Compassionate Mind Training

"Are you natrually self-critical?"

"Do you compare yourself to others alot, feel inadaquate or question your value?" 

"Is this causing you pain, suffering or preventing you from living the life you want?"

If the answers yes, Holding Hope Therapies could help. 

Our practice offers an (online) 8-week Compassionate Mind Training (CMT) course. This is a great option for those struggling with strong negative emotions (like self-criticism, anger, anxiety, or shame), who want to learn practical skills to support their mental health, in an affordable, small group setting. 

The course is based upon the scientific work of Professor Paul Gilbert, who founded the Compassion Focused Therapy Approach (CFT), Dr Chris Irons and Charlie Heriot-Maitland. Each session will be led by Dr Firkins, a certified CMT Trainer and experienced compassion focused therapy teacher. 

 

How the Training Works

Across the course, attendees will be shown how to develop and access their ‘compassionate mind’ and how this can be used to reduce self-criticism and other strong negative emotions, to enable more balance. 

Compassionate mind training is achieved through a mix of taught content and experiential practices/exercises (mindfulness, imagery, and compassionate skill development). This course been shown to help people become more compassionate to themselves, other people, and experience higher levels of positive emotions. It has also been associated with lower levels of self-criticism, emotional distress & relationship insecurities.

Course Details

We are having a brief hiatus!

However, you may wish to express your interest and be added to our mailing list, so that you can be contacted when future course dates are released.  All future sessions are likely to run on Sunday evenings (5-7.30pm UK time) over Zoom.

It is encouraged that you attend all 8 sessions to gain the most learning and positive benefits from your experience.

For each session you will require a quiet personal space, good internet access, a charged device capable of launching zoom, a notebook and pen.

Following each session, home practices and tasks will be recommended to support the cultivation of compassion. Attendees will also receive weekly handouts, covering the sessional information taught and access to audio files, to further aid home practice.

Please express your interest in attending this course via our contact form. Further details, including the start date will then be emailed to you.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

If you are aged 18 or over, struggling to manage strong negative emotions, are keen to learning how compassionate mind ideas could help you and are open to doing so in a small group setting, this course could be ideal.  

It works out at around £37.50 per hour, making it a very affordable way of gaining specialist support from an experienced clinical psychologist. 

As this is not individual or group therapy but a skills-based development course, some of the common fears and worries about needing to disclose a lot about your personal life and circumstances are overcome. This is not required to participate.  

CFT has a robust evidence base. Thousands of studies now show clear benefits of harnessing compassion. For instance, a high rate of self-compassion is associated with increased happiness, improved wellbeing and positivity and reduced self-criticism, shame, anxiety & depression.  

The wonderful thing is that compassion can be developed and accessed by lots of different means – one of which is this course. 

Definitley! There are now hundreds of published articles showing that with careful practice and skill development, it is possible to increase our level of self-compassion. Indeed many of the exercises taught on this course have been found to do just that.

Sadly these ideas are some of the most common myths about self-compassion.

Research has actually found the reverse - the more compassionate you are with yourself, the more likely you are to successfully deal with difficulties in life and take responsibility for the mistakes and failures that you need to.

Testimonials

  • I have no words that will truly capture how grateful I am to Ashlyn. Her patience, kindness and brilliant knowledge helped me through some really difficult times. Her sessions were useful and tailored to suit me which showed how much she listens to her clients and takes care to adapt to meet them where they are.

    Client navigating physical health difficulties

  • Ashlyn shared some really useful tools/resources for me to refer back to…. I also learnt to be more compassionate towards myself. Ashlyn made me feel seen, heard and validated in our sessions together - that alone helped me so much.

    Client navigating physical health difficulties

  • Ashlyn has by far given the best experience you could ask for. She is kind and considerate with our needs being priority. I really love how she has a plan for the session but can change it on the fly to suit what is needed at the time.

    Parent of a child, navigating anxiety and school-based challenges

  • The experience had a profoundly positive effect on my overall wellbeing, through seemingly subtle changes in thought processes and actions.

    Client navigating physical health difficulties

  • I have gained so much more confidence within me. I don’t really care what people think about me anymore.

    Client navigating anxiety and low mood
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