Compassionate Inquiry with Dr Dylan Gibson

The approach

Compassionate Inquiry

Compassionate Inquiry® is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr Gabor Maté. In practice it is a conversation between the two of us, held online, looking together at what sits beneath the patterns you find yourself repeating. This is not intended to be a medical consultation.

We adapt early in order to survive — becoming the nice one, the capable one, the one who copes — and those same adaptations, having once kept us safe, eventually hold us apart from who we actually are.

The approach proceeds through questions rather than advice. We take a single situation — often an ordinary one — and look closely at how you responded to it, and why. What tends to come into view is something that has been running quietly underneath for a long time, along with where it began. My part is to ask carefully and to reflect back what I notice, so that you can see it for yourself rather than be told about it.

It also pays attention to what is happening in your body as we talk, because what couldn't be felt at the time is often still held there. Where there is enough safety and compassion, it becomes possible to recognise the beliefs you took on and to feel what you have been carrying. It is the avoidance of truth, not the truth itself, that keeps us suffering.

Sessions are 60 minutes and held online, so we can work together wherever you are. The fee is CAD 120 a session, payable by PayPal. If you'd like to begin, we can start with a free discovery call — a short conversation, no obligation, to see whether this feels like the right fit.

Book a free discovery call