Series 6, Episode Five, Liminality and Compassion

Join Dr Lisa Cherry in conversation with Dr Jo Taylor as they explore liminality as a human constant and argue why compassion is not optional when lives sit between identities, roles and outcomes. From school supervision rooms to street-level tensions, we share tools to widen safety, practise care and make change sustainable.

In this episode we talked about fears, blocks and resistances to compassion, which are totally human. You can read more about Fears of Compassion in this seminal paper link here.
We discussed the way that checking in with - and mapping - the flows of compassion in your life and work can be helpful. You can give this a try using Jo's resource the Wheel of Compassion.

You can find Jo and learn more about his work on LinkedIn and his website is here. 

Transcript

Welcome And Series Context

SPEAKER_02 0:08

To you if you are interested in compassion, connection and relationship and how we can all work together creating services that do not add to harm but rather think before recovery from it. I'm your host, Lisa Cherry, and this is your time to sit back and listen in on conversations that make a difference.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

So welcome to the liminality series, which I hope you've been enjoying and listening to all the different subjects where we've been reflecting on liminality, liminal spaces. And today I'm with Dr. Joe Taylor, who's a child and educational psychologist. He's also the director of Constellation Psychology. He's a trainer, researcher, and honorary lecturer at the University of Manchester. And I'm so pleased to have Joe on this podcast with me. Hello, Joe.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Lisa, it's so good to be here. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what magic we can weave in a conversation about liminality.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Well, shall we start off with just thinking about what is your understanding of liminality? Because I know that you've actually been doing some work around this, and and and how does it show up in the way that you in the way that you think about your work? But you know, we're humans, right? So it's also in the way that we think about our life.

Compassion As Essential Lens

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, I I think um you introduced me as a psychologist, and that's my profession, but I'm I'm very much here as a person, Joe, and I'll be mining all aspects of myself when when we're talking. So I think in terms of liminality, I probably frame that in relation to uncertainty and transition. And as psychologist, I work with people in all different positions in in their life, all different moments. But a lot of the time I'm working with them at really difficult points. And as a practitioner, one of the lenses that I use a lot is compassion-focused approaches. And last year, 2025, was the year of compassion for me. And 2026, it seems like is is uh continuing on in that vein. And compassion, when I talk about it, I use the definition that Paul Gilbert provided us with, which is around the awareness of distress and suffering and the commitment to prevent or reduce it. I feel like that maps perfectly onto my work as a psychologist, really trying to understand people's experiences, really trying to think about the way that I can help them in the best way possible. And so often I'm meeting people at points of transition or uncertainty. And it might be that it's a big life change. It might also be that it's just the uncertainty of meeting someone with uh a title like psychologist. So it's something that I think about a lot, how I can help people to navigate uncertainty and transition. And um, yeah, we're looking forward to really um unpicking and unpacking that in our time together.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Yeah, and through having different conversations, um, and particularly the conversation that I had with um at the very beginning, the outset, Bjorn Thomason, is such a good conversation. I hope people listen to it uh for episode one, because what he talks about is how liminality is it's not a theory, it's not a framework, it's a lens, it's a way of asking better questions. And when we understand liminality, then we understand that we need we need people to carry us through that. And I guess what I'm hearing you say is that you part of your role is as a carrier through that time, that you're thinking about that as a compassionate companion through those transitional in-between times. So that begs the question for me then is can liminality itself be a fertile ground for compassion, or does it demand that compassion if compassion is absent, what kind of journey is that through that liminal space?

Carriers And Systems Of Support

SPEAKER_01 5:07

That question is exactly why I was looking forward to this conversation, uh, because it's it's huge. And it it I feel like it cuts to the the heart of what it means to be human. So I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna try and respond on a few different levels here. First, I would say that you talked about me as a you know, maybe a a carrier or a facilitator, and I and I do accept that, but I also think there's a huge part of my work, which is about trying to set up support systems around people so that they can share the compassionate companionship, the support and the carrying. Um, in terms of liminality being a fertile ground for compassion, I feel like they're intimately intertwined because when we are navigating life as humans, we do that with our wonderful, tricky brains. And our brains are so wonderful and can do all sorts of interesting things like invent video call software and you know, process conversations, all that kind of stuff, but also can be really tricky in relation to how we respond to threat and perceive threat. And uncertainty and transition can be processes which really bring out and bring online our threat system. So the thing is, is once that's happened, we start to see and structure and interpret the world in relation to the potential for threat. And our threat system is trying to keep us safe, it's not nothing's going wrong. This is you know, everything's working as it should be, but we can experience all sorts of difficulties as a result. So is liminality a fertile ground for compassion? I feel like compassion is essential for it. Compassion is essential for it.

Threat Brain And Soothing Systems

SPEAKER_03 7:19

I'm with you on that. And you talk about you can't be the only carrier. So I love that you're thinking about what are the what are the systems around a person that also carry them. And it's making me think on a very personal level about the experience of my cancer diagnosis, which led me to this space, and then the treatments that I've had, and and then being told that I was going to die, and then finding out that I'm on a trial and that's working really well, and I'm not. And there's all these liminal spaces just in that one experience of getting a cancer diagnosis that's traumatic. They've been very traumatic experience, but not traumatizing. And I completely place that in the fact that there's been such an army of people carrying me through these liminal spaces with compassion. And I guess that raises the question about the people that we work with that don't have those, if you like, armies of carriers who can carry us through liminal spaces with compassion. And we see that in working with children, young people, particularly, who may experience exclusion or experience being in care, which for me is an elongated experience of liminality. So I love that you're really thinking about the essential requirement of a liminal space to have compassion at the heart. And I wonder how how we strengthen that understanding for other people who are around children, young people, families, you know, everybody really.

Practising Compassion In Schools

SPEAKER_01 9:14

One of the really important things that I try to emphasize in my work is that we have emotional drives as mammals. And that means that we have a threat system which is trying to keep us safe. Um, we also have systems around you know, motivation, trying to do things, feeling excited, and also systems which are about when there's no threat and there's nothing to achieve, we can recuperate. And that Southe system involves really subtle experiences like connection and contentment, and we all have that within us, so those different drives. And because we have these wonderful brains that are trying to help us out, they often get really good at the things that they do a lot. And so if we're experiencing a threat system coming online really regularly, it becomes even easier to access those states of um physiology and psychology. So what we can do is we can try to practice other things alongside so that they become easier to access throughout the day in our lives, in our work. And that can provide us with options when we find ourselves getting stuck in in tricky loops of thinking or or feeling. And I mean, you you were talking about working with children and young people, and I'm just thinking about, you know, I talk quite a lot about psychology, I'm sure I'm thinking a little bit about practice here as well. I spent uh the last five years supervising senior leadership teams nationally in um alternative provisions and specialist SCMH schools. So people who are working with children who have experienced incredibly complicated lives and as a result can present with behaviors that can be scary or confusing and sometimes harmful, and they don't always have that army of helpers that you described. What we found in the supervisory space is that we could do lots of different things that could be helpful. And we started from a place quite often started from a place of what even is compassion. That doesn't sound like it's for me. That sounds like it's fluffy and nonsense, that would never work in my in my role. Um I I don't really like talking to people about work. There's, you know, it's all good. I just need to crack on. And having fears or blocks or resistances to compassion is is also completely human. One of the things that was really wonderful as a practitioner was that over in a very short amount of time, actually, people in these supervision groups were opening up and slowing down to really unpick situations. I think that was the first thing was creating the conditions for being able to think about what the most useful things to do might be. So instead of placing a responsibility on the person to kind of do better thinking now, we could use the body to help create the conditions for the mind. So postures and breathing exercises or visualizations to really slow the body down and try and create the biggest chance possible that we could do some compassionate thinking and try and try and come up with some practical solutions or practical ways forward that would help to reduce or or prevent suffering and distress. In those groups, we could help people slow down to create a tiny space, and then we could, in that space, practice the giving and receiving of compassion. And actually, as a skill, it's really unfair to expect someone to be good at something that they've never practiced. And and once we have um a space to practice, actually, it becomes a lot easier to try and apply that in your day-to-day life. And so suddenly these professionals in caring roles that are giving so much were finding it easier to receive compassion from other people and even to start to direct compassion to themselves. And so it it opened up what was available to them.

Blocks And Fears Of Compassion

SPEAKER_03 14:06

We have both between us decided that a really good transformational opportunity within liminality requires compassion. And you're talking about how some people really struggle with compassion, and that actually I love this modelling of receiving and giving compassion as a way of supporting people to develop more compassion. But I was just while you were talking, I was thinking, what are the blocks to compassion? And I've always felt very much in the second part of that question that compassion, self-compassion is kind of crucial before compassion can be directed towards others. That if you can't feel compassionate about yourself, then is that potentially a barrier to feeling compassionate about others?

Mapping Compassion’s Three Flows

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Well, I think that you're probably considering a sustainable approach to compassion and giving, which makes a lot of sense. But when I work with psychologists or educators, people who give a lot, often self-compassion is one of the things that they find most difficult. And so I really agree with you that developing that skill is huge, uh hugely important when we think about sustainably looking after other people or sustainably navigating difficult situations. In terms of the uh blocks to compassion, um, we can link to uh a paper that Paul Gilbert et al. did which looked at some of the common blocks to the different flows of compassion. And um it's incredibly interesting and quite powerful reading, actually. But I think that when we go back to the definition of compassion, an awareness of suffering, and a commitment to try and prevent or reduce it, that is hard. That is, you know, I I the word that comes to mind is dangerous. I'm turning towards difficult stuff here. And so depending on your experiences of difficulty or the relationships that you've had in your life, your previous work experiences, you might have all sorts of things that feel uncomfortable or unfamiliar. Um, you you might have beliefs like if I start to give to other people, when will it stop? I won't be able to sustain it, and and people might take too much, or like life is about putting your head down, cracking on getting through what's hard, etc. etc. I'm I'm kind of almost quoting from the paper here when you read it, your you'll um realize. But um yeah, locks and and and fears of compassion are a hundred percent human. And when I when I think about my own experience, I definitely had and have them uh in terms of the the way that I structure boundaries. And um I think it's really interesting what you were reflecting on in terms of the need to have some kind of balance in terms of the ways that compassion is flowing in your life. And actually that out of the last five years of supervision groups, I have developed a tool for mapping exactly that. Um, just checking in with the three different flows that direction can uh that compassion can move in, because it was so evident to me that quite often there'd be uh either I haven't really thought about that, or oh wow, I'm really shocked by how little I've been noticing compassion from others recently, or how much I've been giving to others recently.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

You know, what I really want people to take away from the conversation so far is this understanding that when we have humans in this in-between space that is a very natural part of being a human, that they need people, we need people, and we need compassion as we move through that space. So, with that in mind, can you recall a particularly defining liminal moment in your own life or liminal period where you were on that threshold of between who you were and who you were becoming?

Personal Liminal Moments

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Two immediately spring to mind, I'll briefly describe, and then you can pick the direction uh that we move in. So the most recent one becoming a parent, and all of the you're smiling, all of the all of the stuff that comes with that. Um and the one that I think has defined me the most up until that point was uh caring for my mother and her death and then becoming a psychologist. So that that process you know happened with within a couple of years. And so, yeah, in terms of points of transition, becoming you know, like a transition of identity, um, a lot of richness in in both of those. And if I was zooming out, I know I offered you the choice, but if I was zooming out, I would say that there were also some interesting echoes in my transition into becoming a parent from my caring experience. So, yeah, some um lots of stuff that we could talk about that might be uh interesting or or useful.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Yeah, I mean, you've described life itself. You've just uh described life and birth, uh death and birth, you know, the the the full range of this experience that we have of being alive and and that that leading to a death because that's what life is. Um so I'm wondering, did one of those have more compassion and people to support you than another, or were they the same?

Containment, Love, And Learning

SPEAKER_01 21:07

So I was just thinking about the the experience of being a carer and for context. My mother Meg, I never called her mum, I called her Meg. Meg was uh a midwife and then was a psychotherapist, and so we'd have all sorts of interesting conversations about uh emotions and the subconscious and all that kind of stuff, you know, age nine, ten. And um Meg was the first person to talk to me about containment. And I loved the idea the the theory and and concept of containment. So Bion talks about the the holding of other people's pain and distress, uh, and the attempt to make sense of it. And I feel like that's That is really relevant to the conversation in so many ways because when people are you know going through an identity transition or are in uncertain times, it can be so helpful to have other people to help you to process to walk with you. In terms of what we're talking about, my own experiences of liminality, Meg was really skilled at holding my pain and distress and helping me to make sense of it. And I'll go even further, and I'd say that earlier on we're talking about liminality being a human, you know, fundamentally human. And something that I've been asked a few times when I do training around compassion is is compassion innate? And I have uh been lucky enough to do um some travel research into compassion, including meeting some Buddhist monks on the west coast of America, and they they would probably say 100% compassion is innate. But the way that I think about it is a bit more psychological, and I would say that compassion is containment. Containment is compassion, actually. When you think about the process of holding someone's pain and distress and trying to help them make sense of it, it really does neatly map onto Gilbert's two-part definition of awareness of suffering and trying to reduce or prevent it.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

So and Meg was holding you while holding herself in her own liminal space between living and dying. I mean, that's quite profound and not something you would have been aware of at that age, that she was able to do both of those things to have that strength to hold herself in that transition. And you.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, I think that's a really powerful reflection. And the other thing that I was reflecting on was the explicit permission to express emotions, and I think that that probably comes under uh containment, which we were talking about, but also love. It was so very clear that there was a lot of unconditional love in that situation, and that made it so much easier to um gather gifts from it as opposed to feel incredibly um. I mean, you know, there are periods of time that were like terrible and horrible, but um I was able to really feel like I could gather some gifts as well. And so when I look back, I can yeah, I can really uh appreciate all of the skill that you're highlighting in terms of Meg's containment of the situation.

Community Responsibility And Division

SPEAKER_03 25:09

I love that. Um and I'm wondering if we can, I know I I've I've brought I we started off in some systems and then we brought it into you as a person, and I want to take us out into communities now and think about what responsibilities do communities have in showing compassion to those living in liminal spaces. And I'm thinking obviously, particularly the time we're living in, the time we're living in is very much not particularly compassionate towards marginalized groups, towards refugees. It's not uh kind around the liminal spaces that people are in. I mean, I don't think you can get more of a liminal space than a hotel, you know, as as somewhere to be. Um, there's all sorts of examples, I guess, we could draw upon about which communities are inhabiting liminal spaces. I raised earlier about children in camp often being in a continual liminal space. So I wonder, I wonder what your thoughts might be around the responsibilities that communities have that politicians have, that policymakers have, you know. I mean, this is a really big question, I guess, but you know, I think it's worth thinking about.

Courage, Wisdom, Commitment In Action

Personal Safety Versus Community Connection

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about what it means to be a human uh throughout this conversation, and community is yeah, one of those fundamental things. And I yeah, I'm I'm pausing because I think that the examples that you were giving around people that are refugees living in hotels, that that kind of liminality is something that I see in in the part of the world that I live in, in the southwest of England. Uh, I'm from London and the demography and history is very different uh where I live now. And um I suppose I'll I'll just I'll I'll take us back to a maybe some psychological theory and then and then dive into a bit of thinking about my personal experience of how the Southwest is is navigating this kind of social liminality. I think that in periods of transition uncertainty, there can be lots of splitting into us and them. There can be lots of splitting away from difficult experiences. You know, splitting is probably is the psychodynamic phrase. Um Paul Gilbert would probably talk about distress tolerance, you know, like when it becomes a bit too much, you turn you turn away or you try and you try and um escape, or again, all totally uh understandable in terms of trying to protect yourself, but that kind of threat response or that kind of threat-saturated experience is such a barrier to connection and uh engaging with nuance, and that can lead us into a you know a loop of of perpetual disconnection and and feelings of threat. So when I think about the Southwest, there are a few community organizations that have approached me to ask if I could facilitate spaces for them to think about how to best support people who are living in hotels at the moment and how they could best approach some kind of protest in that area. And that is you know a hugely powerful, hugely powerful uh experience and and thing to be preparing for. But the thing the thing that actually came to mind when I was thinking about it was the flags that I'm seeing on lampposts. So I'll just describe like when I walk down the street or I drive through a roundabout, I see lots of Union Jackson and flags of St. George. And to the people that put them up, they they might be a sign of belonging or um safety. I don't know. Like I'm trying to I'm trying to understand what might be behind that, but for me, it creates uh some liminality, actually. Um I I feel quite uncertain and I feel anxious when I when I look at them. And I am a white English person, so I can only imagine for people who might have different relationships or experiences to that flag what it might do for them in terms of creating liminality. But when I think about that situation through the lens of compassion, I have to think about well, what's gonna help? My instinct is very much like speaking personally here, like let me get away from this flag, and I'm not judging people that feel like they want to put up a flag, but I'm just saying that that's my personal response. So, yeah, that's me looking to escape from that perceived threat. And in the compassion-focused approach literature, there's um the idea of compassionate qualities that support your compassionate self to navigate the world, and they are courage, wisdom, and a commitment to care. And I really like them as ways of trying to navigate complicated situations because they can provide a bit of a north star when you think about your compassionate response um being comprised of dialing up those qualities. And so when I think about those flags and on my initial response, actually, I think probably what is most useful as a member of the community is trying to reach out to people and understand their situation and try and connect with them because connection is a soothing process, and helping someone to feel seen and heard is something that I think could be a route to helping them feel less scared and more a part of a community. I'm not a politician or a sociologist, I'm sharing this just to try and play around with my initial response being to turn away and leave, and my compassionate response actually thinking I need to be courageous and out outreaching to talk to people who have different views to me. And I feel like that is the way to try and knit together a bit of uh a bit of a more close community. So, yeah, it's a personal anecdote um through the lens of compassion, thinking about the responsibility of community.

Key Takeaways And Closing

SPEAKER_03 32:56

And and I'm with you, that would be my goal. I'm not certain how long I'd last, and that's the challenge, isn't it? You know? So my goal would be so I'm walking along, I'm wandering to a protest. Let's face it, those protests are predominantly often quite large white men. I'm being a bit general here, but it's just what I've seen on the TV. They're often bald. I don't know why that is. Um, can I say that? Oh, yes, I can, it's my podcast. Um and they're shouting a lot. Lots of them seem to be also drinking. And I want to be compassionate in the sense that I want to understand, I want to develop my awareness of their viewpoint. But actually, there's a cut-off point for me because of the situation. I mean, we're really steering into some quite heavy territory here, and I didn't really mean to do that, but it was inevitable that if we had a conversation, it was going to uh on some subject or other, it was going to get a bit a bit hairy. Um, you know, I I can definitely be more understanding of people's perspectives, particularly in the context of the state of Britain, uh from the comfort of my own armchair. But that compassion is hugely skilled when conducted in person, in the context I've described. And of course, it would feel not just that my body wouldn't be able to detect safety, but actually it might not be able to detect safety because it just isn't safe. So I think it's really good to think about compassion from both ends of the spectrum, isn't it? Really, which is the compassion that we exercise that might come with more ease, uh, particularly for people in our line of work who are very driven in that way. But actually, that compassion has to extend far, far outside of the things that are more easy to be compassionate about. Or does it, Dr. Taylor?

SPEAKER_00 35:19

That felt a little bit like uh a little bit like the voiceover in a murder mystery.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Well, I was interested when you were reflecting on what I said, you uh imagined yourself personally in a protest, and obviously that is uh you know, that's you as an individual, and I think that individually it's got to stay safe. That's really important. In terms of when I'm thinking about a community-level approach, there has to be some kind of connection, otherwise, I can't see us getting past like basic undergrad in-group-out group social psychology here. So I just offer that up as maybe there's a difference between the individual level and the community level here, and on a community level, things can happen way before anyone needs or feels the need to protest in in terms of stuff happening on uh in the community hall or eye contact in the street, or you know, whatever it is. When we were all in Manchester together, you talked about micro interactions and mattering and belonging. So I'm kind of bringing that back. That's that's what I would that's what I'd offer up to your or does it.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

We have covered quite a lot in quite a short space of time, and I hope I kind of hope that people have some questions really and put them into the um into the chat and in the show notes, I'll make sure that everyone knows how to connect with you, and hopefully we can put a link to the paper that you've referenced as well. But I think we've successfully looked at the we've looked at community, we've looked at the individual, we've looked at ourselves, we've looked at uh we've talked about modeling and experiencing receiving and giving compassion. And I love that you do that work. And we've also, I think, quite clearly argued the case for compassion being successful liminality, if you like, or maybe successful is the wrong word, but a liminal space that is potentially transformational and going from who you were to who you're becoming is a transformation. For that to be a positive experience, I think we've successfully argued that compassion is integral to that. So I just want to say thank you, really, for opening up such interesting ways of thinking about liminal spaces that I hope everybody really benefits from. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yeah, thanks, Lisa. It's been a really lovely experience having this conversation, and I am also really curious to read and listen to people's reflections and thoughts. From my point of view, compassion is an essential lens for navigating caring professions, brackets being a human. So I welcome people getting in touch if they're interested to explore that more. And we'll listen to future episodes with rapt attention.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

Thanks so much, Joe.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Thanks, Lisa.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

You've been listening to the Trauma Resonance Resilience podcast with me, your host, Lisa Cherry, brought to you straight from the heart of the knowledge that high quality relationships are the cornerstone of learning, healing, and growing. If you've enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing or reviewing and connecting.