The 8-Week Mindfulness Course

What does the 8-Week Course involve?

The 8-Week Course offers a safe and supportive space to help you to learn how to relate more skilfully to the stressors, challenges and difficulties in your life through the development of awareness and of living more fully in the present moment. The cultivation of awareness and the re-awakening of sensory experience through mindfulness practice help us to gain a greater sense of joy and satisfaction in our everyday activities, work and relationships.
 
The training is experiential which means that you will learn through 'being' with your direct experience of the course, of life in between, and of the shared experience with other members in the group. A small element of theory will be offered as a means of underpinning your learning. Course participants often value the opportunity of returning each week to share their struggles, insights and celebrations with one another. This period of learning how to relate to our experience, in an often very different way to the norm, offers group members the space and time to internalize and integrate their learning with the support from the group and the teacher.

We will introduce you to three principal mindfulness meditation practices, together with a variety of ways of bringing shorter informal practices into your everyday life. Participants soon realize that life itself becomes an opportunity to practice mindfulness. You will have ample opportunity to explore and share your experience of these practices over the 8-week period and their significance to stress reduction. Additional experiential exercises will be introduced to support the theme explored each week, together with poetry and stories. We will work in pairs, small groups and the group as a whole to deepen experiential exploration.

The 1-hour daily home practice forms an important part of the programme and will enable you to gain most benefit from your experience. Please carefully consider your commitment to home practice before booking.

We will meet once a week for two hours for 9 weeks. This includes an orientation session at the beginning of the course, designed to settle you into the group and to better acquaint you with the structure of the course. An all-day class is held on the Saturday or Sunday following week 6, during which participants can experience a full day of mindfulness.

The experience of belonging to a group over a 9-week period, and the realization that we are not alone in our struggle, is often viewed as a gift of the course. This can offer a sense of self empowerment and a belief in our ability to cope with the stressors in our lives - a key to finding the healing from within.

Who is the course for?

The programme is known to benefit people with a range of physical and psychological problems, though it is not necessary to have a specific health problem to find it helpful. We all have times in our lives when we experience difficulty and stress, and for some of us this is our daily experience.

The problem or illness itself may not change but the way we relate to and cope with the difficulty may shift.

Cost of 8-Week Course

£195 per person
The fee includes the orientation session, eight 2-hour class sessions, a full day session on the weekend following week 6, a workbook, 3 meditation CDs and other learning materials.

Development and Research

The 8-week mindfulness-based courses that we teach and which are promoted by the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at the University of Wales, Bangor follow the Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programme developed by Williams, Teasdale and Segal, which was inspired by, and is an adaptation of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course developed in Massachusetts, USA by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn in the 1970s.

Considerable scientific evidence-based research has proven these mindfulness-based approaches to be highly effective in working with a wide range of physical and psychological problems.

Mindfulness-based approaches are being used in the UK and the rest of the world in private courses, business, universities, clinics and the NHS.

MBCT is now included in the guidelines of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) for the treatment of depression.

For further information on mindfulness and the research supporting it, please see the website for The Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice:

http://www.bangor.ac.uk/mindfulness/

Mindfulness Teachers

Deborah Mitchell - MBACP (Accred), UKRCP Registered
Deborah is a BACP accredited counsellor and psychotherapist offering humanistic and mindfulness based approaches in counselling, coaching, groups and courses.

In addition to offering 1-Day and 8-Week Mindfulness Courses, Deborah runs weekly Mindfulness groups within a private mental health hospital in Central London and within the Health Centre within Crawley Down.

Deborah has a particular interest in Stress Reduction, Self Esteem and Relationships. She has trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) through the University of Bangor, and is committed to on-going personal and professional development.

Prior to setting up her own practice, Deborah worked for 7 years within the field of organizational development consulting, specializing in the psychology of relationships and emotional intelligence. As a FIRO Master Practitioner, I am certified to offer the FIRO suite of psychometrics to assist clients in their deepening of awareness.

She has many years’ experience of working in business, in a variety of roles, and understands the challenges of managing business processes, group dynamics and interpersonal relationships.

Diane Mitchell - MBACP (Accred), UKRC Registered
After completing a diploma in humanistic counselling, Diane trained in psychotherapy at Spectrum, a humanistic and integrative therapy centre in North London.

In 1998 she co-founded Sussex Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice where she has worked extensively with individuals in short term and long term therapy. She also works with
couples and groups and offers supervision.

In recent years she has trained as a mindfulness practitioner through the University of Bangor and offers Mindfulness based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) as part of her work.

Diane has a background in business and is particularly interested in bringing counselling and stress reduction into the workplace. She has taken her work into large and small organisations, in both the voluntary and private sector.