Professional

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.

The 12-Week Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention Facilitator Training (MBRP FT) is a training course integrating empirically supported interventions from Dr. Alan Marlatt’s Relapse Prevention Therapy (RPT), Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and Zindel Segal and colleagues’ Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). This program was specifically created for clients in recovery from substance use disorders, and is designed to prevent relapse for those who have undergone inpatient or intensive outpatient treatment.

The curriculum integrates mindfulness meditation practices with cognitive-behavioral strategies to support clients’ recovery. The MBRP skills help participants learn to recognize and stay with discomfort (physical, cognitive and emotional) as opposed to reactively reaching for a “fix.” Combining mindfulness and relapse prevention cultivates heightened awareness of both internal and external triggers, while promoting vital lifestyle modifications for a healthy life of recovery. This program and its principles of treatment require an experiential understanding of mindfulness meditation practices. Therefore, it is essential for clinicians who facilitate MBRP groups to have their own daily mindfulness meditation practice, and endeavor to embody the principles they teach.

Training

The goal of the training is to provide a dynamic, experiential and didactic learning environment to equip participants with the necessary skills for successful delivery of the MBRP program. Using demonstration, simulated exercises, inquiry and discussion, we will cover the themes, material, and practices included in each of the eight MBRP sessions. Throughout the training, attention will be brought to deepening the clinician’s own mindfulness practice. It is widely acknowledged within the field that the teaching of mindfulness arises out of the facilitator’s own practice. Thus, training courses include substantial periods of personal practice of practice to help develop ourselves as a personal and professional resource.

Target Audience

The training is intended for mental health professionals wishing to expand their practice to include MBRP 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 MBRP requires facilitators to have a commitment to an ongoing, daily mindfulness meditation practice. To this end we have created recommendations for acceptance to this MBRP 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 well-established daily meditation practice
• Familiarity with cognitive behavioral therapy techniques
• Experience with and an understanding of models of addictive behavior
• Experience facilitating group process
• Prior or future attendance at a minimum of one silent, teacher-led 5-10 day residential mindfulness meditation retreat

Application Form

During the registration process, you will be required to fill out an online application form. Should your qualifications not be accepted for admittance, a full refund will be granted. If the program is in-person, please do not make any travel plans until you receive an email that your application was approved.

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 in the past three 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.

Objectives

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

• Demonstrate an intellectual and experiential understanding of the MBRP principles and the role of mindfulness in relapse prevention
• Define and describe the integration of RPT and mindfulness techniques
• Demonstrate, lead and inquire the core MBRP exercises
• Effectively lead the MBRP mindfulness meditation and mindful movement practices
• Identify and describe clinical and logistical issues that arise in leading MBRP courses
• Utilize their own mindfulness meditation practice through formal periods of practice and mindfulness as a mode of being in daily life and appreciate the necessity of personal practice for successful delivery of this treatment modality