Summarize the research supporting the mental health benefits of cultivating virtue and living a values-based life.
Describe the singular importance of close emotional bonds for physical and mental health.
Practice and teach simple compassion skills in everyday life.
Practice living in alignment with one’s own core values to develop emotional resilience.
Guide patients to explore and enhance their prosocial values.
The world is currently facing challenges that defy easy solutions, such as social injustice, armed conflict, climate change, wealth inequality, and technological disruption. These problems cause emotional distress and appear, directly or indirectly, in psychotherapy. What should clinicians know, and what can they do, to alleviate distress that arises from seemingly insurmountable problems? One evidence-based treatment approach, accessible to anyone, is to cultivate prosocial values and virtues, such as kindness, compassion, integrity and connection.
In this webinar series we'll explore the research and practices that support a values-based approach to living from a variety of perspectives—evolutionary, lifespan, neuroscientific, and sociocultural. Attendees will learn useful tools and strategies, including meditation, to help their patients manage emotional distress related to personal as well as larger, social problems. Therapists will also have a chance to explore the role of virtue and values in their own lives and begin to cultivate skills that support their own emotional resilience.
