The science for compassion is sparse but can be found in other areas of research and one that is interesting me more and more is the process of mentalisation. This process is used in psychoanalytical therapy to help people who have trouble understanding another person’s emotions such as in mental illness or learning disabilities. Now, if compassion is about sharing (in (com)pany ) another persons’ ‘passion’ (emotion),  it is really important that we try to understand how another person is feeling.  Hooker et al (2008) found that when we try to understand another persons’ emotions using mentalisation skills, there was significant changes in our neural pathways that helped us to do this.  Ths suggests that compassion for others  can be taught if, we do not already have those skills. We already know that compassion for ouselves  (or mindfulness) can be taught and is becoming a very popular approach to helping people develop their own resilience, but this does not always help us to be compassionate for others.   In order to  be compassionate for others we must first be compassionate for our selves (mindful)  so that we can understand what we need, to understand the emotions of others. This can require a great deal of effort and on a busy working day, very difficlut. But if we understand that in order to be motivated towards being more compassionate for others, we must also be compassionate for ourselves and our needs, perhaps to develop our mentalisation skills, then we can also develop our skills in compassionate practice.   The science of compassion is developing into a robust and valued source of information that will help us inform our practice, every day.