Teaching Compassionate Reframing: Building Relational Bridges in the Classroom with Unconditional Positive Regard

Keywords: Compassion, Unconditional Positive Regard, Reframing

Abstract: Unconditional Positive Regard is an essential condition for fostering helping relationships, as conceived by Carl Rogers, the noted psychotherapist (Rogers, 1961, p. 62). However, the beliefs and attributions that students, and even we as faculty, hold about others are sometimes quite negative, rather than unconditionally positive. The ability to become aware of and reframe beliefs and attributions about others from negative to positive is an important component of education involving spirit (Karakas, 2011) (Harlos, 2000). I’ll discuss an approach implemented across our undergraduate curriculum that helps students learn this practice. A brief practice session will provide a sense of the process.