What is Compassionate Inquiry? Understanding Gabor Maté's Healing Approach
There is a question that sits at the heart of almost every form of human suffering: Why do I keep doing this?
Why do I stay in relationships that hurt me? Why do I reach for food, or alcohol, or work, or scrolling, even when I know it is not serving me? Why do certain situations trigger me so intensely, as if they carry a weight far beyond the present moment?
Compassionate Inquiry is a therapeutic approach developed specifically to answer these questions, not from the outside in, but from the inside out.
What is Compassionate Inquiry?
Compassionate Inquiry® is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr Gabor Maté, the renowned Hungarian-Canadian physician and author known for his groundbreaking work on trauma, addiction, and the mind-body connection.
At its core, Compassionate Inquiry is a process of gentle, curious exploration: a way of turning towards our inner experience with kindness rather than judgment, and uncovering the hidden beliefs, emotional wounds, and survival strategies that shape so much of our behaviour without our conscious awareness.
The method is called compassionate for a reason. Unlike approaches that push for insight or force confrontation with difficult material, Compassionate Inquiry works with patience and care. It honours the wisdom of your nervous system and the protective intelligence of your defences, recognising that every coping mechanism, no matter how self-destructive it may appear, began as a perfectly reasonable response to pain.
The Core Insight: We Are Not Broken
One of the most liberating ideas in Compassionate Inquiry is that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you.
The patterns that cause suffering, the anxiety, the numbing, the self-sabotage, the difficulty with intimacy, are not character flaws. They are adaptations. They are the ways your younger self found to survive in environments that felt unsafe, unpredictable, or unsupportive of your authentic being.
The work of Compassionate Inquiry is not to fix what is broken, but to gently illuminate what was never seen. In that seeing, the nervous system finally receives the safety it needs to let go.
How Does Compassionate Inquiry Work?
A Compassionate Inquiry session is a deeply personal, relational experience. The practitioner guides you into a state of present-moment awareness, helping you tune into what is happening in your body as you speak, because the body holds the record of our experiences in ways the thinking mind often cannot access.
Through careful, compassionate questioning, the practitioner helps you:
Notice what emotions or sensations arise as you explore a particular pattern or experience
Identify the beliefs about yourself or the world that were formed in early life
Recognise the gap between what happened and the meaning you made of it
Meet the younger parts of yourself who are still carrying old pain
Begin to update those old beliefs with new, kinder truths
The process is slow, spacious, and non-directive. There is no agenda to arrive at a particular conclusion. The healing comes from the quality of presence and the willingness to look with curiosity, not criticism.
What is Compassionate Inquiry Used For?
Compassionate Inquiry is effective for a wide range of experiences, including:
Trauma and complex trauma: including childhood experiences that may not have seemed overtly traumatic at the time
Anxiety and chronic stress: exploring the root of the nervous system's alarm response
Addictive patterns: understanding the unmet need beneath the compulsion
Relationship difficulties: uncovering attachment patterns and emotional reactivity
Low self-worth and inner critic: tracing self-judgment back to its origins
Disconnection from self: rebuilding a relationship with your own inner experience
Grief and loss: allowing emotions that may have been suppressed for years
It is particularly powerful for those who have tried talk therapy or cognitive approaches and found that understanding their patterns intellectually has not translated into lasting change. Compassionate Inquiry works at a deeper level, with the emotional and somatic (body-based) experience, not just the story.
What to Expect in a Session
Compassionate Inquiry sessions with certified practitioner Jessi Galvin are held in a warm, safe, and deeply respectful online space. Jessi works with a somatic and energetic awareness that complements the CI approach, bringing her intuitive capacity to the relational field of the session.
You do not need to arrive with a clear problem or a specific goal. Often, the most meaningful sessions begin simply with: I don't quite know what's happening for me, but something needs attention.
Sessions begin with a discovery call, giving you the chance to connect with Jessi, ask questions, and sense whether working together feels right before committing to the process.
How is Compassionate Inquiry Different from Regular Therapy?
While Compassionate Inquiry shares some qualities with other therapeutic approaches, there are several key distinctions:
Body-centred: the session pays close attention to physical sensations and bodily held emotion, not just thoughts and narratives
Non-pathologising: the approach never frames the client as disordered or broken
Present-moment focused: rather than analysing the past in the abstract, CI works with what is alive right now
Relational and co-created: the practitioner is not a detached expert but a compassionate companion in the exploration
Trauma-informed: deeply respectful of the nervous system's pace and boundaries
Is Compassionate Inquiry Right for You?
You might be drawn to Compassionate Inquiry if you:
Know your patterns but cannot seem to change them
Have a sense that something from your past is still driving your present
Want to explore your inner world in a safe, non-judgmental space
Are curious about the connection between your emotions, your body, and your behaviour
Are looking for something deeper than surface-level coping strategies
Feel ready to meet yourself with kindness
Taking the First Step
Healing does not require you to have everything figured out before you begin. It only requires a willingness to look, gently, honestly, and with compassion.
If Compassionate Inquiry resonates with you, working with a certified practitioner is the most direct path to experiencing its depth. Jessi Galvin offers Compassionate Inquiry sessions online, alongside energy healing and intuitive guidance, creating a holistic, multi-layered approach to transformation.
Book a discovery call with Jessi to explore whether Compassionate Inquiry is right for you.
