You shouldn’t kick yourself when you’re down . . .

. . . but sometimes it’s hard not to. Even if we’re compassionate toward others, we can still be our own worst critics. Mindfulness meditation really works. And self-compassion is one of its key benefits.

Kristin Neff, PhD, from the University of Texas, Austin, and Christopher Germer, PhD, from Harvard Medical School, wanted to find out whether self-compassion could be developed through training.

Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) presents world experts on compassion, altruism & service The Science of Compassion: Origins, Measures & Interventions
July 19-22 in Telluride, Colorado.

At the risk of blogging about a blogpost, we were excited to see this piece in the New York Times on our friend and colleague Dr. Mick Krasner's work with teaching mindfulness to physicians, with the ultimate goal of creating better doctors who communicate better, practice more effectively, are resilient and satisfied in their work and therefore, have an even more positive influence on our health and our society.

With the 10-year anniversary of the publication of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression nearly upon us, it is a good time to perhaps stop and reflect on where the field stands at this juncture.

The following is a description of the process of adapting the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR) to work with women in early recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, enrolled in three residential substance abuse treatment programs, and in one outpatient program, located in an urban center in Massachusetts. Most participants started the intervention two to three weeks after detoxification treatment. A total of 318 women (45% Latina, 35% Black, 20% White) completed baseline interviews.