Group Therapy & Classes
We are continuously developing new programs so check back to see our most current offerings.
Mindfulness-Based Sobriety Group
Support from others who care and understand is critical to maintaining sobriety. And being mindful - present and accepting of whatever is happening in the moment - is PROVEN to be a crucial skill in loving yourself and making free choices about your actions. This group will teach you how to be mindful, particularly in the face of addictions. Unlike any other group, you will actively learn how to use mindfulness to:
Addictions Team discusses their philosophy on addictions and recovery
- Recognize with clarity and nonjudgment your own triggers and weaknesses
- Create the space and freedom around urges and triggering situations to make choices, instead of falling into automatic behaviors
- Embrace, without arrogance, your own strengths
- Really, truly FEEL without drowning in intensity or overwhelm
- Become more comfortable with and less afraid of difficult emotions
- Have genuine, real, connected relationships with others
Saturdays 8:30-10am, rolling admissions - start any time!
$30 per group, payable by month ($120 per month)
Body at ease, 6-week group
When was the last time you gave your body the gift of your mindful attention? Our bodies do so much for us in a day, and often they do it all on auto-pilot. As we drive our cars, shop for groceries, sit at our desks, and play with our children, we may only notice our postures and movements when our muscles begin to ache with fatigue. If you experience chronic muscle pain, feel out of touch with your body, or struggle with body image, then this group is for you. We will practice increasing our body awareness during simple daily activities such as walking, sitting, eating, and conversing. First we will observe our current movement patterns with nonjudgmental self-compassion; then we will explore the effects of simple cues, visualizations, and affirmations on those patterns. The goal is to help you gain more conscious control of your movements and feel more comfortable, relaxed, and centered in your body.
Riley Koren, MA Intern. Riley has been a massage therapist for 8 years and is finishing her master’s in counseling. Her specialties are body-based therapies and holistic wellness.
Wednesdays, 6:30-7:30pm, August 23-September 27
$120 for full 6-week series, if registered by August 1, 2017
mindfulness for grief and loss
Grief is not a pathology or illness, it’s a natural part of life that can bring much suffering. The goal of mindfulness practice is to ease suffering. This group will bring grief and mindfulness together in a format that will offer support, compassion, understanding, and meaning to your process. The only thing you need to approach your grief mindfully is yourself, as you are, right now. Experiencing your grief with others who are in the same boat can bring a deeper sense of connection, openness to new possibilities, improved self-perception, courage, and strength. This group is for anyone who has experienced the death of a family member, friend, or partner within the last 6 months. Together, we’ll:
• Ease the physical symptoms of grief
• Calm your mind and help you to regulate difficult emotions
• Improve your awareness of the present moment
• Increase your compassion towards yourself and others
• Help you make meaning from your loss
Mondays, 8-9pm, starting Sept. 18-Nov. 6
$320 for the full 8-weeks. In order to promote safety and cohesion, we ask the members sign up for the full 8-weeks.
MODERN MEN'S PSYCHOTHERAPY GROUP
Although you may not want to talk about your emotions, relationships, and the pressures of being a modern man, it really does feel good and is good for you! Check out Dr. Rich Mahagony of mantherapy.org and his endorsement. This is an on-going group where we'll learn about ourselves, create strong relationships, and support each other through the frustrations and joys of modern life.
Although Dr. Mahagony will not be leading this group, Scott Pasko is an equally manly man.
Thursdays, 5:30-6:30, on-going group
$200 per month, we ask that men sign up per month
refuge recovery from addictions
Refuge Recovery is a non-theistic, Buddhist-inspired approach to recovery from addictions of all kinds. We are a community of people who are using the practices of mindfulness, compassion, forgiveness, and generosity to heal the pain and suffering that addiction has caused in our lives and the lives of our loved ones.
The path of practice that we follow is called the Four Noble Truths of Refuge Recovery: • Meditation • Generosity • Kindness • Renunciation
Weekly peer-led meetings include guided meditations, readings from the book Refuge Recovery, and group sharing and discussion. Open to people of all backgrounds and respectful of all recovery paths, these meetings are appropriate for anyone in, or interested in, recovery from any forms of addictive behavior. No prior meditation experience necessary.
Thursdays, 8:30-10pm
Free, but donations welcome. Come as often as you can!
Monthly "Giving Readers a Voice" Book Club
Do you have every good intention to implement all the great ideas in self-help books, but forget about them in "real life"? So do we! Our book club is a fun, social place to read, discuss and together implement ideas that are meant to enhance your life and teach you something. So much easier to do things with other people than alone!
We are now on our second book: "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach. We'll learn to free ourselves from the pain of feeling “something is wrong with me”, by accepting each present moment exactly as it is.
We've done the work of organizing and recruiting members for you. We also provide an expert in the books to help guide the discussion as needed. You just have to read, show up, have fun and increase your self-compassion for real, in your real life, with the support of others like you who are doing the same thing!
Second Saturday of each month, 10am-11am, 6-week group starting Sept. 9 (through Feb 10, 2018)
$180 for the whole book club, starting Saturday Sept. 9, 2017
Mindfulness For Couples
Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of whatever's happening in the moment with nonjudgment, curiosity and equanimity. Can you imagine maintaining this level of calm in the midst of a raging argument with your partner? We can't picture ourselves either! HOWEVER, cultivating mindful awareness while in dialogue with your partner has the potential to soften the hurts and amplify the joys, leading to deeper connection and understanding. This workshop offers guided mindful communication exercises with your partner designed to cultivate:
- Letting go of blaming, criticizing or trying to change or fix yourself or your partner
- Increasing awareness of your own habitual emotional reactions and interpretations
- Deep, true listening and empathy, of yourself and your partner
- Creating safety and security for yourself and your partner
- Connection, unity and understanding of each other
- Feeling deeply understood
- Staying calm during communication
Learn from the experts and others in similar relationships!
Sunday October 22 9am-11am
$100 per couple
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Feeling overwhelmed and out of control? Years of research shows that DBT is a powerful and proven intervention that provides you with real-life, take-home skills in 4 areas: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation and Interpersonal Effectiveness. You'll learn concrete skills to be more present, less overwhelmed and feel more in control, with fun, warm and compassionate support in using these skills in real life.
The group will run ongoing, open to new members at the beginning of each month, meeting each Wednesday 8-9pm.
$40 per group, payable per month ($160 or $200 per month) with at least 2 month commitment.
More Mindful Parenting
As Feris Bueller wisely said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't slow down and look around once and a while you could miss it." This is a great reminder for us as we face modern parenting. The days are long but the years are short. We are pulled in a million direction and must content with an every increasing number of distractions. It can feel like there is never enough time to just be.
Join us as we explore the union between mindfulness and parenting. This 4 workshop series will give a solid introduction to mindfulness meditation, basic neuroscience and human nervous system development, compassionate parenting, and ways to bring all of this to our busy modern lives. We can practice mindful parenting moment by moment-anywhere, anytime. So simple even a parent can do it!
... read more
First Workshop Saturday, 9am-12pm
First workshop will:
- Introduce mindfulness meditation practices that can easily fit into the daily life of busy, modern parents
- Practice and discuss how mindfulness can reduce stress
- Practice and discuss reducing emotional reactivity in your kids
- Learn how mindfulness can increase harmony in your family.
Second workshop: The Science of Flourishing, Saturday, 9am-11am
Now is the best time to learn to meditate! It seems like new scientific evidence supporting the benefits of mindfulness meditation are being published everyday. We will:
- Explore fascinating new findings from neuroscience;
- Link them to our own and our childrens' brain and nervous system development;
- Practice and learn targeted mindfulness techniques to impact our own and our children's development, in areas of emotional regulation, coping with stress, and increasing resiliency and executive functioning
Third workshop: More Compassionate Parenting, Saturday, 9am-11am
Cultivating compassion is simple, but not necessarily easy. In this workshop we will learn about the various ways to develop and practice compassion, a crucial ingredient for a more joyful and less frustrating parenting experience. Often we are very hard on ourselves as parents and this attitude can ripple out to those we love. Luckily, kindness and compassion are also contagious. Participants will learn how to train the mind to become more compassionate toward oneself, one’s children and one’s co-parents.
Fourth workshop: Short Times, Many Times, Anywhere, Anytime, Saturday, 9am-11am
This workshop will focus on bringing informal mindfulness techniques for the whole family into everyday life. Meditation happens everywhere, not just on the cushion. Participants will learn how to bring mindfulness into routine experiences that will make moments of kindness and awareness as accessible as your smartphone! We will provide concrete instruction and provide the opportunity to practice the techniques together so you will feel comfortable introducing them to your own kids and partners.
$60 per person per workshop. This series is usually offered twice a year. Next one in the fall, 2017.
The Classic Course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
This is the Harvard-based curriculum in learning targeted meditation strategies to reduce stress, physical pain and emotional suffering.
Led by Kathleen Ochipinti, PhD. Dr. Occhipinti has over 30 years experience in mindfulness and advanced training in MBSR under the direction of Drs. Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli at The Center for Mindfulness, University of Massachusetts. She also studied mind/body health and resiliency under the direction of Dr. Herbert Benson at the Harvard University Medical School, Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine. She is a warm, engaging and real teacher, meditator and therapist.
Tuesdays, 6:30 - 8:30pm, with one retreat Saturday, 9am-3pm, $500 for the class
On hold at the moment. Look for the next series in the fall, 2017.
An informational interview with Kathleen is required prior to attendance. Contact Kathleen at 312.498.4560, or register here and she will contact you to set up the interview.
Mindfulness Through Improvisation Group
Everyone is talking about mindfulness, but what is it? How can you find out, without a robe or a cushion, or the gentle recorded sound of babbling brooks, or sitting cross-legged until your feet fall asleep? The games of the Mindfulness in Improvisation series allow an immediate, dynamic experience of the freedom and non-judgment inherent in mindfulness.
- Remain present in moments of uncertainty
- Be open to the “unknown” emerging
- Recognize and let go of the need to control
4 Tuesdays, 7:00pm-8:30pm
On hold for now. Look for the next series in the fall, 2017!
$195 for the full series
I Love You And You Make Me Crazy
Do you ever feel like you're walking on eggshells around your loved one? Feel like you can't say anything right? Ever get your buttons pushed? You're not alone! This group is support and education for people in especially challenging or toxic relationships, romantic, family or otherwise. We'll focus on:
- Staying calm instead of exploding
- Not taking on your loved one’s emotion as your own
- Setting healthy boundaries
- Understanding what’s going on inside your loved one
- Avoiding emotional “traps” the just lead to fights
- Learn from the experts and others in similar relationships!
Tuesday evenings from 8pm - 9pm.
This group is on hold for now. Look for the next series in fall, 2017.
$30/group with at least a six-week commitment, rolling admissions
Yoga for Anxiety Relief
This class will help you calm the body and quiet the mind.
We will explore how the breath helps regulate the nervous system and then practice breathing techniques to lower stress response. The practice will also include soft yoga postures coordinated with the breath (suitable for beginners and experienced yoga practitioners). Class will end with a mindfulness-based body scan to increase the mind-body connection and encourage deeper relaxation.
Please bring an extra layer or blanket for the final relaxation.
Tuesdays, 7pm-8pm
This group is on hold for now. Look for the next 4-week series in the summer, 2017!
$80 for each 4-week series
SEMINARS/PRESENTATIONS
CMP does presentations in the following areas:
- Crisis de-escalation
- Suicide assessment and intervention
- Mindfulness and its clinical applications
If you are interested in scheduling a workshop or presentation, please call 773-368-9619 to discuss.
