Course Orientation

How this course works, how to journal, why the grade is built the way it is — and the rules that keep the whole thing safe.

Two strands, braided

This course runs on two strands at once, and understanding why will make every design decision in the syllabus legible. The science strand treats self-compassion the way psychology treats any construct: we read the founding papers, walk through the experiments, argue about measurement, and weigh the intervention trials — and you're tested on it, twice. The practice strand follows the arc of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), the eight-week program developed by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer and tested in a randomized controlled trial you'll read in week seven. We've stretched that eight-session arc across our thirteen weeks: nearly every class opens with a practice, and most weeks assign ten to fifteen minutes of daily home practice, at least four days a week, logged in your journal.

Why both? Because each strand is impoverished without the other. A purely academic course on self-compassion would be like a course on swimming taught entirely on the chalkboard — you could pass the exam and still drown. A purely experiential course would leave you unable to distinguish evidence from enthusiasm in a literature that attracts plenty of both. The experiential project is where the strands braid: you practice like a practitioner and observe yourself like a scientist, and in December you stand up and report what the literature predicted versus what actually happened in the N-of-1 study that is you.

A psychology course, not therapy

Practicing self-compassion means occasionally brushing against real feelings, so this room runs on trauma-informed rules, stated in week one and never revoked: everything we do is an invitation, not a requirement. You always have the option to follow the instructions or your own inner wisdom. If anything feels like too much, open your eyes, feel your feet on the floor, take a slow breath, or step out — caring for yourself in that moment IS the practice. You will never be graded on disclosure, and your journal is graded on engagement, never on private content.

This distinction — course, not therapy — is worth dwelling on, because the boundary is principled, not bureaucratic. Therapy is individualized treatment delivered by a licensed clinician who has assessed you and takes responsibility for your care. This course is psychoeducation plus skills training: the same category of thing as a stress-management workshop or a first-aid certification. The practices we use are the general-public versions, taught with the same safeguards MSC uses. But if the work stirs up material that is persistent, interfering, or frightening, that has outgrown the course's container — and the honest, self-compassionate move is a referral. The SJNY Counseling & Wellness Center is free and confidential, and in this course, using it is read as skill, not failure. Learn the backdraft protocol now; week three teaches it formally, but there's no reason to wait.

How to journal (and why it's built this way)

The journal has two parts. The practice log is quick: a line or two per session — date, practice, duration, one sentence of what you noticed. The weekly reflection (250–400 words) answers three standing prompts, every week: What did you notice this week — body, emotion, thought, behavior? How does it connect, or fail to connect, to something from class or the readings? What will you try or adjust next week? The middle prompt is where the grade lives: name a concept or study and use it correctly. "I felt calmer" is a start; "I felt the difference between soothing and drive — Gilbert's circles — when I stopped studying to walk" is college-level observation.

Three design choices deserve explanation. Entries lock weekly because retrospective journaling is a different (and worse) data source than contemporaneous logging — you'll read the experience-sampling literature in week three and see exactly why; your two no-questions grace weeks exist because life happens. Honest nulls earn full credit because a practice that felt flat, or even backfired, documented with curiosity, is better science than manufactured breakthroughs — the variability of practice effects across people is one of the genuinely interesting findings in this literature. And handwriting earns extra credit (+2 course points fully handwritten, +1 mostly) for two reasons that happen to align: slowing down to write by hand is itself a contemplative practice with some evidence behind the encoding benefits — and a handwritten contemplative log is rather hard to outsource to a chatbot.

The AI posture, stated plainly

Which brings us to the policy. This course deliberately puts its grade weight in live, in-person work — your practice, your discussion, your talk — because those are yours in a way generated text can never be. AI tools may be used like a tutor: clarifying concepts, checking APA format, quizzing you on the modules. They may not write journal entries, reflections, memo prose, or your presentation. The line is simple: AI can help you understand; it may not be you. The honest "the practice didn't work for me this week" is an A answer; a fabricated contemplative log is an integrity violation with a special irony to it.

How to read in this course

Each week pairs one of these modules (the course's textbook, effectively) with either a chapter from Neff (2011) or a primary journal article. The articles come with reading guides that tell you what to extract and what to let wash over you — use them; they're the difference between forty minutes of confusion and twenty minutes of comprehension. A standing permission that applies all semester: you are allowed to skim statistics you haven't learned yet. Extract the design and the direction of findings; let the Greek letters wash over you. The exams test design logic and findings, never decimals.

Key terms

Check yourself

Reflective questions — no clicking, just thinking. These are the kinds of questions that show up in class discussion and, in mutated form, on exams.