Mindfulness-Based Professional Training Retreats

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), is an innovative, empirically validated treatment program designed to prevent relapse in people who have recovered from unipolar depression. Self-knowledge grounded in sustained meditative awareness is its central tenet. Based on the research of Drs. Zindel Segal, Mark Williams, and John Teasdale and documented in their book Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, the program integrates tools of cognitive therapy with the practice and clinical application of mindfulness meditation.

The heart of MBCT lies in acquainting patients with the modes of mind that often characterize mood disorders while simultaneously inviting them to develop a new relationship to these modes. Patients learn to view thoughts as events in the mind, independent of their content and emotional charge. They need not be disputed, fixed or changed but are held in a more spacious awareness, large enough to contain aspects of the self deemed both broken and whole.

Training

Registration will be limited for this intensive workshop/retreat in order to cultivate an intimate, personal and highly interactive training environment. Led by senior therapists, mindfulness teachers and retreat leaders Zindel Segal, PhD, Steven Hickman, PsyD and Sarah Bowen, PhD, this training emphasizes the importance of the clinician’s own meditation practice and self-inquiry. Through role-play, simulated classroom and patient-practitioner encounters, it explores the actual application of mindfulness practices in working with clients. The curriculum integrates didactic, experiential and small group learning and includes daily meditations, yoga/mindful movement, and periods of silence.

The curriculum explores our ability to clearly experience, in the midst of our everyday lives, the interplay of thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations–the experiential phenomena known to cause relapse–and how awareness of these domains accurately informs or distorts our capacity to understand ourselves and work with others. The content and curriculum of each MBCT class session is explored in detail, and descriptions of session themes, curricula, and samples of client handouts are provided. (The workshop format requires that participants be housed and fed on-site.)

Objectives

At the completion of this activity, the participants should be able to:

Teach the curriculum and core therapeutic tasks for each of the eight group sessions of MBCT
Understand the central role of mindfulness meditation practice in facilitating self-regulation of emotions and mood
Articulate the vital importance of the therapist’s ongoing mindfulness meditation practice and sustained mindful awareness within a psychotherapy framework
Develop and/or deepen their own mindfulness meditation practice, emphasizing both formal meditative practices and mindfulness as a mode of being in daily life
Demonstrate the clinical skills and perspectives necessary to facilitate MBCT groups

Target Audience

This 5-day intensive workshop is intended for mental health professionals wishing to expand their practice to include MBCT and mindfulness-related practices. Those in attendance should be either licensed clinicians in a mental health field, clinicians-in-training, or interested professionals who do not intend to deliver the intervention directly but have other professional interests in the topic (i.e. researchers, administrators, etc.). All participants should have at least a modest regular meditation practice and an established practice is preferred.

Participant Guidelines

It is our experience that successful delivery of MBCT requires facilitators to have a commitment to an ongoing, daily mindfulness meditation practice. To this end we have created recommendations for acceptance to this MBCT training.

Advanced degree in mental health-related field (e.g., psychology, social work or counseling)
Prior training in Vipassana or Insight Meditation and a personal commitment to and established daily meditation practice
Familiarity with cognitive behavioral therapy techniques
Experience with and an understanding of models of depression
Experience facilitating group process

Needs Assessment

The utilization of mindfulness in a clinical context is a burgeoning area of study and practice in the mental health field in the past few years. The number of research articles, books and popular press articles on the topic is growing exponentially each year and the demand for quality professional training in these practices and techniques is growing each year. This training has been offered for the past five years through the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness, with increasing enrollments each year, as well as at other sites across the country and around the world.