ONLINE COURSE
Compassion in Practice
Compassion asks something particular of us when it becomes part of our work.
To notice suffering. To remain close enough to understand it. To respond with care, while staying connected to our own limits, experience and humanity.
An online course for helping professionals exploring the science and practice of compassion, self-compassion and relational presence.
coming soon
What helps compassion remain available when the work becomes difficult?
THE QUESTION
For many helping professionals, caring for others is woven into the work itself.
Yet compassion is rarely as simple as wanting to help.
Our capacity to stay present can be shaped by stress, fatigue, uncertainty, our own histories, the relationships we are part of, and the environments in which care takes place.
At times we may move closer to another person's distress. At other times we withdraw, become overwhelmed, overextend ourselves, or reach too quickly for solutions.
Compassion in Practice explores what happens in these moments, and what may help us meet suffering with greater awareness, steadiness and care.
A deeper understanding of compassion.
THE COURSE
Compassion can be understood as a quality, a motivation, a practice, and a psychological process. In helping work, it also unfolds at several different levels: in how we relate to ourselves, in how we meet another person, and in the interventions we choose.
Compassion in Practice begins with the foundations and moves gradually from the inner conditions that support compassionate presence to the ways compassion can shape therapeutic and helping relationships, and finally to more explicit compassion-based interventions.
What the course explores.
01 · Compassionate presence
How we relate to ourselves, and how our own awareness, embodiment and self-compassion shape our capacity to remain present with another person.
02 · Compassionate relationship
How compassion is communicated through the helping relationship itself: through presence, listening, resonance, boundaries, and the capacity to stay engaged without becoming overwhelmed.
03 · Compassionate interventions
How compassion can be brought more explicitly into therapeutic and helping work, including how to respond when compassion feels difficult, unsafe or inaccessible.
COMPASSIONATE PRESENCE
The person doing the helping is part of the relationship.
Professional knowledge matters. So does the way we arrive in the room: what we notice, what we avoid, how we respond to distress, and whether we can remain in contact with our own experience while staying alongside someone else.
Our capacity to be present with another person is shaped by our own awareness, embodiment and capacity to regulate what is happening within us. Compassionate practice therefore begins before any particular technique or intervention. It begins with how we meet ourselves, and how that shapes the way we meet another person.
COMPASSIONATE relationship
Designed for people whose work involves caring for, supporting or accompanying others.
You do not need previous experience with meditation or contemplative practice.
This course may be particularly relevant for:
psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists
social workers and mental health practitioners
doctors, nurses and allied health professionals
educators and other professionals working closely with children and families
people working in community, caregiving and support roles
COMPASSIONATE relationship
Learning that moves between understanding and experience.
Compassion in Practice combines accessible engagement with research, reflective inquiry and guided contemplative practices.
The intention is not to prescribe a single way of being compassionate. It is to develop a richer understanding of compassion and a greater capacity to notice what supports, constrains and shapes it in our own lives and work.