Hello and welcome to the psychology podcast with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, where we give

you insights into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. Each episode will feature a new

guest who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in.

Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility.

Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. I'm really excited to have Kristen Neff on the show today.

Kristen is an associate professor of human development and culture in the educational psychology department at the University of Texas at Austin.

She is author of the self-compassion scales and the book Self-Compassion The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.

Thanks Kristen for being on the show today.

Oh, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

So your story of how you got interested in self-compassion is interesting.

Right the last year in grad school you became interested in Buddhism and kind of this

was an outgrowth of your interest in Buddhism is that right?

Yeah that's right yeah actually it was interesting because the very first night I went to the group to learn

really meditation, help with the stress I was feeling.

The woman leading the group talked a lot about self-compassion, which I hadn't really been expecting.

And lucky for me, because it really changed the course of my life that one evening.

So it kind of, it made immediate sense to me and I started being kinder and more

supportive to myself and I saw the impact almost immediately.

Yeah, is this something that like you've struggled with your life like most people kind of having an

inner critic that is allowed? Yeah it's funny I want to say I'm a particularly harsh. You know have

really harsh inter critic is kind of like an averagely harsh intercritical

are pretty unkind of themselves. What really made the difference for me is I

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