Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
Teacher-Training Program

A significant number of scientific studies underline the effectiveness of the MBSR program. The studies document impressively that a high percentage of course participants experience one or more of the following results:

• decrease of physical and psychosomatic symptoms
• being able to cope more effectively with stressful situations
• increased capacity to relax
• a growing self-confidence and capacity for self-acceptance
• increased vitality

Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was founded by Professors John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Mark Williams. They adapted elements of MBSR and combined them with elements of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to develop a program to prevent relapse of depression.

The UK National Institute of Clinical Excellence has recently endorsed MBCT as an “effective treatment for prevention of relapse.” The MBCT program is described in detail in the book Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression.

Background Information

The Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches (IMA), located in Bedburg, Germany (near Cologne), has been offering MBSR teacher-training programs since 2002. It introduced an MBCT training program in 2007. The institute offers training programs in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Poland.

The IMA’s faculty includes some of Europe’s most senior mindfulness-based approaches teachers and researchers, as well as guest teachers from the U.S.A. The high level of professionalism and experience of the institute’s teaching staff is a highlight of the program.

The faculty includes professors of psychology, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, professionals in medicine, social work, public health, nursing, education, physiotherapy, and teachers of Yoga, Tai Chi and Chi Kung.

The training program is highly structured, at the same time encouraging personal creativity and expression. The multidisciplinary team is committed to each participant finding his/her own identity as a teacher. The training invites each individual to practice and integrate mindfulness skills in their own daily lives before passing them on to others.

This program is challenging and asks for commitment: to one’s own practice as well as to completing the program’s requirements. We take the position that one cannot ask someone else to do what one has not done oneself. Thus trainees in the program are asked to do the same work and homework as participants in mindfulness-based courses. This commitment has been taken by over 300 participants of our teacher-training programs since 2002.

The IMA also makes a commitment to support each student to complete the program. Teaching MBSR or MBCT within the training program makes everything we do grounded in reality. When one finishes the program one can say that one is a trained MBSR or MBCT teacher. Not only because one has trained to teach, but because one has actually taught during the training programSome participants join our programs with experience in teaching mindfulness-based approaches already. The main reasons they take part, they tell us, are because they want to immerse themselves in a systematic, in-depth training, to profit from the faculty’s extensive experience, and to bring together the strands of techniques and methods they have gathered over time in an integrated and thorough way.

A graduate of our MBSR teacher-training described her experience as follows:

“I have never taken part in a training program, where so much of what was taught, was also actively practiced. So many of the participants ended up doing what they had been trained to do – in this case: teaching MBSR."

Some of the places where MBSR and MBCT are taught include:

• professional practices (e.g. psychologists, physiotherapists, physicians, etc.)
• psychosomatic clinics and hospitals (for patients)
• clinics, hospitals and other facilities (for personnel)
• schools (for teachers and students)
• universities and other institutions of higher education
• prisons (for staff and inmates)
• senior citizen homes
• company health programs
• leadership and management training seminars
• counseling centers
• crisis centers for women, children and the homeless
• coaching for individuals
• centers for oncology, fertility, chronic pain, diabetes, etc.

• Participants learn and practice the main formal exercises of the MBSR/MBCT programs (body scan, mindful bodywork, based on gentle yoga, and sitting meditation), as well as learning how to teach these exercises to others.
• The training program emphasizes the deepening of one’s own meditation practice as the basis for teaching others.
• The curriculums of both the 8-week MBSR and MBCT courses are examined in detail, and elements of the weekly sessions are taught within the training program.
• A valuable resource of the program is the collegial network opportunities that develop through participation in the program.
• Program participants start the program and finish it together. This training structure allows for intensive collaboration between students as well as with the faculty.
• The requirement that participants already have an established mindfulness practice before entering the program ensures a high level and in-depth exploration of mindfulness, its practice and applications.

• Participant prerequisites: Who is suited to take part in MBSR/MBCT courses, and for whom is it not suited?
• The pre-interviews and the exit interviews at the beginning and end of each course are reviewed in detail.
• Stress theory and how it is presented in MBSR.
• Review of scientific research on MBSR/MBCT.

• Handling of themes specific to MBSR/MBCT, including:

  1. Mindful communication
  2. Being with difficult emotions
  3. Perception and stress
  4. Self-nurturing and taking care of oneself through mindfulness
  5. Mindfulness and chronic pain

• The role of the mindfulness-approach teacher.
• How does an MBSR/MBCT teacher ensure his/her own well being? How does one develop one’s own mindfulness practice?
• The pedagogy of meditation.
• How does one work with the questions and difficulties of course participants?
• The relationship between formal and informal practices of mindfulness meditation.
• Creating one’s own mindfulness meditation CDs:
  During the training program, participants will create their own CDs for each of the main exercises of the program):
• Each participant will teach his/her own eight-week course in the last section of the training program. Teaching within the program allows for group supervision with the instructor as well as peer-group supervision.
• Individual telephone supervision with an institute faculty member is available upon request.
• An extensive teacher-training manual for MBSR will be distributed to training- program participants. The sourcebook for MBCT is Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. Additional hand-outs for MBCT will be distributed during the training program.

The IMA´s teacher-training program is recognized by the German MBSR-MBCT Professional Teachers Association (www.mbsr-verband.org). It is also recognized by the Swiss MBSR Professional Teachers  Association. Graduates of the IMA´s training program may apply for membership in these professional associations.

The  associations represent their members in their dialogue with health insurance companies, the media, research organizations, government organizations, other professional organizations, and the general public. The German association  also organizes a  yearly national conference. Recently other MBSR/MBCT teachers´ associations have been independently established in Italy and in The Netherlands

These associations are beginning to establish links to one other. A process for exploring the possibility of mutual recognition of members’ qualifications is beginning to take place, with the understanding that such processes can take years to regulate.

For a complete information packet, including  the  curriculum of the training progrm, registration  info for the orientation, etc. please contact us