Therapeutic Presence (TP) and Self-Compassion (SC) are essential factors in effective therapeutic relationships and outcomes. In this masterclass, we delve into their foundational role within the context of Emotion-Focused Therapy, exploring how these elements serve as pillars for creating transformative therapeutic alliances and emotional change.

Therapeutic presence is a way of being that optimises the doing and techniques of therapy. TP provides clients with a sense of safety, allowing them to be seen, heard, understood, and “feel felt,” while also strengthening the therapeutic alliance. This allows clients to access and express their core pain and emotions and engage in the deeper work of therapy. This type of relationship helps regulate clients’ emotions and supports their movement towards emotional health and neurophysiological integration. TP also invites therapists to work on their own balance of presence and compassion with self and clients, ensuring they remain centered and effective even in the face of difficult emotions. Practicing TP also sustains clinicians’ vitality, connection, and effectiveness.

Self-compassion is a key resource in maintaining therapists’ presence and working with the barriers to presence. SC involves meeting our emotions and difficult experience with mindfulness, common humanity, kindness, and warmth. Research shows that self-compassion is also strongly associated with emotional well-being, healthy habits, and more fulfilling relationships. Together, therapeutic presence and self-compassion are powerful resources for counsellors to maintain emotional balance in the midst of challenging clinical work, to enjoy their work and their clients more fully, and to prevent caregiver fatigue and burn-out.

In this masterclass, we will explore an empirically validated model of TP and how to create safety using neurophysiological principles based on concepts such as co-regulation and neuroception of safety stemming from Polyvagal Theory (Geller & Porges, 2014). We will incorporate evidenced based practices from Dr. Geller’s books, ‘A Practical Guide for Cultivating Therapeutic Presence’ (2017) and ‘Therapeutic Presence: A Mindful Approach to Effective Therapeutic Relationships 2nd Edition (2022) co-authored with Leslie Greenberg, including mindfulness, self-compassion, and experiential practices. There will be a number of take-home techniques offered for cultivating presence during therapy and life for clinicians, students, and clients.

In this training you will:

• Explore an empirically validated model of therapeutic presence along with key skills for cultivating presence
• Discover the neurophysiological mechanisms of therapeutic presence
• Practice presence and self-compassion techniques for clinical settings and in life to sustain emotional connection with clients and working through therapeutic ruptures
• Learn practices and skills for attuning in the moment with clients
• Apply presence and self-compassion skills for self-care and to prevent and alleviate burnout
• Receive take home practices for clients, students, trainees and for yourself