One-day masterclasses and workshops at the OMC by leaders in their field, within mindfulness training, teaching and research.
These one-day workshops offer continuing professional development in teaching MBCT and in specialist areas of applying mindfulness training. They will interest mindfulness teachers as well as those wishing to find out more about recent developments in their field of interest. Brief outline of the day…
Masterclasses are held at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre. How to get here…
Forthcoming Masterclasses
- Mindful Movement & Yoga in MBCT & MBSR Programmes – 27 March 2012 – Anita Lewis – £120 Further details…
- The Breathworks Approach to Mindfulness for Chronic Pain, Illness & Stress - 10 April 2012 - Vidyamala Burch - £120 Further details…
- Enquiry in MBCT – 8 May 2012 – Mark Williams – £120 Further details…THIS IS NOW FULLY BOOKED
- The Mindful Approach to Health Anxiety – 29 May 2012 – Christina Surawy – £120
Further details…
Mindful movement & yoga in MBCT and MBSR programmes.
27 March 2012 - Anita Lewis - £120
This workshop will prepare mindfulness teachers to lead mindful movement and yoga in MBCT and MBSR programmes. It is an integral module for training as an MBCT teacher – experienced OMC teachers have found Anita’s workshops invaluable in developing their approach to leading mindful movement yoga in mindfulness classes.
In her workshops for mindfulness teachers, Anita develops an experiential and theoretical appreciation of how to guide participants safely into postures and movement in MBCT and MBSR programmes with basic advice on contraindications. Anita’s warm, intuitive approach encourages a natural and gradual exploration of movement, stillness and breath, which is supported by her in-depth knowledge of anatomy and physiology as well as her thorough understanding of universal movement principles that underlie all yoga practice.
Anita is an experienced teacher and yoga therapist with a background in health care that includes a BA Hons in Adult Nursing and a diploma in Yoga Therapy from The Yoga Biomedical Trust and Life Centre in London (a two-year course, providing specialist training in yoga as a complementary therapy for medical conditions). Anita has also trained in India with the highly respected yoga therapists and authors A.G and Indrah Mohan and is among a handful of teachers in the Uk qualified to teach Svastha Yoga.
Anita is a member of the Yoga Therapist Association. She runs Yoga and Meditation retreats in the UK and has worked with internationally acclaimed teachers on Yoga retreats abroad.
The Breathworks Approach to Mindfulness for Chronic Pain, Illness & Stress - 10 April 2012 - Vidyamala Burch - £120
This workshop will introduce the main elements of the Breathworks mindfulness-based approach and will outline some of the distinctive elements such as the importance of a very systematic approach to mindfulness in daily life, breath-based mindful movement, and a formal ‘kindly awareness’ meditation practice to cultivate equanimity and mindfulness of others and humanity. The core ideas behing the Breathworks approach will be explained: learning to distinguish between primary suffering or experience (the basic unpleasant sensations in the body) and secondary suffering (the myriad ways we react to primary suffering mentally, emotionally and physically). In this approach, the fundamental cause of secondary suffering is resistance to unpleasant experience. Using mindfulness to soften resistance is one of the key ways to accept primary suffering/experience and reduce and/or overcome secondary suffering. The day will also include an introduction to the Breathworks 5-step model of mindfulness: Awareness; Turning towards the unpleasant; Seeking out the pleasant; Broadening perspective; and Living with choice.
This workshop will appeal to a wide range of people, both mindfulness teachers and other professionals in the caring professions, wishing to find out more about the Breathworks approach and learn from Vidyamala Burch’s considerable experience in this field .
Vidyamala Burch
After injuring her spine and having surgeries in her teens, Vidyamala discovered meditation when she was twenty-five, when she was taught a visualization exercise by a hospital chaplain. This stimulated a great curiosity about the power of the mind and heart as a tool she could harness to help her rehabilitate herself and create a rich and fulfilling life despite on-going pain and disability. Mindfulness and compassion – or kindly awareness – have emerged as central to this quest. She moved from NZ to the UK in 1990 and spent five years living in a Buddhist retreat centre gaining intensive experience of mindfulness and meditation. After settling in Manchester, in 2000 she received a grant from the Millennium Commission to develop mindfulness-based courses for others living with pain and illness. This formed the basis for Breathworks, established as a Community Interest Company in 2004. There are now Breathworks’ trainers in over a dozen countries and Vidyamala has written “Living well with Pain and Illness – the mindful way to free yourself from suffering”, now translated into 9 languages. Vidyamala trains regularly in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand.
Enquiry in MBCT
8 May 2012 – Mark Williams – £120
This workshop is for people who are already teaching mindfulness-based interventions. It will look at: common difficulties in leading enquiry and the reasons behind them; how teachers can best respond to the different reactions, reflections and struggles voiced by participants in a way that helps deepen participants’ awareness of what they notice when they practice mindfulness; and how teachers can maintain a present moment point of reference with whatever is raised and its larger context, while embodying kindness, curiosity, non-judgement and presence. The workshop is an integral module to training to teach MBCT but experienced mindfulness teachers will also find the day useful as part of their CPD.
In MBSR and MBCT, the aims and intentions of practices, and the learning points arising from them, emerge from the enquiry process which follows, rather than being introduced in a didactic way. Enquiry starts with identifying participants’ “noticing” of experience during the practice, which then become clarified through dialogue. The teacher guides the dialogue in ways that places experience within the aims and intentions of each class and within the whole programme. In MBCT, the aims and intentions include an integrative psychological formulation for each specific aspect of the programme. However, one of the common challenges faced by mindfulness teachers is that there seems to be no standard operating procedure for how to guide enquiry – as a result, teachers can feel quite lost in this important area.
Mark Williams is Professor of Clinical Psychology, Wellcome Trust Principal Research
Fellow and Director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre at Oxford University. He co-developed MBCT and is co-author of the international best-seller The Mindful Way Through Depression and Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World as well as authoring over 175 articles and chapters on psychological models and treatment of depression and suicidality.
The Mindful Approach to Health Anxiety
29 May 2012 - Christina Surawy - £120
Anxiety about health is common and distressing. Most people are affected at some point in their lives, but for some it becomes a chronic and significant problem.
When someone is in the grip of anxiety, the effect is one of being ensnared in a future oriented world, out of touch with present moment reality, rather living life in a way in which body and mind is reacting to mental constructions of reality so that there is little contact with present moment information. One of the ways in which we think mindfulness training can be of immense value is to help people to recover the engagement with ordinary moments in life which can give so much pleasure, as well as foster a new and less reactive relationship with body and mind. In the workshop we will explore more fully the rationale for Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy in the treatment of health anxiety, describe the adaptations that we have made to the way that MBCT is usually offered for recurrent depression using case examples, experiential exercises and discussion. There will be also be the opportunity to review the findings of our recent trial carried out at Oxford University Department of Psychiatry.
The workshop may be of particular interest to those working in both mental and physical health, including GP’s, as well as to anyone who has experienced health anxiety.
Christina Surawy is a clinical psychologist and currently a tutor on the Oxford University Master of Studies in MBCT and is involved in training at the OMC. She has recently been involved in a 3 year study on MBCT for health anxiety, and has worked extensively with long term conditions and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Schedule for the day
From 9.am: Registration with coffee
9.30 am: Workshop begins
12.30 pm – 1.30 pm: Lunch, which is not included but is available on site
4.30: End
Transport and parking on site
We are approximately 3 miles from Oxford railway station with its frequent trains from London (Paddington) and many other parts of the UK. Allow 20 minutes by taxi from the station forecourt and 30 minutes by bus (Wood Farm service). This travel information will help you plan your journey.
Please note that parking on the Warneford site is severely restricted and you are strongly advised to use public transport. If you are travelling by car, Oxford is well served by Park and Ride facilities but, due to the high level of usage, drivers cannot rely on finding parking space.
Cancellation Policy
If you wish to cancel your booking for a Masterclass we will refund your fee, with a deduction of £20 to pay for administration, if you let us know 21 days or more before the workshop takes place. If you are not able to cancel your booking, giving us 21 days notice, we will not be able to give you a refund.
Circumstance may make it necessary for us to cancel events. If we cancel a Masterclass we will refund your fee in full.
