Compassion as an Essential Component in Self-Regulation With Mindfulness-Based Approaches: Crossing the Bridge From Self-Care to Patient-Care and Back

Urszula Klich PhD

Continuing education credits for Psychologists and LPC’s, Social Workers, LMFT’s and Nurses.
Credits will also be applied for Board Certification by the American Board of Psychotherapy™

Experts in the growing movement of positive psychology maintain that connecting with others in meaningful ways improves physical and emotional health.  Yet, despite social networking, people are feeling more disconnected from others than ever before.  At a time when major cities are creating charters for compassion, it’s easy to see the potential impact of increasing individual awareness of self and others.  Clinicians are in a unique position to utilize technology to teach people to reconnect with themselves and others while learning psychophysiological rebalancing strategies. 

The workshop will delineate a model for adding mindfulness-based compassionate practice techniques to clinical treatment and explore how patients and practitioners benefit from this combined approach. Connections will be made with compassion-based programs such as Cognitively-Based Compassion Training and Loving-Kindness practice. We will present emerging research on compassion training and examine how introducing these treatment modalities can further facilitate effective coping and stress management.

Case examples will span nonclinical and patient populations, from childhood to adult, and discussion of use with individuals, couples, and groups. Attention will be given to application for a variety of symptoms ranging from those that are common such as anxiety and chronic pain to those which are more specialized including complex medical illness such as multiple sclerosis, and traumatic brain injury. We will discuss special considerations in treating those with abuse histories or severe trauma such as experienced by veterans and humanitarian aid workers. There will be attention to cultural factors that should be taken into consideration in assessing and treating diverse population in a multiculturally-sensitive manner. Pragmatic skills will be provided for applying these methods in clinical practice in accordance with the Mindfulness-Based Biofeedback model of treatment. To address self-care for the practitioner, we will practice compassion cultivation during the session.  While challenging the notion of compassion fatigue we will focus instead on preventing empathy fatigue, a subtle but crucial difference. Participants will be taught how to assess current and ongoing level of burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatization. To this end the program will emphasize hands-on practical exercises, to assist practitioners in using compassion as a bridge from patient care to self-care and back.

Dr. Urszula Klich shares over 20 years of clinical expertise in teaching self-regulation tools to maximize physical and emotional health in her workshops that are sought after locally and internationally. She is certified in the Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT) meditation practice and board certified in biofeedback. Her specialized program of Mindfulness-Based Biofeedback (MBB) has been applied with children and adults in settings ranging from hospitals to university classrooms. The premise of the program is that integrating mindfulness and compassion-informed treatment with health psychology fosters each individual’s healing power to improve physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Living mindfully is advantageous and accessible to anyone who recognizes a need for shift in their life and sets an intention to move forward.