"Compassionate Inquiry" a therapeutic approach: A mixed method study

Compassionate Inquiry (CI) is a therapeutic approach developed by Dr. Gabor Mate and transformed into a professional training program with the contributions of Sat Dharam Kaur. The aim of the research is to deeply explore the CI therapeutic approach in terms of self-compassion and body awareness levels of the participants who received short- term CI training and the interviews conducted. A total of thirty-one clinical psychologists and clinical psychology students, volunteers of Maltepe University SOYAC, who received short-term professional training of CI, which consists of eight modules and lasts eighteen weeks, participated in the research. In the quantitative phase of the research, demographic information was collected from the participants with a single-group pretest-posttest semi-experimental design; data were collected through the Self-Compassion Scale and MAIA-II. Dependent Groups t-test and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test were used to compare the pretest and posttest scores. As a result, a significant increase was found in self-compassion and all its sub-dimensions; there is an increase in body awareness and its sub-dimensions. Significance was found in the Noticing, Not Distracting, Emotional Awareness, Self-Regulation sub-dimensions of the MAIA-II scale. In the subsequent qualitative phase, semi-structured questions and in-depth interviews were used to explore the experiences and impressions of ten participants. Interpretative phenomenological analysis identified three main themes: 1)Accompanying Self with Compassion and Building Connection: CI, 2) "CI must be a part of clinical psychology education" 3) Towards a Compassionate Community: Shared Humanity. it was understood that CI improved the self-compassion and body awareness of the participants, positively changed their personal and professional lives, and approaches like CI are needed in professional training. This research can contribute to filling the gap in the literature of CI research. Suggestions for future research have been made; it has been suggested to include CI in community-based clinical psychology and professional trainings in Turkey.