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The New millennium citizens are facing unprecedented challenges, due to global sanitary emergencies, socio-political conflicts, radical climate changes, economic crises and dwindling resources.
Increasing numbers of individuals in present times experience pervasive feelings of isolation, anxiety, loneliness, depression and alienation that contribute to individual and social illness.
Over the past two decades, interest in meditation practices, originating in Eastern traditions, has grown significantly due to solid scientific evidence demonstrating their effectiveness not only in the management of human stress, pain and suffering, but also in the treatment of psychopathological disorders, offering an innovative approach to the treatment of mental well-being.
They reinforce fundamental aspects of human nature, such as acceptance, compassion toward self and others, the ability to observe one’s own experience without judgment, and an understanding of the mind at its deepest essence.
You will be able to engage with eight international experts who have revolutionized the world of Mindfulness and Compassion therapy, and learn knowledge and skills on how these practices can be applied to more effectively manage stress, illness and suffering.
The Master Class takes place on December 7 and 8, 2024. The 16 hours of training will remain fully available to you in your reserved area for 12 months.
You will be able to attend lessons by international speakers in English and Italian with simultaneous translation.
Paul Gilbert
Creator of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT). He is professor of clinical psychology at the University of Derby
Ronald Siegel
Associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. Serves on the Board of Trustees of the faculty
Zindal Segal
Professor emeritus of psychology of mood disorders at the University of Toronto Scarborough, is one of the developers of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
Fabrizio Didonna
Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at the School of Medicine, University of Padova, Professor in the Institute for Lifelong Learning of the University of Barcelona, Spain and Visiting Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Christopher Germer
PhD, clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program with Kristin Neff
Christopher Willard
Specialized in clinical psychology at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. He is a lecturer at Harvard University
Susan Pollak
Psychologist, co-founder and teacher at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance
Nitamo Montecucco
Physician expert in Psychosomatics. President of the APS Villaggio Globale, Director and Educator of the IUP Institute of the Villaggio Globale.
The Master Class takes place on December 7 and 8, 2024. The 16 hours of training will remain fully available to you in your reserved area for 12 months.
You will be able to attend lessons by international speakers in English and Italian with simultaneous translation.
Fabrizio Didonna. From 9.15am to 9.30am (Italian Time)
Paul Gilbert. From 9.30am to 11.30am (Italian Time)
The workshop will explore how harmful forms of self-criticism tend to be linked to competitive motivations and concerns with our social status and standing, and in particular the fear of rejection. However, compassionate self-correction comes from a very different motivational system, which is the caring system, where the aim is to encourage, support and develop.
The workshop will focus on how to create compassionate mind state and sense of self that acts as the antidote to harmful forms of self-criticism. Participants will be led through certain exercise to develop insight into the forms and functions of their self-criticism and also how to create a more compassion mind state.
Christopher Germer. From 11.45am to 1.45pm (Italian Time)
Most people are more compassionate toward others than themselves when things go wrong. However, a large body of research shows that self-compassion is broadly associated with wellbeing, including emotional resilience, healthy life habits, motivation to succeed, and more satisfying personal relationships. What is self-compassion? How does it work? Can it be learned? This talk will provide an overview of the theory, research and practice of self-compassion. Participants will learn key principles and practices to bring self-compassion seamlessly into their lives.
Christopher Willard. From 2.45pm to 4.45pm (Italian Time)
Join author, psychologist and consultant Dr. Christopher Willard in this workshop for professionals interested in sharing mindfulness with youth. Dr. Willard will be sharing fun, creative ways to teach mindfulness through awareness, movement, games, play, and creative activities for all ages.
Learning differences, cultural differences, developmental differences, and more all affect how children learn best, and this workshop explores ways to adapt mindfulness, rather than approach with a one-size fits all approach. We will discuss tailoring techniques to a range of issues, including depression, anxiety, executive function challenges, trauma and stress. Different practices will engage different learning styles through arts, sports, games, music, technology and more, for attention spans ranging from 30 seconds to 30 minutes.
Zindel Segal. From 5.00pm to 7.00pm (Italian Time)
Recent treatment approaches for anxiety and depressive disorders stress the importance of addressing transdiagnostic factors such as rumination, worry, and impulsivity as part of comprehensive intervention. Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy has shown the ability to disengage neural networks supporting rumination and worry, along with enhancing clinical outcomes through increased tolerance of negative affective states. This workshop will be an interactive learning experience combining didactic instruction with experiential exercises to teach the key aspects of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) as foundational to addressing how features of this approach can be incorporated into routine clinical settings.
Nitamo Montecucco. From 9.00am to 11.00am (Italian Time)
Psychosomatic Mindfulness represents an innovative protocol for self-awareness based on substantial neuroscientific and clinical research (Edelman, Eccles, Llinas, Panksepp, Northoff, Damasio, Pert, etc.) but above all on practices of bodily and emotional awareness that facilitate a better global perception of themselves.
The Psychosomatic Mindfulness Protocol has been validated by numerous studies which testify to the effectiveness of the intervention. The research has been published in scientific journals (Mindfulness; J. of Adolescence; European J. of Body Psychotherapy; etc.). The validations highlight a high approval rating and excellent effectiveness in improving emotional-behavioral repertoires and various other psychological parameters, between treated subjects and control groups. Our approach was born as a response to international research by the WHO which shows that a large part of people are stressed and depressed, and therefore live a lot in their “head”, i.e. in their thoughts and problems, and feel little about their “heart”, their positive feelings and emotions, and the pleasure of living in the body because it is too tense. Our psychosomatic practices allow people to gradually dissolve their psychophysical stress tensions, to “reopen their heart” with kindness and compassion, and improve their perception of pleasure and bodily vitality.
Our electroencephalographic research shows that the spectrum of illness-wellbeing is correlated to a parallel value of minor-major level of EEG coherence, i.e. minor-major synchronization between the neuro-psycho-somatic functions that regulate self-awareness.
This more unitary and integral psychosomatic awareness of the Self thus manifests in a parallel deeper state of mindfulness.
The Psychosomatic Mindfulness Protocol was also included in the “Gaia Project”, a global health and awareness education program, accredited by the MIUR, which was carried out on over 50,000 children and adults in every Italian region.
Fabrizio Didonna. From 11.15am to 1.15pm (Italian Time)
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an innovative, standardized, and manualized treatment program designed to create significant clinical and life improvement in people who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Based on the research and clinical experience of Dr Fabrizio Didonna and documented in his handbook Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for OCD (New York, Guilford Press, 2020) the program integrates the most effective tools of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with the clinical application of mindfulness and self-compassion practices.
This step-by-step intensive therapeutic program aims to help individuals with OCD to recognize and overcome the specific and/or generic cognitive biases and dysfunctional mechanisms that activate and maintain their disorder, to learn new effective strategies to neutralize those mechanisms, and to develop stable and healthy ways to relate to their internal experience.
The aim of this workshop is to learn about the effectiveness of this program in helping people (not just individuals affected by OCD) to radically change the dysfunctional relationship they have with their private experience (thoughts, emotions and physical sensations) and develop some of the most important qualities of well-being: balance, trust and acceptance.
Ronald Siegel. From 2.45pm to 4.45pm (Italian Time)
Ever since Freud, psychotherapists have worked with non-ordinary states such as dreams, hypnosis, and free association to understand and heal the heart and mind. In the past decade, mindfulness and compassion practices have become mainstream tools, while more recently, research on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has mushroomed. Psychedelics, often combined with insights from mindfulness and compassion practices, now offer not only possible breakthrough treatments for PTSD, depression, addictions, and end-of-life anxiety but also provide new insights into the nature of psychological distress and mechanisms of healing.
What can clinicians learn from these developments? What can they teach us about the neurobiology of human suffering and flourishing? How can they inform our practice?
In this interactive workshop, you’ll learn practical tools and techniques derived from mindfulness and compassion-oriented treatment and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to help clients with a wide-array of disorders. We’ll explore ways to help clients integrate split-off traumatic memories, open their hearts, embrace vulnerability, surrender to the flow of ever-changing experience, move from isolation to deep connection with people and nature, appreciate the unreliable fluidity of thought, and find meaning in everyday moments.
You’ll learn how to use mindfulness and self-compassion practices along with other techniques to harness these healing mechanisms, while also gaining the knowledge necessary to help clients who might be experimenting with psychedelics to integrate and grow from their experiences.
Susan Pollak. From 5.00pm to 7.00pm (Italian Time)
Freud called parenting an “impossible profession.” The ancient Zen masters quipped that life is one “mistake after another.”
Both statements resonate as we try to parent in a rapidly changing, chaotic, and violent world.
The world our children navigate is so different from the one we grew up in. Social media, cell phones, school shooting are “just part of daily life” one teenager told me.
This talk will ground us in the theories of child development, starting with Freud and Piaget. We will then turn to the anxieties so many parents experience. We will then look at how we can parent skillfully in the challenging world that we all inhabit. The talk with then explore (with practical examples) how can Mindfulness and Compassion help us maintain equanimity as we all try to navigate this rapidly changing world.
The Master Class takes place on December 7 and 8, 2024. The 16 hours of training will remain fully available to you in your reserved area for 12 months.
You will be able to attend lessons by international speakers in English and Italian with simultaneous translation.
The Master Class takes place on December 7 and 8, 2024. The 16 hours of training will remain fully available to you in your reserved area for 12 months.
You will be able to attend lessons by international speakers in English and Italian with simultaneous translation.