Karen Bluth, PhD, earned her doctoral degree in child and family studies at the University of Tennessee. She is currently assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and research fellow at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the roles that mindfulness and self-compassion play in promoting well-being in teens. In addition to her research, Bluth regularly teaches mindfulness and mindful self-compassion courses to both adults and teens through the Frank Porter Graham Program for Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Families, which she founded. She regularly gives talks and leads workshops at schools and universities. Bluth codeveloped Making Friends with Yourself: A Mindful Self-Compassion Program for Teens and Young Adults, which is the adaptation of Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer's Mindful Self-Compassion program tailored for an adolescent population. A former educator with eighteen years' classroom experience, Bluth is currently associate editor of the academic journal, Mindfulness.Kristin Neff, PhD, is currently associate professor of educational psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. She is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion more than fifteen years ago. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is author of Self-Compassion. In conjunction with her colleague Christopher Germer, she developed an empirically supported, eight-week training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, and offers workshops on self-compassion worldwide.
