Mindful Self Compassion Course

Mindful Self-compassion is an 8 week course.

Session dates: 20 Jan, 27 Jan, 3 Feb, (10 Feb - NO SESSION) 17 Feb, 24 Feb, 3 Mar, 10 Mar, 17 Mar.

This course is for you if you wish to learn:

● how to stop being so hard on yourself

● how to handle difficult emotions with greater ease

● how to motivate yourself with encouragement rather than criticism

● how to transform difficult relationships, both old and new

● how to integrate some of the above skills into your daily life

What is Mindful Self-compassion?

Self-compassion is extending compassion to one's self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering. Kristin Neff has defined self-compassion as being composed of three main components – self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.

The Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) course is focused on resource building towards the intention of greater self-compassion, self-worth and self-acceptance. MSC training is focused on how we relate to distress rather than the details of the personal narrative.

Research on Self-compassion shows

● Reductions in: anxiety, depression, stress, rumination, perfectionism, body shame, fear of failure

● Increases in: life satisfaction, happiness, self-confidence, optimism, curiosity, creativity, gratitude.

MSC is specifically designed for managing difficult emotions such as shame. MSC research has demonstrated:

● Improved emotion regulation and management of difficult emotions

● Deactivation of the threat system and activation of the care-giving system

● Resilience by moderating reactions to negative events

● Lower psychological distress

● Self-compassion as a key factor in emotional wellbeing

Evidence has shown significant benefits to peoples’ ability to relate to themselves and their

experience in new ways, and that the wellbeing gains to have been maintained over time.

Who can benefit from MSC?

MSC is helpful for people with tendency for harsh reactions to themselves and difficult emotions

such as:

- Self-criticism

- Shame

- Self-blame

- Self-hatred

- Guilt or regret

- Low self-worth

MSC is unlikely to be suitable for participants with:

- Psychosis

- Suicidality

- Severe anxiety and inability to tolerate social / group context

- Inability to remain in psychological contact.

Course Content

Each session consists of some of the following ways of working:

● Psychological education, neuroscience and research findings

● Guided experiential practices, for example:

- breath and body based mindfulness practices

- language and phrase based practices and visualisations

● Guided reflections and exercises individually and in groups

● Group discussions, often to follow guided practices, exercises and reflections (discussions take place sometimes in pairs, small groups or the whole group. No-one has to share in the larger group unless they choose to do so. See section on self-care and safety).

Course Facilitator

The course is led by Dhinita Miia Chambers, who was Mindfulness Lead at City and Hackney Mind for the past decade. An experienced practitioner, trained in a range of mindfulness, compassion and acceptance methodologies such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) with Bangor University, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) with the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, and Mindfulness Based Addiction Recovery (MBAR) with London Breathing Space, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with City University and Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) with Salford University.

Mindful Self-compassion Course - guidance for attending the course

Group format:

Mindful Self-compassion (MSC) course runs for two hours per session over eight sessions, max 20

participants. The same group stays together over the whole course. No new people can join the

group after session two.

Self-care and safety:

Participants are encouraged to take good care of themselves at all times. The practices and activities are invitational and participants can always choose not to take part in any aspect of the activities depending on what feels possible for them at that moment.

Participants will be invited to share reflections of practices and exercise, sometimes in pairs, small groups or in the whole group. Yet there is never any requirement to speak in the group if you choose not to do so. Also, participants are encouraged to take good self-care with regards to what is shared.

Participants are not expected to share historical information or details of their mental health or personal lives. Sharing in the group is invited to be directly related to the content of the practices and exercises.

Confidentiality:

Group culture and agreement is set at the beginning of the group to set supportive conditions and safety for taking part. A key element of the agreement set is always that participants agree to keep confidential anything shared by other participants during the sessions.

Commitment and weeks in between:

The participants get the most out of the course if they are able to attend all sessions, however, sometimes that’s not possible. If participants miss more than two sessions they may not be able to keep up or gain benefit from the course.

In the week in between sessions participants will be invited to explore some of the content covered at the session. For example, the email may contain links to guided audio practices or an invitation to notice particular aspects of your experience and reactions in the week in between.