only going to be a break from work mode, a bit of a laugh… (I’d told myself)
A few weeks into my Improv for Beginners class, and mission was already accomplished. I was playing! It was all so freeing, fun-filled, and creative! I was learning how to become a different character through wild imagination, movement, and…games! (Zip, Zap, Boing was one of them!)*
I was given the role of the maid Dunyasha, in a production of Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard. I saw her as someone very different to who I really was. In the beginning I was merely uttering lines in a rather disembodied, clunky fashion. But we rehearsed. And rehearsed. And rehearsed again. Until I went from fighting my inner voice telling me ‘it’s all fake’, to utterly losing myself to Dunyasha on stage!
And suddenly, the A-ha moment! I am becoming the Dunyasha version of myself!
And then it hit me – If I can become a Dunyasha, surely I can become a compassionate me! And, if I can do that, then…surely others can do that too! My clients!!!
Fast forward a few years later…
My acting coach, and dear friend, actor Gareth Kennerley, and I, running workshops in central London on becoming a Compassionate self! Acting was meeting CFT!
Actors spend years in training, learning how to use observation, imagination, and various other experiential techniques, to step into the shoes of a character other than themselves. Acting, done well, succeeds in convincing the audience that the person in front of them is a believable, plausible, ‘real’ human being. More than that, actors often absorb the character they are playing in such a way that they can feel, move, behave, think and interact as that human being. They become their version of that character, albeit a version that is different to someone else’s version of that same character – which is why, over the years, there have been so many, all incredibly successful, productions of The Hamlet!
In Compassion Focused Therapy, a primary focus is to help clients tap into, or develop, a compassionate mind, with which they can engage in the world, and particularly, in relation to their, and others’, suffering. We use numerous pathways to facilitate this process – cognition, behaviour, emotive practices, and sensory experiences. ‘Acting as-if’ is one of them.
Our workshops were helping people discover what it feels like to act compassionately, not through memorising various definitions, but by practising, like actors do, a compassionate self.
Acting is an experience of using your body to take your place in life – Bessel Van der Kolk
In Stanislavskian terms, the character has an objective which guides their behaviour. In CFT terms, we refer to this objective as the compassionate motivation, and it shapes thinking, acting and interacting, feeling, and body experience. We always aim to build a compassionate mind through the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system – a slowing down of mind and body, often through the breath, and mindful attention. Actors call this physical preparedness, a physical centering to arrive at a point of neutrality, before the work of character creation can begin.
Imagery, memory, movement, voice, posture and breath are the bread and butter of the actor’s trade. And it is exactly these elements we utilise to create and embody our compassionate self, in therapy, in our workshops, and hopefully in life.
Acting is not about putting on a character, but discovering the character within you: you are the character, you just have to find it within yourself – albeit a very expanded version of yourself
Tina Parker (Actor/Director)
What started as a two-day training for CFT practitioners, has gradually evolved into self-development workshops for those wishing to cultivate the compassionate part of themselves, through experiential, non-cerebral channels.
Gareth and I would sometimes invite our participants to try certain exercises and observe how they feel. We encourage them to sit with that experience, repeat it, and see what that allows to emerge. Sometimes, we work the other way round – we personify the compassionate self, focussing on specific qualities, physicality, and ‘given circumstances’ (or historical experiences, in psychology terms), and then encourage people to step into the shoes of their own, authentic version of their compassionate self.
Our participants leave our workshops on a buzz, feeling more confident that they can tap into their compassionate self, and committed to nurturing this version of themselves ‘off-stage’, using the tools they have acquired. Some take these to their professional domains, be it psychotherapy, education or the corporate world.
The whole workshop has been transformational for me, and I am even more passionate and inspired now to continue in this important and wonderful work!
It was great to get to ‘play’ in a safe space. I feel like, in my body, I was able to take away some new sense of strength and presence!
It was a lovely experience! I’m already using the embodiment of the compassionate self both for myself and for my clients!
One of the most valuable challenges I experienced in my own acting classes was freeing myself from notions of ‘what this character should be like’. I had to entrust and commit to a process of intentional, yet organic discovery and practice. In a similar vein, we can get caught up in what a compassionate self looks like, and make efforts to enact that. During the mirroring exercises we walk through our participants, Gareth would often say – we are not mimicking. We are merely observing and fine tuning our bodies and behaviour to mould onto another character. Acting skills help us create opportunities for guided discovery, that rely on trial and error, role play, ‘magic if’ and memory, to mould into the character we want to embody and become.
And just like a good acting coach demands, we practise, and practise, and practise again! In the words of Lao Tzu, we let our actions become our habits, and our habits become our character. Because we know that what fires together, wires together!
Is this all fun and games?
It can be challenging; particularly when fears, blocks, resistances, and different systems, or parts of ourselves, show up. But we work with these, and keep on looking for the seeds, and bridges, to uncover, and foster our own, true nature of compassion.
Fast forward 10 years…
No, I’m not signing autographs in the West End!
But Gareth and I continue to enjoy running workshops and seeing the evolution of our participants moving from their heads into their bodies, to inhabit their compassionate self.
And, time and time again, I confirm that, with intention, commitment and practice, we can (in the words of William James) begin to be now, what we can be thereafter…
And we Zip, Zap, Boing whilst we’re at it!
Dr Korina Ioannou
Clinical Psychologist
Clinical Director, Balanced Minds
Interested in finding out more about Acting into Compassion?
Visit https://balancedminds.com/acting-into-compassion/
Or contact
Korina@balancedminds.com
*Zip Zap Boing is a game about generating energy, receiving, matching and passing on. We stand in a circle and whoever starts passes a Zip to the left or right – saying the word and clapping in that direction at the same time. The next person continues with the same thing, and so on.
If there was no Zap or Boing, the energy would continue round in a circle passing in whatever direction was chosen initially. The job would be to maintain pace, interval, energy and eye contact – always following the energy in the room. But after a while this would become boring, perhaps. So, at any time a receiver of a Zip can lift their arms up, imagining a bouncy shield, and say ‘Boingggg’. This would immediately change the direction of the Zip back the way it came.
There must be at least one Zip between two Boings.
But additionally at any point one can Zap the energy across the space pointing both hands and saying Zap with definite eye contact with anyone else in the circle, with at least one person between them. The receiver of the Zap can Zap someone else, or Zip in either direction.
You cannot Boing a Zap!
The game continues until proficiency has been built up and everyone in the circle is truly ready to follow, receive and pass on the energy.
Once this is happening, and you feel competitive, you can start to eliminate participants if mistakes are made, or if there is too big a pause while they think what to do next – they must always be ready! The game would then end with the last two participants as victors. There are ways to take it down to one, but we tend to prefer it with two!
Interested in CFT and Self-Compassion?
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