For those of you who are interested in Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), a 4-day online introduction training is coming up on January 6. CFT is a psychotherapy approach founded and published in 2010 by British psychologist Paul Gilbert. This approach integrates knowledge and techniques from Western psychological studies, such as attachment theory, evolutionary psychology, and neuroscience, with Buddhist philosophy and mind and somatic practices from the East. CFT is a transdiagnostic therapy model with considerable empirical evidence supporting its use to address self-related issues such as shame and self-criticism as well as emotion-regulation challenges with a wide range of clinical populations.
This course will introduce the evolutionary perspective on the human brain and how this relates to psychological and behavioral difficulties. The course will introduce the three affect-regulation systems linked to threat awareness and coping, reward and resource seeking, and contentment and soothing, and how they form complex patterns within the mind. Training participants will learn how CFT focuses on the ways the self is shaped through experiences and the processes through which the self can heal through the experience of safety in both self-to-self and self-to-other relationships. Instruction will include compassion-focused case formulations and interventions, including imagery exercises, parts work, and somatic practices. The training will include in substantially equal measure didactic instruction, experiential learning, and guided group discussions.
This training is a joint effort by the San Francisco Center for Compassion Focused Therapies, the Compassionate Mind Foundation and the Compassionate Mind Foundation - United States of America.