Self-Compassion Skills Training for Mental Health & Education Professionals

Workshop Description

These workshops are a part of the Western Canada Mental Health Summit: Improving Skills & Competencies for Mental Health & Education Professionals. Registration and full conference line-up can be found HERE

ALL PROFESSIONALS | Workshop #13: Self-Compassion Skills Training for Mental Health & Education Professionals

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am to 12:00pm   May 25, 2023

This session is not available for live stream.

When our clients/students are overwhelmed by anxiety, adrift in depression, or hobbled by trauma, a lack of self-compassion is often at the heart of their difficulty. Thankfully, research has shown us that if practiced regularly, self-compassion can regulate emotions, transform negative core beliefs, and heal trauma. This experiential workshop will help you integrate self-compassion training into your work. You’ll focus on how to:

• Guide clients/students through highly individualized training sessions based on their specific strengths and obstacles
• Apply the eight core practices that make up the Map to Self-Compassion, including self-acceptance and embracing suffering
• Help clients/students feel revitalized and avoid burnout
• Choose self-compassion practices for client/student problems—including complex trauma and self-sabotage—based on key assessments
• Use the brain’s care circuit to regulate emotions and heal trauma in clients/students

This workshop will include lecture, live demonstrations, small group practices, and question and answer sessions. You will have the opportunity to present clinical cases and receive consultation to demonstrate how to apply self-compassion with your specific clients/students. We will break down all of the microskills required to treat a client/student from a self-compassion perspective, and you will have the chance to practice each of them. You will also learn about (and receive a copy of) the Map to Self-Compassion from The Self-Compassion Skills Workbook, and how to use this map to assess and choose the most appropriate form of self-compassion practice for each specific client/student. The workshop will conclude with a section on cultivating self-compassion within ourselves as clinicians and educators.

ALL PROFESSIONALS | Workshop #18: Mindfulness: From Affect Tolerance to Fearlessness & Equanimity

AFTERNOON SESSION | 1:00pm – 4:00pm   May 25, 2023

This session is not available for live stream.

In the 20 years I spent studying under Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, I learned his approach to facing stress, challenging relationships, burnout, and how to be a force for good in the world. In this experiential session, I will share the highlights of Nhat Hanh’s teachings on how we can apply mindfulness to transform our lives. We will learn:

• Concrete practices for cultivating joy and gratitude.
• How to embrace our fear, anger and grief with compassion.
• How to develop openness and equanimity in the face of uncertainty and division.

Many clients and students aren’t interested in learning mindfulness practices for their own sake, so we will also discuss how to present mindfulness in a way that supports the intrinsic motivational factors in the people we’re helping.

Workshop Topics:

• Mindfulness
• self-compassion