Compassion Focused Therapy at Combat Stress Part 4

At Combat Stress, we use our knowledge, research and veteran feedback to inform the services we deliver to veterans. Last year, Combat Stress presented at the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS) conference to share our knowledge and learning about Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) approaches, and how we used this to develop our services.

In collaboration with Dr Deborah Lee, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at OP Courage, we co-developed Be Your Best Ally, a group intervention for veterans that teaches self-compassion skills. Be Your Best Ally consists of 12 weekly sessions in which veterans learn about what compassion is and why it’s important and develop compassion skills through breathing and imagery exercises. After establishing a solid grounding in compassion, veterans can bring their day-to-day struggles to the group, where they can receive support, understanding and wisdom from other veterans. To ensure our interventions are as effective as possible, we continually gather information on clinical outcomes and feedback from veterans. We’ve consistently seen positive results since initially piloting Be Your Best Ally in 2021.

CFT also substantially informs Restore and Rebuild, our groundbreaking treatment for veterans who have experienced moral injury during service.