Shame, stress and reactivity within and between people are major sources of suffering that conventional medicine has, at best, a mixed track record in treating. For thousands of years, global wisdom traditions have held that training the mind and cultivating compassion can be highly effective in helping people face their fears and overcome shame and blocks to their resilience and growth; a growing body of scientific research supports this view.

This 8 week psychotherapy group on Compassion Focused Therapy Level I: Compassionate Mind Training is guided by a registered psychologist with 30 years of clinical experience. This group will teach techniques for reducing shame, stress and reactivity using  “Compassion-Focused Therapy” which has been described as a psychotherapy that “draws from cutting-edge neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and Buddhist mindfulness methods to teach us innovative, evidence-based meditation, as well as visualization and cognitive re-framing techniques designed to increase our emotional strength and psychological flexibility.” (Dr. Dennis Tirch, CFT Foundation North America)

You will leave this 8 week Compassion Focused Therapy group equipped with an array of powerful new tools and healing perspectives that will permit you to move beyond stress and reactivity, and live with renewed meaning, purpose, and vitality.

What will I get from this group? This group will give you 16+ hours of direct contact with a doctoral trained registered psychologist trained in Compassion Focused Therapy. We will cover knowledge, skills and practice in these areas:

• Why we need compassion
• Neuroscience of compassion
• The three flows of compassion
• Fears, blocks and resistances to compassion
• Cultivating soothing system techniques
• Developing the compassionate self
• Directing the compassionate mind
• Cultivating compassionate attention, thinking, emotion, and behavior
• Working with common difficulties with compassion
• Relapse prevention: sustaining the compassionate mind long term