Professional Development for Mental Health Clinicians:

Compassion Focused Therapy.

Compassion Motivation and Action in Clinical Practice

This free professional development with leading compassion focused therapy research and clinical psychologist, Dr Stan Steindl. We will explore the role of compassion in psychological therapies, as well as tools for tracking progress by monitoring change in compassionate motivation and action over time.

This webinar is ideal for psychologists and other clinicians new to compassion focused approaches or those already familiar and looking to enhance their existing toolkit. 

To get the most out of the professional development, please self-administer this self-compassion questionnaire before joining the webinar, by clicking here.

Webinar Recording Below

Learning Objectives:

  • Learn to identify when compassion is an important target for therapy
  • Identify the benefits of compassion for psychological health
  • Understand keys to effective compassion focused therapy interventions
  • Be able to use the Compassion Motivation and Action Scales to monitor progress in treatment

Webinar Summary

Compassion has become an important target in therapy. Cultivating compassionate action in one’s life, whether that be towards others or oneself, has been shown to have positive outcomes on psychological health and wellbeing.

A number of therapeutic approaches now have incorporated self-compassion, and compassion focused therapy (CFT) is an approach that is specifically designed to develop the compassionate mind in order to cope with life’s difficulties.

In this presentation, Dr Stan Steindl will give a brief overview of compassion and self-compassion in the psychological therapies, with a specific focus on CFT, as well as an overview of the importance and utility of ongoing monitoring of compassionate action and change across time using the Compassion Motivation and Action Scales (CMAS) alongside other routine outcome monitoring measures.

Dr Stan Steindl


Dr Stan Steindl is a Clinical Psychologist in private practice at Psychology Consultants Pty Ltd, and an Adjunct Professor at School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He is also co-director of the UQ Compassionate Mind Research Group, and convenor of the annual UQ Compassion Symposium.

Stan has over 25 years experience as a therapist, supervisor, trainer and researcher, and works with clients from motivational interviewing and compassion focused therapy perspectives. His PhD examined combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder and comorbid alcohol dependency, and he continues to work clinically in the areas of trauma and addiction, as well as having a general clinical practice.

Stan’s research interests are in the areas of motivation, behaviour change, compassion and compassion-based interventions, and especially the role of cultivating compassion and self-compassion in the context of trauma, shame, self-criticism and clinical disorders, as well as promoting psychological well-being.

He is the author of four books and several book chapters and research publications. His books include: Compassion in a T-Shirt: The First 35 Scripts (2020), The Gifts of Compassion: How to Understand and Overcome Suffering (2020), The Gifts of Compassion: Personal Practice Workbook (2021), and Compassion in a T-Shirt: Another 35 Scripts! (2023)

Dt Stan Steindl is the co-author of the Compassion Motivation and Action Scales: