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Sessions
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Process and therapeutic focus in sessions
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| First session |
Greetings and initial familiarization among group members, reviewing the structure of meetings, introducing the general principles and distinguishing compassion from self-pity, conceptualizing self-compassion training. |
| Second session |
Mindfulness training along with body and breathing exercises, familiarity with brain systems based on compassion, empathy training, and introducing visualization. |
| Third session |
Describing the characteristics of compassionate people, compassion towards others, cultivating a feeling of warmth and kindness towards oneself, cultivating and understanding that others also have defects and problems (cultivating a sense of human commonalities) in contrast to the self-destructive feelings of shame, training the empty chair technique, homework assignment. |
| Fourth session |
Reviewing the previous session exercise, encouraging the subjects to self-knowledge according to the learned topics and investigating their personality as a non-compassionate or compassionate person, identifying and applying exercises to building a compassionate mind, training forgiveness, and homework assignments. |
| Fifth session |
Introducing the three-dimensional behavioral model to express the common relationship between behavior/emotions, psychological functions, and observable behavior and discussion about efforts to change behavior based on it, receiving feedback and homework assignments, nurturing a compassionate mind exercise, and non-judgmental acceptance. Tolerance training. |
| Sixth session |
Reviewing the previous session exercise, creating compassionate images, techniques, and methods of expressing compassion training (verbal, practical, and continuous compassion), integrating these practices in daily life, training the development of valuable and sublime feelings, and homework assignments. |
| Seventh session |
Reviewing the previous session exercise, training how to write compassionate letters for oneself and others, and training how to record and keep a diary of real situations based on compassion and individual performance in that situation. |
| Eighth session |
Training and practicing skills, reviewing and practicing the skills presented in previous sessions, training how to create a safe place, cultivating self-compassion, and finally summarizing and guidelines to integrate this method in everyday life. |
