from the Oxford Mindfulness Centre
November 10-17, 2012, near Berlin

Dear friends,

again two very interesting events in the middle of 2012:
first an "International Conference: Mindfulness in Medicine, Psychotherapy and Society with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mark Williams, Saki Santorelli, Rick Hanson among others. It takes place in Wien/Austria from June 29 to July 1.
And second, we are very happy that Mark Williams will offer right after this conference in Wien an "Introduction to MBCT for health care professionals" - a really seldom opportunity to learn this method in theory and practice directly from one of the most important pioneers of "Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy" (MBCT). On the same time it constitutes the starting point of a series of seminars we are offering in cooperation with the "Oxford Mindfulness Centre" in the german speaking area as a MBCT-Curriculum (Introductionary Seminar, 7-Day MBCT-Retreat, advanced seminar and supervision).

Registration for both events starts today!

Kind regards,
Sonja Welker and Thomas Maier

Dear friends,

the quality of mindfulness-based programs and interventions as MBSR or MBCT, substantially depends from the teacher: he or she really has to represent qualities as empathy, warm-heartedness, equanimity, kindness, presence, compassion and so on. It's about 8 years ago, Jon Kabat-Zinn told me, that though he was very glad how wide MBSR has spread, he was worrying on the other side about the quality of the courses.
Each method needs skills, but they are only an external form and not the content, which is far more important. And his concerns were about that the skills would get too much relevance. Furtheron he assured that no certification could garantee a high quality at all. But how to avoid this? He answered: "A high self-responsibility and a self-commitment of the teachers to a constantly ongoing learning. Deepening the own praxis, visiting regulary retreats, taking the opportunities to learn from senior-teachers." Usually it would take between 5 to 15 years working as MBSR-teacher to be able to represent and teach this praxis in an authentic way, he said.