Episode 18: The Self-Compassion Psychologist: Dr. Chris Germer

The Mindful Initiative

Dr. Chris Germer

In Episode 18, I speak with Dr. Chris Germer, who is a Clinical Psychologist, Lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, co-founder of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) and author of several books on the subject. Dr. Germer unravels intriguing aspects of human behavior, his connection with India, the inspirations he derives from Indian contemplative wisdom, the founding of MSC, and disarmingly shares his personal story. To know more about his work please visit his personal site. You can know more about Mindful Self-Compassion by visiting their website.

In May 2019, I had a great opportunity to travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts to meet Dr. Chris Germer. He was kind enough to invite me to his house for the interview. He took me out for lunch to a beautiful Asian place – I think it was Thai. I got to know a lot more than what I had read about him. A multi-faceted personality, who has followed his intuition to be who he is today. His travels to India early on in his career to starting the Mindful Self-Compassion training with Dr. Kristen Neff to where the future is taking us. No one imagined that we would be releasing this episode in the middle of a pandemic and protests. We need Self-Compassion more than ever and I am glad that we are able to release the podcast at a time when we need it the most. Dr. Germer talks about Mind and Life Institute, where I was supposed to be last week for the Summer Research Institute (SRI). Our SRI was held online, though we missed the in-person interactions and proximity makes a huge difference. I kept thinking about my conversation with him throughout. Offline we talked about many things – and was my love for photography and his camera, both of which are the same brands! The photo above was taken in his backyard. I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed interviewing Dr. Germer. He also gifted me a signed copy of his Mindful Self-Compassion Handbook, which I refer quite frequently.

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You can visit the transcription of this podcast by clicking the Transcription tab below.

Editing: Juan Pablo Velasquez Luna

Transcription: Gita Venkat