Out of all the relationships you have in your life, take a moment to think about who it is that you talk to the most. You may have thought about a partner, child, parent, friend, or even a pet. One can argue that the person you speak to the most is actually yourself. From the moment we wake up, until we rest our heads at night, we talk to ourselves. Sometimes we are kind and patient, and in other moments we may be our toughest critic. As mental health professionals, we know that our thoughts have a significant impact on our feelings and behaviors, which can contribute to us trying to correct unhealthy thinking patterns. Keep reading to learn 10 Compassion-Focused Therapy exercises and activities to do with your clients
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Individuals who struggle with negative automatic thoughts may find themselves anxious, depressed, and struggling with low self-esteem. Learning to show ourselves kindness, patience, and compassion can take time and encouragement that is challenging to do on our own.
Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is a transdiagnostic therapeutic approach that is holistic and integrative in nature (Craig, C., Hiskey, S. & Spector, A., 2020). As you may have guessed, compassion-focused therapy works to increase clients’ experience with self-compassion so that they may find a decrease in their related distress. Our clients can often benefit from the same compassion encouragement we would need as they work to increase their own level of self-compassion.
Research associated with CFT has grown over the past decade and has shown more support for using CFT in a group setting than compared to individual sessions (Craig, C., Hiskey, S. & Spector, A., 2020). Additionally, we know that a minimum of 12 clinical sessions are needed to see a reduction in our client’s level of distress (Craig, C., Hiskey, S. & Spector, A., 2020). CFT has been shown to have a positive impact when compared to individuals who received no mental health treatment (Craig, C., Hiskey, S. & Spector, A., 2020).
Preparing to Use Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) with Clients
Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) is a structured, evidence-informed approach designed to help clients cultivate self-compassion, reduce self-criticism, and manage difficult emotions such as shame, guilt, and anxiety. Before introducing CFT exercises in session, it is important for practitioners to prepare both themselves and their clients to maximize therapeutic benefit. This preparation ensures that clients feel safe, supported, and ready to engage in exercises that may bring up vulnerable or distressing emotions.
A critical first step is establishing a strong therapeutic alliance. Clients who struggle with self-compassion may be highly self-critical or protective of their emotional boundaries. Practitioners should take time to normalize these experiences, discuss the purpose of CFT, and provide psychoeducation about the role of self-compassion in emotional regulation and overall mental health. Explaining the rationale for compassion-focused practices helps clients understand that these exercises are structured tools for growth rather than tasks they “must” perform perfectly.
Practitioners should also assess a client’s current level of emotional awareness, mindfulness skills, and tolerance for experiencing difficult emotions. Some clients may require grounding, relaxation, or preparatory mindfulness exercises before engaging fully in CFT practices. Tools like body scans, breathing exercises, or guided imagery can help clients enter a state where they feel safe exploring compassion toward themselves. Planning the pacing of exercises is essential: starting with simpler, less emotionally intense activities can build confidence and trust before moving into deeper or more introspective exercises.
Finally, preparation includes selecting appropriate worksheets, handouts, or visual aids that will guide the client through the exercises. Many CFT activities, such as the Compassion-Focused Diary or the Safe Place Worksheet, benefit from having structured prompts to help clients reflect and apply compassion in concrete ways. Encouraging clients to track their practice between sessions enhances skill integration and allows practitioners to review progress, troubleshoot challenges, and celebrate small successes in cultivating self-compassion.
Compassion-Focused Therapy Exercises to do with Clients
Keep reading to discover 10 Compassion-Focused therapy exercises you can do with your clients:
1. Focusing Compassionate Self on Self Exercise
TherapyByPro offers a Focusing Compassionate Self on Self worksheet that can be completed with your client during a session. With this worksheet, you can help your client explore ways that they can show themselves compassion throughout their day. This worksheet encourages your client to view themselves from an outside perspective which may shift their typical automatic thoughts. Once you have completed the worksheet, explore any hesitations or barriers that your client shared that may impact their ability to show themselves the kindness they had identified during this compassion-focused therapy exercise.
What It Is: A guided worksheet that encourages clients to view themselves from an outside perspective and identify acts of self-compassion.
How It Helps Clients: Shifts automatic self-critical thoughts and encourages self-kindness.
How to Do It: Complete the worksheet with the client in-session, discuss hesitations or barriers, and plan ways to implement compassionate behaviors daily.
2. Body Scan Exercise
Body scans can be a useful compassion-focused therapy activity that can be used in sessions, as well as in our client’s day-to-day life. Similar to other mindfulness practices, body scans can be modified to each client’s specific needs. For this activity, spend time explaining what your client can expect during a body scan exercise, and the common benefits of doing so. Allow for time to process their experience and encourage your client to practice using body scans outside of the session to find relaxation and peace.
What It Is: A guided exercise to notice and observe bodily sensations without judgment.
How It Helps Clients: Promotes relaxation, self-awareness, and emotional regulation.
How to Do It: Explain the process, guide the client through a body scan, and encourage them to practice outside sessions to enhance calmness.
3. Recognizing Emotions Exercise
Clients, and sometimes even we clinicians, can have a hard time teasing out our emotions when we are feeling in one given moment. This typically occurs when we are feeling a combination of emotions that may be uncomfortable or challenging for us to cope with. When this occurs, we tend to gravitate towards one emotion and put the others on the back burner. As an example, someone may find themselves acting in their anger or frustration rather than their sadness and grief because of the discomfort they feel with their sadness and grief. The consequence of this is that we are not allowing ourselves to feel, or express, the full extent of our emotional experience. TherapyByPro offers a Recognizing Emotions Worksheet that can be used to tease out our client’s different emotions after an event or situation they were faced with. This sheet can be completed while they are experiencing their emotions, or can be completed after the event is resolved. By writing down the specific emotions that they are experiencing, your client can look at the full extent of their emotions in a given situation, and explore how their emotions impacted their behavior. Some clients may benefit from walking through the worksheet during their session and then completing it again on their own once they have gained familiarity with the form.
What It Is: A tool to track and separate complex emotional experiences.
How It Helps Clients: Encourages full emotional awareness and insight into behavior patterns.
How to Do It: Walk the client through the worksheet during an event or afterward, explore their emotions, and discuss their impact on behavior.
4. Exploring Enjoyable Activities
Spend time exploring enjoyable activities that your client engages in. Encourage them to create a list of known enjoyable activities, and explore how often they are able to engage in these activities. Are there any barriers that keep them from engaging in them more than they are? You can then explore other enjoyable activities that they can incorporate into their routine.
What It Is: Identifying and planning engagement in pleasurable or meaningful activities.
How It Helps Clients: Encourages self-care and enhances mood.
How to Do It: Help the client list current and potential enjoyable activities, explore barriers, and plan ways to incorporate them into daily life.
5. Compassion-Focused Therapy Diary Exercise
A beneficial compassion-focused therapy activity is a Compassion-Focused Therapy Diary Worksheet that your client can complete each day to track and monitor their ability to introduce compassion practices into their daily routine. It can be hard to keep track of what they do to show themselves compassion each day while they are engaging in their typical day-to-day responsibilities. Having worksheet care relieves the pressure of needing to remember what your client did while in session, and provide them with the opportunity to see their progress outside of sessions.
What It Is: A diary to record daily acts of self-compassion.
How It Helps Clients: Reinforces consistent practice and allows reflection on progress.
How to Do It: Have the client complete the diary each day, noting compassionate actions, and review in subsequent sessions.
6. Rhythmic Breathing
A helpful CFT exercise would be to focus on rhythmic breathing. Rhythmic breathing can be a useful tool for relaxation and finding inner peace. This can be useful practice before other compassion-focused therapy exercises, activities, and practices. After talking to your client about the benefits of rhythmic breathing and how to do it, allow time to practice during the session. Encourage your client to use this skill in their day-to-day life, and follow up about their ability to do so in your subsequent sessions.
What It Is: A controlled breathing exercise to promote relaxation and focus.
How It Helps Clients: Reduces physiological stress and prepares the client for other CFT activities.
How to Do It: Teach the client a slow, rhythmic breathing pattern, practice in-session, and encourage use in daily life.
7. Create a Safe Place
By using the Create a Safe Place Worksheet, you can help your client explore and describe what their safe place is like. This worksheet will tap into their experience regarding their senses to ensure that your client has a clear, and thorough description of their safe place. Once completed, this worksheet can serve as a reminder of their safe place. You can then explore how your client can incorporate their safe place into their day-to-day life to promote relaxation.
What It Is: A guided worksheet to describe and visualize a personal safe place.
How It Helps Clients: Offers a mental retreat and promotes relaxation and security.
How to Do It: Complete the worksheet in-session, focus on sensory details, and explore ways to use this safe place outside therapy.
8. Compassionate Color Exercise
A commonly used CFT activity is the Compassionate Color exercise. With this activity, you will ask your client to think of a color that they associate with compassion, warmth, and kindness. Once they have their color chosen, your client will then imagine that the color is making its way through various points of their body, bringing and sharing its compassion, warmth, and kindness. Then, encourage your client to draw their attention to the purpose of this activity; the color is bringing them strength and supporting them. TherapyByPro offers a Compassionate Color Worksheet that you can use if you would like to follow a worksheet during this activity.
What It Is: A visualization activity where clients associate a color with compassion and warmth.
How It Helps Clients: Encourages emotional regulation, strength, and self-kindness.
How to Do It: Have clients choose a compassionate color, imagine it spreading through the body, and optionally use a Compassionate Color Worksheet.
9. Thought Balancing Exercise
Similar to the Compassion-Focused Therapy Diary Worksheet, TherapyByPro offers a Compassion-Focused Therapy Thought Balancing Worksheet that can be used outside of the session and brought into the following session to explore and process. The purpose of this form is to track your client’s unhelpful, distressing, and painful thoughts alongside helpful, kind, and compassionate thoughts that can be used to replace their unhealthy automatic thoughts.
What It Is: A worksheet that tracks distressing thoughts alongside helpful, compassionate alternatives.
How It Helps Clients: Encourages replacement of self-critical thoughts with self-compassionate responses.
How to Do It: Complete the worksheet in-session or at home, review entries, and discuss insights in the next session.
10. Compassion Formulation
If you are looking for a structured CFT exercise, you can utilize TherapyByPro’s Compassion Formulation Worksheet. You can use this form to guide your session by exploring how your client views themselves and others, and the factors that contribute to their views. By understanding the effect that internal and external factors have, you can help your client better understand the effects of their negative thoughts. This sheet can be used to guide a group therapy session that utilizes CFT.
What It Is: A structured form exploring internal and external influences on negative thoughts and behaviors.
How It Helps Clients: Promotes insight into self-perception and enhances therapeutic progress.
How to Do It: Guide clients through the worksheet in-session, analyze patterns, and use findings to inform CFT interventions.
Frequently Asked Questions About Compassion-Focused Therapy Activities
Below are the practical questions clinicians ask when facilitating Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) exercises and activities to increase client self-compassion, reduce self-criticism, and manage difficult emotions like shame and anxiety.
What primary clinical objective differentiates Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) exercises from traditional cognitive restructuring?
While traditional cognitive restructuring focuses primarily on identifying and logically correcting unhealthy thinking patterns, CFT exercises emphasize transforming the emotional tone and physiological state underlying those thoughts. Highly self-critical clients often understand intellectually that their thoughts are irrational but still feel intense shame or anxiety. CFT interventions change how clients relate to themselves by activating the body’s caregiving and soothing systems, using experiential practices to replace harsh self-criticism with authentic inner kindness and emotional regulation.
How should a clinician manage a client’s resistance or protective emotional boundaries when introducing self-compassion?
Establishing a strong therapeutic alliance is a critical first step when clients exhibit protective boundaries or resistance to self-compassion. Individuals who struggle with severe shame are often highly self-critical and may view compassion as weakness or a threat to their defense mechanisms. Clinicians should normalize these protective responses, provide clear psychoeducation on emotional regulation systems, and explain that these exercises are structured tools for growth rather than tasks that must be performed perfectly.
What physiological grounding practices are most effective to prepare a highly self-critical client for deeper imagery work?
Before introducing intense self-compassion imagery, clinicians should assess the client’s emotional awareness and use somatic grounding exercises like rhythmic breathing and body scans. Practicing slow, controlled rhythmic breathing directly reduces physiological stress and counters autonomic arousal, helping the client enter a calm state of inner peace. This physiological stabilizing baseline is essential for establishing the safety required to tolerate vulnerable or distressing emotions during subsequent introspective activities.
How can a therapist utilize visualization techniques to build an internal sense of safeness and strength?
Therapists can implement targeted visualization techniques like the Create a Safe Place Worksheet and the Compassionate Color exercise to foster a sense of security and reassurance. The Safe Place exercise leverages specific sensory details to build a vivid mental retreat that promotes deep relaxation. Similarly, the Compassionate Color exercise asks clients to associate a specific color with warmth, kindness, and strength, imagining it flowing through various points of the body to support emotional regulation and reinforce personal agency.
What baseline dosage and structural format does empirical research suggest for achieving optimal clinical outcomes with CFT?
Empirical research indicates that a minimum of 12 clinical sessions is necessary to achieve a significant and trackable reduction in a client’s overall level of distress. Additionally, systemic data shows stronger clinical support for delivering CFT protocols within a group therapy format rather than exclusively in individual sessions. Utilizing structured tracking tools—such as a daily Compassion-Focused Therapy Diary or Thought Balancing worksheets—further enhances skill integration between sessions and allows the practitioner to systematically monitor progress.
Final Thoughts On Choosing Activities for CFT
Thank you for reading this resource on 10 Compassion-Focused Therapy exercises and activities to do with your clients. Compassion-focused therapy can be an effective therapeutic intervention for individuals who are living with a variety of mental health concerns. This can be a valuable approach for groups that are composed of individuals who are working through shame, their toughest critics, and those struggling with their moods. Overall, CFT is a promising intervention for mental health professionals to use within their clinical practices.
As with other therapeutic interventions, it is important to ensure that you receive the proper training and education before you begin using CFT with your clients. You can do this by participating in training opportunities and continuing education credits.
TherapyByPro is a trusted resource for mental health professionals worldwide. Our therapy tools are designed with one mission in mind: to save you time and help you focus on what truly matters-your clients. Every worksheet, counseling script, and therapy poster in our shop is professionally crafted to simplify your workflow, enhance your sessions, reduce stress, and most of all, help your clients.
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Resources:
- Craig, C., Hiskey, S., & Spector, A. (2020). Compassion focused therapy: a systematic review of its effectiveness and acceptability in clinical populations. Expert review of neurotherapeutics, 20(4), 385–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/14737175.2020.1746184
- Leaviss, J., & Uttley, L. (2015). Psychotherapeutic benefits of compassion-focused therapy: an early systematic review. Psychological medicine, 45(5), 927–945. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291714002141