LongerAny ordinary dayMedical and treatmentAnger

There is a particular relief in hearing a room of strangers admit the same frightened thing you have never said aloud. It is why groups reach people that advice does not.

You go in expecting contempt. What comes back is usually recognition, along with a few nods from people who have been ruder to their families than you have. That one experience, admitting weakness and not being eaten for it, does more than any explanation of where anger comes from.

Qur’an and Sunnah

made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another (Quran 49:13). Recognition is given as the point of the differences between people, and being recognised is exactly what happens in that room.

يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقۡنَٰكُم مِّن ذَكَرࣲ وَأُنثَىٰ وَجَعَلۡنَٰكُمۡ شُعُوبࣰ ا وَقَبَآئِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوٓاْۚ إِنَّ أَكۡرَمَكُمۡ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ أَتۡقَىٰكُمۡۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرࣱ‏

People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another. In God’s eyes, the most honoured of you are the ones most mindful of Him: God is all knowing, all aware

Qur’an 49:13read it in the library

Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.

What the research says

A review of the main compassion-based programmes found the evidence supporting them is growing but uneven across programmes, with methodological limits in many of the trials. Group formats sit inside that mixed picture. So this is a reasonable thing to go looking for, described honestly, rather than a guaranteed course of treatment.

Kirby JN. (2017). Compassion interventions: The programmes, the evidence, and implications for research and practice.. Psychology and psychotherapy doi

Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.

Why it works

The fear of being despised for it only fades once you say the thing and are not despised.

This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.

Near this one

Telling somebody one thing you are quietly embarrassed about will bring you closer than a month of pleasant conversation.

Five minutesGrowing empathy

You can drop the neuroscience and keep the instruction. Look at the person's face, and at their eyes in particular, and let what you see land on you.

A minuteGrowing empathy

Go long enough without company and almost anyone will do. That is worth knowing about yourself, and worth watching for in someone who lives alone.

Twenty minutesGrowing empathy