What is MCD Therapy?

Mindful Compassionate Dialogue Therapy (MCDT) is born from the meeting place of mindfulness, somatic awareness, experiential exploration, and compassionate communication (NVC). It invites both therapists and clients into a shared map, one that not only guides the steps of healing in the therapy room, but also becomes a compass they can carry into every corner of life.

This is a revolution in therapy!

MCDT is an experiential path for healing ourselves, our relationships, and learning to live in ways that nurture a culture of care and connection.

With the support of the MCD system, you will discover a path to thriving in relationships.

There is a map to thriving relationships. We want you to have it!

A clear path to growth.

For Clients: Growth begins in the present moment.

Through guided mindfulness and present-moment exploration, clients learn to identify emotional cues, tender needs, core beliefs, and relational patterns that influence interaction and communication.

Clients can develop skills to:

  • Support nervous system regulation and return to present-moment awareness when reactive patterns arise

  • Strengthen communication through increased self-awareness, honest expression, and empathy

  • Engage with conflict in ways that can increase mutual understanding and support collaborative communication.

The 12 Relationship Competencies and 9 Foundations of Wellbeing provide practical, structured tools that support the development of emotionally secure, resilient, and collaborative relationships.

This approach offers a clear, experiential framework that clients can integrate into their daily lives to support healthier, more connected relationships.

For Therapists: A map for intentional, skillful relationship practice

MCD Therapy provides clinicians with a structured, teachable framework for guiding clients toward more authentic, collaborative, and emotionally attuned communication.

As a therapist, you will learn to:

  • Facilitate dialogue using present-moment mindfulness to support awareness and connection

  • Identify reactive patterns and support clients in developing moment-to-moment regulation skills

  • Empower clients with a clear, transparent, and teachable framework of relational competencies

  • Cultivate “power-with” dynamics that promote shared agency, mutual respect, and collaborative communication

MCDT brings structure to a simple truth: growth happens in the space between people, through presence, relationship, and love.

What makes this approach unique?

One of the distinguishing features of MCD Therapy is its emphasis on client empowerment in the therapeutic process. MCD Therapists use a transparent, teachable framework that helps clients understand their internal experience, their relational patterns, their developing skills, and the resources they can draw upon during challenging moments. MCDT is built on:

  • 12 Relationship Competencies for thriving relationships - skills that help couples navigate conflict, improve communication, and build stronger, more collaborative relationships based on loving presence and shared power: Appreciation, Empathy, Honest Expression, Self Empathy, Recognizing Reactivity, Managing Reactivity, Needs-based Negotiations, Live-serving Boundaries, Thriving and Resilience, Relationship Repair, Emotional Security, and Healthy Differentiation.

  • 9 Foundations for personal wellbeing - core areas of physiological and psychological development that help clients engage more effectively in relational work: Attunement, Warmth, Security, Awareness of Self, Health, Regulation, Equanimity, Clarity, and Concentration. As these foundations grow stronger, individuals are better able to utilize the relationship skills when they need them the most.

  • Clear, actionable steps for navigating complex relational dynamics.

The Guiding Principle of MCDT

TAt the heart of MCDT is what we call the Life-Serving Intention — an orienting principle that guides clients and therapists toward choices that support well-being, connection, and the flourishing of life in ourselves and our relations. It functions as an inner compass where our words, actions, and thoughts are shaped by compassion, care, nonviolence, and wisdom.

When we hold this intention, it supports choices that reduce defensiveness, increase collaboration, and foster communication patterns that strengthen connection.

Practicing a Life-Serving Intention often involves pausing long enough to ask: What is truly needed here? How can I, in this moment, contribute to what will serve life for both of us?

- Presence before process -

The roots of MCDT

Mindful Compassionate Dialogue grew from the rich soil of mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and Hakomi — three streams of practice that share a deep respect for presence, empathy, and the wisdom within. Originally developed by Elia Paz, MCD has been shared with the public through Wise Heart, touching the lives of countless participants and supporting their growth and healing.

Mindful Compassionate Dialogue Therapy (MCDT) was created by J. Ava Frank in collaboration with Elia Paz to offer therapists a clear, practical, and deeply human framework for bringing MCD into clinical work. MCDT therapists help clients slow down, listen inward, and uncover what is most alive and needed in each moment. From this space, therapists guide clients in learning concrete, teachable skills that support emotional regulation, clearer communication, and more collaborative relationships.