Compassion Focused Therapy Techniques in Action – Imagery, Psychotherapy and Life Transformation

16
CE Hours available ( How do I get my CE? )
Dennis Tirch, PhD Founder of the Center for Compassion Focused Therapy, CFT trainer, and author
Laura Silberstein-Tirch, PsyD Director of the Center for Compassion Focused Therapy, CFT trainer, and ACT expert

About This Course

For thousands of years, wisdom traditions have used mindfulness, acceptance, and compassion-based training as a platform to transform the mind.

Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) builds upon these traditions while putting that process into your hands, drawing on rigorous behavioral psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary theory.

And while there are many workshops and online trainings that introduce the concepts and the basics of CFT’s clinical application, many practitioners are left wondering…

Where do you go next to build strength and competence with these methods?

This live online course, Compassion Focused Therapy Techniques in Action, is designed to ground the concepts behind compassionate mind training (CMT) — the mindfulness and imagery practices found in CFT — in practical application.

Over the course of 8 interactive sessions, you will explore how cultivating mindfulness and compassion can result in powerful change in your life, as well as how to masterfully deploy these techniques in a way that is intimate, personalized, and adapted to the work you already do.

Dr. Laura Silberstein-Tirch and Dr. Dennis Tirch will guide you through a virtual CMT group process, where you’ll learn CFT from the inside out by working with participants’ own processes and struggles. Each week, these imagery and meditative techniques will be linked to specific psychotherapy interventions, so that what you learn from within can then be applied with clients.

With theory and techniques grounded in CFT's evolutionary theory, you’ll explore a range of topics including:

  • How to guide clients through systematic Compassionate Mind Training
  • How therapists and clients can bridge application of compassion-focused techniques into behavior change and personal development
  • How to build on compassion and mindfulness training practices to deliver evidence-based psychotherapy
  • How to use CMT in individual CFT and group interventions
  • Using CFT can be adapted for treating depression, anxiety and emotion regulation problems, integrating mindful compassion practices with other modes and techniques
  • How to effectively and confidently administer CFT interventions on their own terms
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 of anxiety and mood disorders.

Through small group work and a series of experiential exercises you will thoroughly learn how to apply CMT and CFT based strategies to build a life of meaning, purpose and vitality for you and your clients. And, you will get to have your questions and concerns addressed by leading trainers in compassion focused therapy — including the form's originator, Dr. Paul Gilbert, who will be joining us as a special guest for one of the sessions in this training.

Join this exciting, in-depth training and learn how you can make your compassion-focused work more enriching and effective for your clients and yourself.

This 8-week course is Part II of a redesigned and reimagined 16-week immersive, online learning experience in CFT. This training is worth 16 CE credit hours if attended live. While we can only provide CE to those who are present – i.e. logged in – for live presentation(s), all Praxis webinars are recorded for later viewing. Registrants may then access these recordings at any time for up to six months from the conclusion of the training to which they pertain. Prior to registering, please review speaker-planner conflict of interest disclosures and complete CE information.

Schedule

Session 1 | October 18, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
Mindfulness and Compassion Training: Models and Opportunities – CMT, CFT and Real Life
Session 2 | October 25, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
Preparing the Body and Respecting the Practice: The fundamentals of mindfulness, embodiment of compassion, and CMT Imagery
Session 3 | November 1, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EST
Deploying CMT Imagery and The Foundations of The CFT Model
Session 4 | November 8, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EST
Working with Grounding, Stabilization, Intimate Mindfulness and Safe Space Imagery
Session 5 | November 15, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EST
Working with The Compassionate Ideal in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life
Session 6 | November 29, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EST
Working with The Compassionate Self in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life
Session 7 | December 6, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EST
Bringing your Compassionate Self into Contact with your Struggles
Session 8 | December 13, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EST
Translating Compassionate Imagery Practice into Persistent Behavior Change and Lifestyle Transformation

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:
  1. Relate the foundational evolutionary model of compassion, mindfulness and emotion used in CFT to specific CMT imagery and CFT techniques.
  2. Describe and apply the CFT “Three Circle Model” in embodied compassionate imagery and psychotherapy techniques.
  3. Discuss and utilize the core imagery practices in psychotherapy and in personal practice.
  4. Utilize mindfulness training and embodied self-compassion to create a context of safeness in the therapy room and everyday life.
  5. Discuss ways to teach and implement the Compassionate Ideal (CI) imagery practice.
  6. Review how to implement the Compassionate Self (CS) imagery practice.
  7. Discuss ways of using the CI and CS practices to deal with emotion regulation, depression symptoms, and anxiety symptoms.
  8. Identify and deploy a range of specific techniques that are focused on cultivating the competencies of compassion in the therapy and in their everyday life.
  9. Discuss ways to train and implement compassionate mind training.
  10. Describe the range of CMT imagery practices.
  11. Describe how to use CMT experiential methods in individual or group contexts.
  12. Identify ways to use CMT and CFT methods to facilitate behavior change and values-based action.

Continuing Education

Please review complete CE and conflict-of-interest disclosure information prior to registering. This live online course is sponsored by Praxis Continuing Education and Training and is approved for 16 CE Hours by the following listed below. There was no commercial support for this activity. None of the planners or presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.

Praxis CET maintains responsibility for the program with the CE approvals outlined below:
  • Joint Accreditation: In support of improving patient care, Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

  • IPCE: This activity was planned by and for the healthcare team, and learners will receive 16 Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) credit for learning and change.
  • Nursing: Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc designates this activity for a maximum of 16 ANCC contact hours.
  • Physicians: Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc designates this live internet activity for a maximum of 16 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
  • Psychologists: Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP Office maintains responsibly for the content of the programs.

  • Social Workers: As a Jointly Accredited Organization, Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc maintains responsibility for this course. Social workers completing this course receive 16 clinical continuing education credits.
  • Drug and Alcohol Counselors:This course has been approved by Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for 16 CE hours. NAADAC Provider #165310, Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc, is responsible for all aspects of its programming.
  • National Counselors: Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc. has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6759. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc. is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

  • NY Social Workers:Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0467
  • NY Counselors:Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0198.
  • NY Psychologists:Praxis Continuing Education and Training, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0002.

Prerequisites

No books, courses or journal articles are required prerequisites for this course, but the list of recommended readings below will help to enhance your experience.

Audience

For mental health professionals, beginners through advanced. The course will be appropriate for clinicians of any background, and professionals with CFT, ACT and CBT training may find the concepts more familiar and readily user-friendly. Graduate students, coaches and teachers might also benefit from this training.

Recommended Reading

Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind. London: Oakland: New Harbinger

Gilbert, P. & Choden (2013). Mindful compassion. Oakland: New Harbinger

Tirch, D., Schoendorff, B. & Silberstein, L. (2014). The ACT Practitioners’ Guide
to The Science of Compassion
. Oakland: New Harbinger

References

Kolts, R., Bell, T., Bennett-Levy, J., & Irons, C. (2018). CFT from The Inside Out. New York: Guilford Press.

Kirby, J., Steindl, S. & Tellegen, C. (2017). A Meta-Analysis of Compassion-Based Interventions: Current State of Knowledge and Future Directions. Behavior Therapy. 48-6. 778-792.

Braehler, C., Harper, I., & Gilbert, P. (2012). Compassion focused group therapy for recovery after psychosis. In C. Steel (Ed.), CBT for schizophrenia: Evidence-based interventions and future directions (pp. 235–266). Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley and Sons.

Lutz, A., Brefczynski-Lewis, J., Johnstone, T., & Davidson, R.J. (2008). Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: Effects of meditative expertise. PLoS ONE, e1897. DOI:10.1373/journal.pone.0001897.

Refund and Cancellation Policy

We understand, sometimes things come up!

Praxis will offer a full refund to registrants of both live and live-online trainings who cancel their registration up to 14 days before the course or workshop start date, minus an administrative processing fee of $30 for a 2-day workshop or online course, and a $50 fee for a 4-day workshop. If cancelled within 14 days, no refund will be issued, however, a credit for the same amount will be applied toward another learning product, which expires within 1 year. Please email us at events@praxiscet.com to cancel a registration.