Kristin Neff

Neff is a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin who introduced self-compassion as a measurable construct in 2003, building the scale that most later research on the topic still uses. Her argument is that treating yourself with the ordinary decency you would offer a friend predicts wellbeing better than self-esteem does, because self-esteem depends on comparison. With Christopher Germer she developed the Mindful Self-Compassion course and its workbook. Both of them earn income from teaching and licensing that programme, which is worth knowing when reading their trials of it.