Well I didn't sleep too well last night.  Catero, my wife, and I went to the cinema yesterday evening and watched "500 Days of Summer" . I enjoyed it and it got me thinking about relationships.  The "Summer" of the title is a woman who doesn't believe in romantic love.  She's kind of charming and maddening and, as I biked away from the cinema, I wondered how I would have approached treating her if she had come to me for therapy!  Interestingly a newspaper reviewer commented that the film is "weirdly incurious about the inner life of its female lead".

This is the third of three posts giving handouts & questionnaires on compassion & criticism.  There are a dozen MP3 recordings listed below.  It would be possible to use these tracks as a "compassionate mind training" sequence, although I've listed them more to illustrate the kind of approach that it's probably sensible to use.  The twelve recordings make up a four exercise training.  Each exercise includes a brief (1 to 3 minute) introductory track and then a medium length (15 to 18 minute) and longer (24 to 28 minute) meditation.  If you want to follow this sequence, please read the Suggestions for goodwill practice handout (below) first. 

This the second of three posts on handouts & questionnaires for Compassion & criticism. It contains a series of loosely linked downloads about compassion, self-criticism, hostility, self-esteem and related subjects.  To see the earlier post on this subject click on Compassion & criticism (first post).

Compassionate/self-image goals scale and background - this is a scale from Crocker's fascinating work on compassionate and self-image goals.  See too the "Self and social motivation laboratory" website at http://rcgd.isr.umich.edu/crockerlab

Contingencies of self-worth scale - this is another questionnaire from the Crocker lab (see above).  Interesting way of probing what people's self-worth is based on ... and what the subsequent effects then are.

This is the third Moroccan blog post.  It introduces some ideas about mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), self-criticism and problem solving.

So yesterday we drove East and South from Marrakech across the Atlas - the road, our driver said, winding up to over 6,500 feet (about 2,000 meters) before heading back down to the plain that eventually after many kilometers will become the Sahara.

In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make   Beatles

This is essentially the Beatles closing statement. It is the last lyric on the last album they recorded. (Let It Be was the last album they released, but it was recorded earlier).

In yesterday's post I discussed interesting research (Marigold, Holmes, & Ross, 2007) on boosting self-esteem by helping people allow appreciation in rather than dismissing it.  In these studies,

People who are low in self-esteem are often self-defeatingly, self-protective.  They would like other people to accept and respect them for the good qualities they have.  However they fear that, if