Professional Training

Growing Into the Heart of Teaching MBSR

Dharma, Embodiment and the Refinement of Intention

An advanced MBSR teacher training, qualifying on the UCSD Certification Pathway, and open to all MBSR teachers with all levels of experience for personal enrichment and community building. While MBSR is emphasized, this training is also open to MBCT teachers and will count towards certification as well.

The experience of teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is unlike most other experiences in life, and the opportunities for growth, expansion and transformation are almost limitless. This advanced training is intended to enrich and deepen this journey of teaching MBSR through practice, learning, reflection and sharing. Intended for those who have taught at least two full MBSR courses, this program will draw upon your own experiences, challenges, breakthroughs and insights within a community of fellow teachers as a means of learning from each other — for the good of our participants, and of ourselves.

Key Components of This 5-Day Training

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is an empirically validated program designed to prevent depressive relapse and reduce the impact of mood disorders. Developed by Zindel Segal, Mark Williams, and John Teasdale, MBCT integrates mindfulness meditation with cognitive therapy.

The core of MBCT involves helping participants recognize patterns of thinking associated with mood disorders while cultivating a new relationship to thoughts and emotions—viewing them as events in the mind rather than identifying with them.

The MBCT Teacher Training Intensive (TTI) is a highly interactive professional training that emphasizes the clinician’s own meditation practice and self-inquiry. Through role-play, simulated teaching environments, and patient-practitioner scenarios, participants explore how to apply mindfulness practices in clinical settings.

The curriculum integrates didactic, experiential, and small group learning, including daily meditation, mindful movement, and periods of silence. Participants examine the interaction between thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations and how these contribute to depressive relapse, while developing the skills to teach MBCT effectively.

Are you a mental health therapist seeking to take your expertise to another level? A transdiagnostic approach such as Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behavior Therapy (MiCBT) integrates mindfulness training in the Burmese Vipassana tradition with well-established cognitive and behavioural methods.

MiCBT has been shown through research to reduce symptoms across a wide range of psychological disorders, including complex comorbidities. This integration is considered a second-generation mindfulness-based intervention, incorporating transformational skills from Buddhist psychology.

Through the MiCBT Foundation course, participants deepen understanding of mindfulness insights and behavior reinforcement, explore neuroscience findings related to behavior maintenance and change, and learn to engage clients in treatment.

The course includes didactic, practical, and experiential learning, including daily meditation practice, training in mindfulness techniques, implementation of the four stages of MiCBT, and role-play of core skills in breakout sessions.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an empirically-supported 8-week psycho-educational group intervention that teaches mindfulness meditation as a health intervention. Created by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979, MBSR offers participants the possibility to develop a different relationship to stress resulting from chronic physical and psychological illnesses, and the daily indignities experienced as a result of racism and other forms of oppression. Research outcomes have demonstrated positive improvements in physical and psychological symptoms, as well as changes in health attitudes and behaviors.

This teacher training will provide trainees the opportunity to study and experience the foundational underpinnings, mindfulness meditations and specific exercises that are the framework of the MBSR program. The themes, rationales, intention and practice skills of each MBSR class session will be reviewed, discussed and practiced. Participant screening guidelines will be covered, and samples of client handouts will be provided. There will also be home practice for personal mindfulness practice.

This online teacher training is highly interactive. Trainees will move between experiencing MBSR sessions and practicing teaching components of the program in small groups under supervision. The training emphasizes the necessity of a personal mindfulness practice as the foundation for teaching, along with embodiment of non-judgmental present-moment awareness, kindness, compassion, and equanimity.

The training integrates didactic and experiential modules, including large and small group learning, role-play, and simulated patient-practitioner encounters. Ethical considerations in teaching MBSR are also addressed.

Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behavior Therapy (MiCBT) is a sophisticated integration of mindfulness training and cognitive-behavioral science. Grounded in evidence-based principles, MiCBT offers a four-stage, transdiagnostic treatment model that can be applied across a wide range of mental health conditions and client populations. Drawing from the Burmese Vipassana tradition of Ledi Sayadaw and U Ba Khin, MiCBT blends traditional mindfulness practices with the rigor of behavioral and cognitive methods.

This one-day workshop provides an engaging overview of the theoretical framework that underpins MiCBT. Participants will deepen their understanding of operant conditioning and explore the neuro-behavioral mechanisms that explain how mindfulness and CBT complement one another.

Join an international community of clinicians in this learning opportunity to discover how MiCBT can enrich both your clinical work and your personal mindfulness practice—and to consider whether further training in this empirically validated approach may be right for you.

The experiential workshop will involve learning material through various modalities, including guided mindfulness meditation practices as taught in MiCBT, live demonstration of delivery of Diary of Reactive Habits, guided mindfulness interoceptive exposure tasks and experiential ownership, video demonstrations of MiCBT skills with a client during real-life therapy sessions, and live question and answer through chat.

What’s included: access to online pre-workshop content, 14 days access to the recorded workshop, and membership to the North American Chapter of the MiCBT Institute.

For the introductory workshop, no prior knowledge of mindfulness is assumed, but basic skills in cognitive and behavioral techniques are helpful. The workshop is geared toward professionals with a foundational understanding of the concepts, as the workshop is delivered at a higher psychological level.

This training brings together MBSR/MBCT teachers to contemplate and engage in practice around their wishes for wellbeing and healing for our planet Earth.

The six sessions of the training cover all 10 MBSR/MBCT class sessions. The sessions are divided approximately in half: the first half is dedicated to Earth Awareness practice and time for sharing personal reflections and experiences; the second half allows time for considering and sharing ways of inviting Earth Awareness into the curriculum and MBSR/MBCT classroom. Teachers can share both their established ways and their discoveries around new possibilities for bringing Earth Awareness into their teaching. Together, we can engage in the challenge and the benefit of holding the Earth as a fully worthy recipient in the circle of MBSR/MBCT care, compassion and embodied action.

Teachers prepare for each meeting by engaging with practice and self-reflection prompts, reviewing selected materials, and reviewing the MBSR/MBCT curriculum for the sessions to be discussed. Teachers are encouraged to write and share between meetings and contribute to a collection of resources to support Earth Awareness. Each teacher will leave this training with a range of materials for continued inspiration.

Sessions include community building, Earth-based practice, reflection and sharing, curriculum review, and exploration of ways to bring Earth Awareness into MBSR/MBCT teaching.

This teacher development training is for MBSR and MBCT teachers. Some teaching experience is recommended.