MBSR Essentials is the first step in the Global Mindfulness Collaborative's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher Training pathway. It offers a highly experiential exploration of the MBSR curriculum, cultivating evidence-based teaching competencies and understanding from the inside out.
MBSR is the groundbreaking, time-tested, and scientifically researched program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 for the University of Massachusetts Medical School. It uses meditation, yoga, and inquiry as a way of training people to relate differently to stresses in their lives and, in fact, relate differently to each moment of their lives.
Whether you intend to teach MBSR or integrate mindfulness into your professional field in other ways, Essentials is a special opportunity to deepen practice. As we discover greater degrees of freedom in our own lives, we are able to bring the essential transformative elements of mindfulness to others in the service of minimizing harm and maximizing human flourishing.
While successful completion of this training does not authorize you to teach the 8-Week MBSR curriculum, it will provide a solid foundation to teach introductory mindfulness classes. It will be accepted as the first step for the continuation of this training with any member of the Mindfulness Teacher Training Alliance or the Global Mindfulness Collaborative including the Center for Mindfulness at Brown University. Click here for a full description of the MBSR Teacher Training Pathway.
In this 8-week program, students:
- Attend all sessions as a participant/observer of an MBSR program (includes orientation, all 8-week sessions plus the All-Day session)
- Participate in 10 concurrent professional training seminars
In this first step in the MBSR Teacher Training pathway, teacher trainees engage fully in the 8-week MBSR program as participants and as observers. In addition, they engage with other trainees and the instructor in a 3.5-hour seminar exploring the underpinnings, approach, and teacher qualities in which the program is steeped.
