Self-Compassion for Healthcare Communities (SCHC) in Ohio
Healthcare professionals don’t need more resilience training—they need permission to be human.
What is Self-Compassion for Healthcare Communities (SCHC)?
Self-Compassion for Healthcare Communities (SCHC) is a 6-hour evidence-based adaptation of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), the empirically supported program developed by Dr. Kristin Neff at UT Austin and Dr. Chris Germer at Harvard Medical School. This training focuses on improving wellbeing and personal resilience in healthcare professionals by teaching mindful self-compassion skills to deal with distressing emotional situations as they occur at work and at home.
Why Self-Compassion?
Caring for others in today’s healthcare system often means running on empty. Constant time pressure, impossible documentation demands, moral distress, patient trauma, and chronic understaffing can slowly erode even the most dedicated provider’s sense of meaning, resilience, and purpose.
Many healthcare professionals don’t burn out because they don’t care enough—they burn out because they care too much, for too long, without adequate support.
Self-compassion offers a practical, evidence-based way to sustain compassionate care without sacrificing yourself in the process. These are not abstract ideas or “nice in theory” practices—they are real, on-the-spot skills that can be used in the middle of a shift, between patients, after difficult cases, and in moments of self-doubt, moral injury, and emotional exhaustion.
The Self-Compassion for Healthcare Communities (SCHC) program teaches healthcare professionals skills such as how to work skillfully with their inner critic, regulate stress in real time, process secondary trauma, and reconnect with the values that brought them into this work in the first place - without numbing, shutting down, or leaving the profession.
Research
Research on the SCHC program has shown significant reductions in depression, stress, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout, along with meaningful increases in self-compassion, mindfulness, compassion for others, and job satisfaction among healthcare professionals (Neff, Germer, et al., 2019, RCT).
But beyond the data, what participants often report is something simpler and more human: the ability to keep showing up with presence, clarity, and care—for their patients, their teams, and themselves.
Who is Self-Compassion for Healthcare Communities (SCHC) for?
Self-Compassion for Healthcare Communities is designed for:
Physicians
Residents
Nurses
Therapists & mental health professionals
Social workers
Direct care staff
Palliative & hospice teams
Medical residents & trainees
Allied health professionals
Healthcare administrators and leaders
Common challenges SCHC addresses:
Burnout and emotional exhaustion
Compassion fatigue & empathy fatigue
Secondary trauma
Moral injury
Caregiver Fatigue
Chronic stress
Anxiety and overwhelm
Perfectionism and self-criticism
Boundary fatigue
Workforce retention stress
SCHC Core Curriculum Overview
6-Hour Program | Adaptable for workshops, series, and organizational programs
Self-Compassion for Healthcare Communities (SCHC) follows a structured 6-hour curriculum that can be delivered as a 6-hour intensive, a multi-week series, or adapted into organizational formats. Each session builds skills progressively while remaining flexible for organizational needs.
-
Education on what self-compassion is (and isn’t)
Physiology of self-compassion and self-criticism
Intro to foundational self-compassion practices
-
Self-Compassion and mindfulness research
Misgivings in healthcare about self-compassion in healthcare
Education on what is mindfulness
How to bring brief moments of mindfulness to your work and daily moments
Education on Backdraft
-
Education on stress and burnout
Compassion fatigue verses empathy fatigue
Sustainable caregiving and equanimity
Compassion with equanimity practice (how to care for yourself while caring for others)
-
Role of self-criticism and safety
Motivating ourselves with compassion
How are you practicing self-compassion check-in
-
Strategies for meeting difficult emotions
Working with Difficult emotions
Labeling emotions
-
Core values for healthcare proessionals
Meaning-making in caregiving, intention setting
What you would liek to remember
Long-term sustainability
Professional identity and wellbeing
Key Objectives for Participants:
Be able to describe the key components of self-compassion and mindfulness and how they can be integrated into your role as a healthcare professional.
Be able to explain the difference between empathy and compassion and utilize strategies to avoid emotional exhaustion.
Be able to practice techniques to increase self-compassion at work and everyday life.
Practice at least one skill from each session to care for yourself emotionally while caring for others who are experiencing difficulty.
Key Benefits:
As opposed to other self-care techniques, self-compassion practices can be used on the spot while at work with patients and colleagues. As a participant of the program you can learn tools to use throughout the day to:
Care for yourself while caring for others
Be able to listen with compassion
Handle difficult emotions with greater ease
Reconnect to the values that give your life and work meaning
Interested in SCHC or a custom self-compassion or mindfulness program for your organization?
We offer private courses and workshops for organizations and would love to talk about how we can support your community or group!
Interested in learning more self-compassion or mindfulness individually?
Interested in learning how to become more self-compassionate or mindful in a one-on-one format? Reach to to learn more about individual counseling options!
Upcoming SCHC Course – Interest List
Complete the form to:
✔ Be notified when the next SCHC course is scheduled
✔ Receive full course details (dates, cost, format, location)
✔ Get early registration access
✔ Be included in priority enrollment
This is not a commitment to register, it simply adds you to the interest list.
Or send an email any time: msc@compassionatemind.com