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The Foundations of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT): A Trauma-Informed Introduction to CFT for a Traumatic World

The Foundations of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT): A Trauma-Informed Introduction to CFT for a Traumatic World

Workshop Leaders: 
Professor Paul Gilbert, PhD/OBE
Dennis Tirch PhD
Laura Silberstein-Tirch, PsyD
Chia Ying Chou PhD
 
CE credits available for this Two-Day Event: 7.5
Saturday, 24 June 2023 - 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. UTC/GMT +3 (Eastern European Summer Time)
Sunday, 25 June 2023 - 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. UTC/ GMT +3 (Eastern European Summer Time)
 
Workshop Description:
 
During this period of global challenges, both clinicians and clients are working with elevated levels stress, grief and anxiety. To compound the difficulty of what we face together, humans can all too often respond to a threatening world through self-blame and shame. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) provides an evidence based pathway to help us deal with shame, anxiety and challenging emotions, through the activation and cultivation of our natural capacity for mindful compassion. Clinicians of any orientation can benefit from an introduction to CFT, to help their clients and to help themselves.
 
This foundational workshop aims to equip psychotherapists with the skills to integrate compassionate mind training into their behavior therapy practice. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is an evidence-based approach that incorporates mindfulness, acceptance, and compassion practices to promote transformation.
 
The workshop is facilitated by an international team of leading experts and innovators in CFT, including the founder of CFT and globally renowned psychologist Professor Paul Gilbert. CFT innovators in compassion & contextual science, Dennis Tirch Phd and Laura Tirch PsyD will serve as trainers, and the team will include pioneering expert in CFT for hoarding disorder and trauma related compulsions, Chia Ying Chou PhD.
 
During this rare opportunity, we will be taking a particularly trauma-sensitive and trauma informed approach to training in CFT. So many of our clients will present with a history of trauma, and people are facing trauma of many kinds all over the world today. Clinicians are people, and our trauma awareness can extend to how we treat ourselves with compassion, support and care. Importantly, this is not exclusively a workshop on treating trauma, but a workshop to develop your foundational skills in CFT. Our emphasis will be trauma-informed, as this is our moment and opportunity to deal with some of life’s thorniest challenges.
 
The workshop will take a deep dive into the foundations of CFT and provide participants with hands-on experience in using compassion-focused interventions for a range of problems. Topics covered will include the role of mindfulness, compassion, and acceptance in psychotherapy, integrating CFT with other evidence-based methods such as ACT, CBT, and DBT, and working with chronic shame and self-criticism. This training is specifically designed for ACT and other behavior therapy practitioners seeking to deepen their understanding and application of the foundations of CFT.
 
Through group work and experiential exercises, participants will build the foundation for advancing their CFT skills and improving their practice. The workshop will provide an opportunity to have questions and concerns addressed by leading trainers in CFT, including Dr. Paul Gilbert. 
 

About Professor Paul Gilbert, PhD/OBE: 

Paul Gilbert, FBPsS, PhD, OBE is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby and honorary visiting Prof at the University of Queensland. Until his retirement from the NHS in 2016 he was Consultant Clinical Psychologist for over 40 years. He has researched evolutionary approaches to psychopathology with a special focus on mood, shame and self-criticism in various mental health difficulties for which Compassion Focused Therapy was developed. He was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 1993, president of the BABCP 2002-2004, and was a member of the first British Governments’ NICE guidelines for depression. He has written/edited 23 books and over 300 papers and book chapters. In 2006 he established the Compassionate Mind Foundation as an international charity with the mission statement: To promote wellbeing through the scientific understanding and application of compassion (www.compassionatemind.co.uk). There are now a number of sister foundations in other countries. He was awarded an OBE by the Queen in March 2011 for services to mental health. He established and is the Director of the Centre for Compassion Research and Training at Derby University UK. His latest book is a major edited book with Prof G Simos (2022) Compassion: Clinical practice and Applications (Routledge).

About Dennis Tirch PhD:

Dr. Dennis Tirch is the Founding Director of The Center for CFT in New York; President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation. USA; Past-President and Fellow of The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) and an Associate Clinical Professor at Mt. Sinai Medical Center. Dr Tirch is the author of seven books, and numerous chapters and peer reviewed articles on mindfulness, acceptance and compassion in psychology. Dr Tirch regularly conducts Compassion Focused ACT and CFT trainings & workshops globally. He is also a Dharma Holder and lay teacher of Zen Buddhism; a Diplomate, Fellow & Certified Consultant for The Academy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and a Founding Fellow and Past President of both the NYC-CBT association & NYC-ACBS. Dr. Tirch serves as a mindfulness, wellness and performance coach to leading figures in business, science and policy design. Dr. Tirch regularly presents workshops and trainings globally, in person and via video-conference. His work has been featured by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other media outlets.

About Laura Silberstein-Tirch, PsyD:

Dr. Laura Silberstein is the Director of The Center for CFT in New York and board member of the Compassionate Mind Foundation, USA. She has served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr Silberstein-Tirch is the co-author of four books, including How to Be Nice To Yourself. Dr Silberstein-Tirch regularly conducts trainings and workshops on Compassion Focused ACT and CFT internationally. She is a Past President of NYC-ACBS & Compassion Focused SIG of ACBS. Dr. Silberstein-Tirch is a founding member and Past President of the Women of ACBS SIG.

About Chia-Ying Chou, PhD:

Chia-Ying Chou, PhD is the founder and director of the San Francisco Center for Compassion Focused Therapies (SFCompassion)- a group psychotherapy practice and a training hub for Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) in California. Dr. Chou obtained her PhD from University College London with a research focus on trauma. With the understanding that most forms of difficulty letting go can be rooted in trauma, during her postdoctoral years in the University of California, San Francisco, she started to develop a group CFT protocol for hoarding, CFT-HD, which is trauma-informed. As a specialist in hoarding and trauma, Dr. Chou’s clinical and research interest focus on the connection between difficult life experiences and the blocks and fears of letting go and letting in. Her practice, SFCompassion, is one of the few private practices in the world that conducts practice-based research. Besides research and clinical work, Dr. Chou provides training, supervision, and consultation for clinicians on CFT and hoarding worldwide. Her and her team at SFCompassion found a program, Better Treatment for Hoarding, where clinicians, researchers, and advocates come together to bring forth compassion-based public education, support, and research about hoarding.

On completion of this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Participants will be able to describe the foundational evolutionary model of compassion, mindfulness and emotion used in CFT.
2. Participants will be able to use the CFT "Three Circle Model" of emotion regulation in clinical contexts.
3. Participants will understand and be able to discuss and utilize a trauma sensitive and trauma informed approach to CFT
4. Participants will be able to utilize the therapeutic relationship to create a context of relational safeness in the therapy room as a part of CFT process
5. Participants will be able to outline and implement a CFT model of mutual growth and transformation, relating therapist personal practice and self-care to the approach to therapy and clients’ well-being.
6. Participants will be able to discuss the model of shame and according intervention set in CFT
7. Participants will have a working knowledge of how to address shame in CFT
8. Participants will be able to identify and embody the 12 competencies of compassion, experientially training patients in using these elements.
9. Participants will be able to use a working knowledge of specific therapist micro-skills and active therapy processes that can effectively work with shame in session.
10. Participants will be able to deploy a range of specific techniques that are focused on cultivating the competencies of compassion in the therapy relationship.

Target Audience: Beginner, Intermediate, Clinical

Components: Literature review, Experiential exercises, Didactic presentation, Case presentation, Role play

Package Includes: A general certificate of attendance

CEs Available (7.5 hours): CEs for Psychologists

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