EHI Winter Workshop

Integrating the Self: The Power of Presence and Community in Cultivating Self-Compassion

A Day-Long Workshop Developed & Facilitated by:
Galia Schechter, PhD

Continuing Education: 6 CE credit hours*

A couple of scholarship tickets are available! Please reach out to Michelle for details: conf@ehinstitute.org.

Therapeutic Professionals Invited!

We invite you to join us as Dr Schechter works with us in exploring ways to guide clients in accepting and integrating the self toward congruence and wholeness! This workshop is intended to engage and enrich the work of therapeutic professionals.

Save the date to join Galia and EHI for this day of dynamic engagement.

In this workshop, inspired by and based mainly on Process Experiential, Phenomenology, Humanistic-Existential, and Mindfulness-based traditions, participants will learn how to help clients move from self-shaming and self-alienating states to states of self- and other-compassion. Tapping also into Gestalt, Family Systems, Emotion-Focused and mind-body inquiry practices we will utilize individual and group based psychological inquiry practices, therapeutic explorations, mindfulness practices, reflections and discussions, to explore the following themes:

• Principles of conscious healing, including families of mindfulness practices;
• Neo-Humanistic existential frameworks for understanding the ways we internalize a sense of the deficient self and contract against parts of the self, including brief discussion of Internal Family Systems (IFS), Process-Experiential Emotion Focused and Buddhist psychological frameworks;
• Explore and identify our own living processes of contraction and rejection of parts of self as a means of gaining a deeper understanding of client processes;
• Explore and identify living processes for making contact with our own deep basic goodness and capacity to accept and integrate self toward congruence and wholeness;
• Explore and identify collective resonance around basic vulnerability and basic existential longings at the heart of the contracted and transforming self.

Overview

One of the greatest human paradoxes manifests in the way our deep longings for love, acceptance and belonging coexist with our human capacity for self-judgment and self-alienation, all too often perpetuated by powerful cultural conditions of worth.

Moreover, it is often our deep desire to belong and be accepted that leads us to suppress and contract against parts of our self we feel may be “bad” “unwelcome” and “not O.K”. And yet it is the process of self judgment and contraction that unintentionally contribute to unnecessary human suffering in the forms of loneliness, existential emptiness and common alienation from self, others and even our planetary home.

Perhaps the greatest antidote and medicine to loneliness and alienation from self and others is the cultivation of deep experiences of self-compassion and awareness of common humanity. To authentically embody self-compassion is to awaken a direct knowing that our inner experiences, no matter how uncomfortable, scary, embarrassing or “dark”, relate to and reveal fundamental universal longings for love, belonging and freedom.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

1. Explain at least one (1) framework for understanding the ways the deficient self-identity develops and affects capacity for self-compassion;
2. Discuss at least one (1) framework for understanding how mindfulness-based practices can awaken self-compassion
3. Identify two (2) ways in which self-compassion improves mental health outcomes;
4. Apply at least two (2) interventions to shift the relationship with parts of the self from contraction to acceptance;
5. Demonstrate at least two (2) group-based inquiry practices that support both the awakening of self-compassion and awareness of common humanity.

More Workshop Info

*Accessibility: It is the policy of EHI to make every reasonable effort to provide qualified attendees with disabilities with the opportunity to take full advantage of its programs and events. Contact us to discuss learning arrangements with our team. Email Michelle and Troy at conf@ehinstitute.org or call Michelle at 415-689-1475.

Continuing Education Information

*APA Division 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. APA Division 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

CA LMFT/LPCC/LCSWs can get continuing education credit too! California BBS accepts CE Credit from APA Approved Providers like Society of Humanistic Psychology.

Continuing Education has a $35 CE fee. Attendees can request CE participation during registration or reach out to us at info@ehinstitute.org or call Michelle at 415-689-1475. *A full continuing education course description is available on request.

Our Presenter: Galia Schechter, PsyD

Dr. Schecter is a licensed clinical psychologist and Buddhist practitioner. She has extensive training and experience in multiple mind-body modalities. Along with having been in private practice for 10 years, she has worked as a clinical director, a clinical supervisor a clinical trainer, and an organizational consultant.

Prior to getting her doctorate in clinical psychology from the Wright Institute and becoming a licensed psychologist, she received an MBA from Georgetown University and worked for organizations in the U.S. and abroad in governance, human rights and international development.

Our Co-Host: Heart Source

Heart Source is located in the heart of delightful Gourmet Ghetto neighborhood, at Cedar and Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, California and is committed to love through truth, clarity, and community. Heart Source is surrounded by lots of great restaurants, cafes, shops, and quaint residential areas, and just a 10 minute walk from the Downtown Berkeley BART station or a 15 minute drive from the Bay Bridge/ 20 mins from the San Rafael – Richmond Bridge.