Stanford's Compassion Cultivation Training

Live Online Training
September 10, 17, and 24, and October 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29, 2024
5:30-7:00pm ET (all days)

NYSED and ASWB/ACE approved for 12 CE contact hours

Discussions about compassion in medicine typically focus on the importance of providing compassionate care to patients and their loved ones. But a focus solely on patient-directed compassion is unsustainable and can lead to burnout.

Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) is an eight-week program that was developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Stanford University and is designed to address the needs of those serving the public good under challenging work conditions. Working in healthcare is hard; we witness a lot of suffering. Although we are wired for compassion, daily stressors and life experiences can erode our capacity to respond with kindness. CCT recognizes that compassion-based interventions are trainable, provide a particularly effective way to support positive emotion regulation, and for healthcare professionals are therefore uniquely suited to address prominent symptoms of burnout including emotional exhaustion, overwhelm, empathic distress and loneliness.

Based on research and insights from psychology and neuroscience, the semi-structured curriculum consists of lectures and group discussion designed to support the inner capacity to care for the self and others, interactive exercises and practical tools to increase mindfulness and meaning in everyday life, and a structured sequence of evidence-based guided meditations aimed at cultivating a warm-hearted and robust responsiveness while protecting against burnout. No previous experience is needed – CCT is designed to meet you just where you are at!

Themes explored and learning objectives include:

• The difference between empathy and compassion, and the effects of each on resilience
• How to transform empathy into compassion to avoid distress when exposed to challenges
• Becoming aware of the inner critic, replacing it with self-compassion
• Improved emotion regulation - strategies to manage difficult interactions and overwhelm
• Enhanced interpersonal connection and reduced loneliness
• Customized routines to sustain compassion and reconnect with professional meaning

“While having self-compassion was foreign to me initially, it became a useful tool to remain in balance. Instead of my emotions being all consuming, I found I could express them, and at the same time, not be consumed by them. Also, my perception of others started to change. I now tend to see both sides of a situation, if not immediately, at least after some reflection.”

“I liked learning about the importance of our interconnectedness, taking a step back and being mindful to be fully present, and being as compassionate to one's self as to others. I also really enjoyed the breakout rooms and the chance to interact with other participants.”

“A chance to refresh my meditation practice and to learn techniques to foster more compassion towards myself and others, especially those that I have trouble feeling compassion for. Learning that self-compassion and compassion for others is a win-win for everyone.”

Bornali Basu, PhD

Bornali Basu is a licensed psychologist on the clinical faculty at the Department of Psychiatry, NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She maintains a private psychotherapy practice in New York focused on compassion and mindfulness based approaches to cultivating joy. She completed her internship and a post-doctoral fellowship in cardiac psychology at the NYU School of Medicine, and previously was a senior staff psychologist at Bellevue Hospital where she founded, and was the Director of the Mind-Body Program. She is dually certified to teach CCT through the Center for Compassion & Altruism Research & Education at the Stanford School of Medicine, and the Compassion Institute.

Note: Registration for this event is limited to 25 attendees. 

To register for this seminar, please log in to our Online Registration Portal and select this event from the "All Events & Programs" tab, under the "Conferences and Events" section.

NOTE: Our registration and payment forms work best with Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers and less well with Internet Explorer and Safari. We recommend using Chrome or Firefox when completing the registration form. Please make sure to check that all fields are completed accurately on the form before submitting.

As part of this class, you have the additional opportunity to participate in an independent research study. The study is being conducted by Dr. Clifford Saron and his colleagues at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis. They are investigating the effects of compassion-based training on reactions to social and emotional scenes and situations and on interpersonal experiences in daily life. 

If you choose to participate, you will be asked to complete 3 assessments and will be compensated up to $230 for your time. The 3 assessments would be completed from your own home and would take place the week before your course begins, the week after your course ends, and 8 weeks after your course ends. Participation in this research is entirely optional and is not part of the training you will receive in your class. If you are interested in learning more about the study, please follow this link to see if you are eligible to participate.

IMPORTANT: To participate in this research study, you must fully enroll in your class at least four days before the official class start date.

Thank you for your interest and consideration!

General Admission: $300.00

Available discounts include:

• NYU Silver Alumni (Graduate and Undergraduate degrees): 25%
  
• NYU Faculty & Staff (Inclusive of Rory Myers ): 25%
  
• NYU Silver Post-Masters Certificate Program Alumni: 15%
  
• NYU Silver Current Practicum Instructors: 25%
  
• NYU Silver Current Students: 50%
  
• NYU Silver Retired Full Time Faculty: 25%
  
• Non-NYU Current BSW, MSW and PhD Students: 50%
  
• 3+ From Same Agency: 25%
  
• Veterans: 50%

If after registering, you determine that you can no longer attend this event, The Office of Global and Lifelong Learning will issue refunds on the following basis:

• Refund requests made on or before September 3 (by midnight): full refund
• Refund requests made on or before September 7 (by midnight): 50% refund
• Refund requests made on or after September 8: no refund

If this event is cancelled, all registrants will be fully reimbursed. To withdraw from and be reimbursed for this event, please complete the event withdrawal form.

NYSED and ASWB/ACE approved for 12 Continuing Education Contact Hours.

55 jurisdictions accept ACE-approved provider CE contact hours. ACE is not an approved Continuing Education provider in the states of New York (though NYU Silver is NYSED CE approved in NYS) and West Virginia, unless the event is outside of West VA. ACE only approves individual courses in New Jersey, though NYU Silver is CSWE-accredited and therefore accepted for licensed NJ professionals. Here is a full list of statutes related to social work CE.

New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing Center for Continuing Nursing Professional Development is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. (Provider # P0367).
Contact Hours Provided: 12.0.

Special Accommodations:
Students requiring accommodations have the opportunity to make these known upon registering or by writing to silver.continuingeducation@nyu.edu.

Addressing Grievances:
For information on our grievance and complaint procedures, contact 212.998.9099 or silver.continuingeducation@nyu.edu.

Note on Accessibility:
It is a priority to make our events inclusive and accessible. For any questions or to notify us of a request, please email silver.continuingeducation@nyu.edu at least 72 hours before the event.

NYU Silver School of Social Work
Office of Global and Lifelong Learning
285 Mercer Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003

Email: silver.continuingeducation@nyu.edu
Phone: 212.998.5973
Fax: 212.995.4497