Developed by Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff in the USA, who have both written books on Self-Compassion. This course focuses mainly on developing the resources of kindness and self-compassion, upon a foundation of mindfulness training and practice. It is taught as an eight-week programme and also offered as a five-day intensive. It is not necessary to have taken a mindfulness course before training in MSC.
Its three bases are: recognising when we suffer; understanding that suffering is part of human life; and learning how we can best bring kindness to ourselves. It gives information about the different elements that are taught, and fosters resource-building through reflective exercises as well as short formal and many informal practices.
One of our compassion trainers, Ali Lambie, has created a very useful YouTube video that explains in detail the principles behind MSC and how it works. We highly recommend that you watch the video, since will answer many questions that you might have.
For more information, please visit the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion website at http://www.centerformsc.org.