Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is an evidence-based treatment developed by Dr. Paul Gilbert. The treatment incorporates techniques from a number of Western psychotherapies, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and Buddhist philosophy. It addresses unproductive behaviors through improving emotion regulation and compassion for self and others.

At SFCompassion, we pioneer the application of CFT for Hoarding. This CFT for Hoarding (CFT-H) protocol was developed by Dr. Chia-Ying Chou, and is continuously studied and developed at SFCompassion. In her study published in 2019, significant effects of CFT in reducing hoarding symptom severity have been found among individuals who did not respond well to CBT.

This group will be led by Dr. Chou and therapists on her team. This is a closed group. No drop-in is allowed. Each group cohort contains 20 weekly sessions, and each session is 2 hours long. Topics covered in the group includes: viewing hoarding from the CFT lens, learning how our brains and emotion regulation systems work, learning compassion-based skills to help with hoarding-related difficulties.

We ask our group participants to fill out questionnaires before and after the group therapy experience. This helps them know where they were when they began, and in what ways the therapy has helped them. Participants will be invited to give their de-identified data to help us research this treatment. However, this is not required and will not affect their treatment experiences.