This section is born with the intention of promoting the formation and competent exercise of the program of MINDFUL SELF-COMPASSION (MSC, in its initials in English) and its social and institutional recognition in different application ambiences as well as to look over the fulfillment of the standards and the recommendations proper of the program.
It tries to be a frame of reference to all those already certified professionals or training in this program (Teacher Trainees, Trained MSC Teachers, Certified MSC Teachers), providing to them support and key resources for learning and permanent update and for the implementation of courses in its respective continued work environments as well as the formation and recycling. Also to create an environment of exchange in teachers’ community and an official directory of qualified teachers that it is possible to consult.
COORDINATION
Marta Alonso Maynar.
Marta Alonso Maynar. Certified Teacher in MSC by the University de California San-Diego and the CMSC.
To see resume
Approach of the program MSC
The program Mindful Self Compassion (MSC) was developed by Christopher K. Germer, PhD, leader in the integration of mindfulness and psychotherapy (www.MindfulSelfCompassion.org) and Kristin Neff, PhD, pioneering researcher in the field of the self-pity (www.Self-Compassion.org). The MSC combines the skills of mindfulness (full attention) and self-compassion, providing a powerful tool for achieving emotional resilience.
The MSC is a program of training with empirical support, designed to cultivate the skill of the Compassion or unconditional love towards oneself, that it teaches basic principles and practices that they allow to the participants to answer to difficult moments in its lives with kindness, attention and comprehension, caring the relation with itself.
Mindfulness is the first step in the emotional healing – being capable of turning inwards and of recognizing our difficult thoughts and feelings (such like, inadequacy, sadness, annoyance, confusion) with a spirit of opening and curiosity. Self-compassion consists of answering to these emotions and difficult thoughts with kindness, solidarity and understanding to be able to calm us and of consoling us when we are aggrieved.
Research has demonstrated that self-compassion improves greatly emotional well-being. Raises happiness, it reduces anxiety and depression, and even can help to maintain healthy life habits. It is the most widespread, standardized and investigated program of 8 weeks in compassion. A specific adaptation has been created for adolescents and it is applied successfully in different populations and contexts. In this moment the program is given in the whole USA, Canada, Europe and even in China.
For two years and in partnership with the Center for Mindfulness de la Universidad de California San Diego a standardized formation itinerary has developed for teachers, which expires with all the requisites of a MBI (Mindfulness Based Intervention) and is structured in several levels and formative milestones. Even a special adaptation has been conducted for the MSC of the instrument MBI-TAC to evaluate teachers’ competences.
It is possible to find all the information relative to the above mentioned criteria, as well as the designed pathway of training, in this link.
The MSC is fundamentally a training program in the cultivation of the skills of the self-compassion centred on the following targets:
- To stop talking each other and oneself with hardness.
- To handle difficult emotions easier.
- Motivating oneself giving courage instead of criticism.
- Transform difficult relations, so much ancient as new.
- Become the best minder for oneself.
- Learning exercises of mindfulness and of self-compassion for everyday life.
- Savouring life and cultivate happiness.
- Understanding the theory and part of the research that are behind the self-compassion.
A meeting of intensive practice develops throughout eight weeks plus one, in meetings of three hours of duration in group format. The session of intensive practice is usually inserted between the 5th one and the 6th meeting. There can be between 8 to 40 participants for class and are usually given with two teachers, and one of them preferably a mental health professional, since the program makes difficult emotions outcrop.
In the program there are mixed specific formal nuclear meditations of loving-kindness and compassion, exercises in sub-groups, reflective exercises of role and pencil, informal practice, practices in movement, poems, compassionate inquiry and brief theoretical explanations. After every meeting is settled homework for participants. On having finished the course, there are developed programs of pursuit and maintenance of the practice, as well as deepening retreats.
Targets of the section
- To take care of the integrity and the competent exercise in the teaching of the programs MSC, according to the standards described by Center For Mindful Self Compassion de Massachussets and the Center for Mindfulness of the University of California San Diego.
- To promote the professional and scientific development of the teachers or future teachers, following these standards.
- To promote the cooperation and the information exchange and experiences between members
- To create a directory of qualified teachers.
- To introduce and to promote the MSC in spheres like clinical practice, schools, prisons or labor contexts.
- To spread and to make the program accessible for the progress of well-being between the general population.
- To promote and to spread the scientific investigation in different application ambiences
- To organize, to promote and to spread scientific, professional, and welfare activities.
- To provide resources and supports for the continual training inside the mentioned standards.
Who can be member of the section
- SAssociates of AEMind who have completed like participants at least or a finished program of MSC of 8 weeks or in the intensive format of 24 hours, and at least a retreat of silence of not less than 5 days, who usually have a personal practice of Mindfulness and compassion and who declare to have the intention of following the pathway of formation like teachers of MSC, by means of the achievement of, at least, Teacher Training of 7 days (Show info) according to the itinerary described by the CMSC and the UCSD
It is possible to find more information about the teacher training of MSC in www.centerformsc.es.
