Original Research

Read my research on the roles of self-compassion and decentering in the relationship between potentially traumatic events and posttraumatic symptoms; the capacity of IFS meditation to increase state self-compassion and decentering; and the role of decentering in increasing self-compassion, in a trauma exposed sample.

TLDR: Cool research on self-compassion, decentering, and IFS meditation with folks who have been exposed to at least one traumatic event in their lives (AKA folks like most of us)!

Dissertation Intervention -

Internal Family Systems Meditation

This is the meditation practice used as the intervention in my research on IFS meditation.

This meditation was originally created and recorded by Dr. Richard Schwartz, and titled Internal Family Systems Meditation. That original recording can be found on the free app Insight Timer here.

When I piloted my study, some folks said they had a hard time hearing some of the guidance in Dr. Schwartz’s original recording, so I had a professional voice actor re-record the meditation using Dr. Schwartz’s script and guidance. Here is that new, crisp recording.

When Meditation Spaces Make Me Mad

Reflections on a common cluster of shortcomings in “spiritual” and meditation spaces.

Self-Compassion, Decentering, Trauma, and Internal Family Systems Meditation: Baseline and Intervention Analyses

First Author: Rakhel Shapiro, Ph.D.

Co-Authors: Dr. Kevin Meehan, Dr. Sara Haden, Dr. Nicholas Papouchis, and Lyla Clark

Place

Dance and prose poetry.

Pleasure, connection, power, finding it, losing it, fighting for it, coming home to my animal body.