Compassion Focused Therapy for People with Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar affective disorder arises from major dysregulations in various affect and drive systems and constitutes a major mental health problem. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) was developed from a neuroscience and evolutionary approach and pays particular attention to affect regulation. It therefore lends itself to both the analysis of bipolar disorders and offers potentially important interventions. This article will explore the applications of CFT to the understanding of bipolar disorder and development of compassion-focused interventions.