Susan Pollak

Susan M. Pollak, MTS, Ed.D. is a psychologist in private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a longtime student of meditation and yoga who has been integrating the practices of meditation into psychotherapy since the 1980s.

Dr. Pollak is cofounder and teacher at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at Harvard Medical School / Cambridge Health Alliance and was the president of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy for ten years, from 2010 to 2020.

She is a co-editor of The Cultural Transition; a contributing author of Mapping the Moral Domain; Evocative Objects; and Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, 2nd Edition; co-author of Sitting Together: Essential Skills for Mindfulness-based Psychotherapy and is the author of the new book Self-Compassion for Parents: Nurture Your Child by Caring for Yourself.

Dr. Pollak is the author of the Psychology Today blog, The Art of Now: Essential Skills for Mindfulness, an exploration of the art of integrating mindfulness into clinical practice and daily life, sharing new insights, reflections, and inspiration.

Research Articles

• Neural activations during self-related processing in patients with chronic pain and effects of a brief self-compassion training – A pilot study
  Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging (Vol. 304, October 2020)

• Brief Self-Compassion Training Alters Neural Responses to Evoked Pain for Chronic Low Back Pain: A Pilot Study
  Pain Medicine (Vol. 21, Issue 8, August 2020)