Compassion-Focused Therapy: Beyond the Basics

Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) is a cutting-edge psychotherapy that takes the "third wave" of psychotherapy further, by expanding the frontiers of mindfulness and acceptance into a deliberate awakening of our compassionate mind. For thousands of years, wisdom traditions have used mindfulness and acceptance methods as a platform to transform the mind through compassion training. CFT puts that process in your hands, drawing on rigorous behavioral psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary theory.

This online course will review foundational CFT concepts, and will then take participants beyond the basics into advanced CFT experiential exercises that can address a range of problems. This is an opportunity to integrate deeper dimensions of compassion work into your practice, while renewing your understanding of the fundamental dynamics of mindfulness and compassion.

This 8-week course is the second half in a pioneering, 16-week comprehensive online learning experience in CFT training. Our work over the 8 weeks can build on your previous training, or stand on its own, and there is no requirement that you have taken part in other Praxis CFT trainings, or any prior CFT training.

This workshop will present the working definition of compassion utilized in CFT, will review Paul Gilbert's CFT model of emotion regulation, and will go further to explore how compassion functions as a series of interacting processes and procedures. This constellation of psychotherapy processes can strengthen our ability to turn toward painful experiences, help us work with human suffering, and can cultivate values-based movement in our clients’ lives, and in our own. You will leave this workshop armed with a range of techniques rooted in CFT, and an enhanced understanding of what the embodied compassion motive represents. For example, you will learn how to use compassion embodiment in the therapeutic relationship, active meditative imagery practice, and CFT chair-work and role-play practices to help clients work courageously with life challenges.

Appropriate for newcomers to CFT and veterans alike, and taught by some of the foremost CFT experts in North America, this workshop presents a novel approach to understanding the therapy aimed at helping you advance your compassion work. Together, we will build a road map toward increased compassion-based living, mindful courage, and psychological flexibility.

This training is specifically designed to help acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and other behavior therapy practitioners deepen their understanding and practice of compassion-focused treatment.

Through small group work and a series of experiential exercises, you will build the foundation needed to advance your CFT skills base, and to grow as a clinician. And you will get to have your questions and concerns addressed by top trainers in CFT, including the form's originator, Paul Gilbert, who will be joining us as a special guest for one of the sessions in this training.

Prior to registering, please review speaker-planner conflict of interest disclosures and complete CE information. Participants must attend the training in full and complete the course evaluation in order to earn CE credit. No partial credit will be given.