Mindfulness and Depth Psychology: An Intensive Retreat for Mental Health Professionals

This on-site event at Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center is cancelled due to COVID-19. Watch for online option.

We are pleased to offer the 11th annual retreat for mental health professionals and caregivers at Vallecitos.

Many in our field have been studying mindfulness, compassion, and their clinical applications for years but have not found time for more intensive meditation practice. Others appreciate the opportunity to refresh their practice with like-minded colleagues. By deliberately stepping out of everyday life and into a retreat environment, the subtle habit patterns of heart and mind are more easily accessed, and awareness can begin to deepen.

This week we will study and practice a deeper interface of mindfulness, compassion, and psychotherapy. Mindfulness interventions usually are aimed at stress management, reduced reactivity, and symptom reduction. There has been little consideration of their more transformative potentials—to reveal how we create our reality and sense of self from an ever-changing flow of experience, and to connect us to one another and the wider world. To access these potentials, we need to learn how to turn toward challenging states of heart and mind in a balanced manner. This retreat will offer instructions and guided meditations designed to create a personally meaningful and enriching environment to support this work.

This course provides a safe, nurturing container in which to explore these practices with colleagues. The teaching is experience-near, focusing on the development of mindfulness and compassion practices and their relevance in our work with others, including providing accurate empathy and therapeutic presence. There will be daily mindfulness meditation instruction and three to four hours of structured practice each day, plus study modules most afternoons in combination with dyadic or small group discussion. The rest of the time we will observe silence, including during meals, to facilitate a deeper contemplative experience.

This is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself in an exquisite natural environment and work closely with leaders in the growing field of clinical mindfulness meditation and compassion. Every effort will be made by the teachers and staff to give each participant a delightful, educational retreat experience, so that you can return home with renewed enthusiasm for clinical work and for cultivating mindfulness and compassion in daily life.

20 CE units available to psychologists, social workers and mental health counselors.

COURSE SCHEDULE

FRIDAY

7:30- 9:30 Course opening and overview

SATURDAY- TUESDAY & THURSDAY

9- 12  Mindfulness instruction, practice, discussion

2- 5    Didactic presentation and clinical discussion

6:30- 8:30 Clinical talk and mindfulness practice

WEDNESDAY

Silent Retreat Day: Mindfulness instruction and practice

FRIDAY

Breakfast and depart

PRICE: REGISTER on Vallecitos website

Vallecitos offers a sliding scale structure. 

Prices for this retreat range from $715-$1065 (not including dana). This is a dana based retreat. 

This program is sponsored by the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy:

meditationandpsychotherapy.org

CONTINUING EDUCATION 20 CE units available to psychologists, social workers and mental health counselors.

Psychologists: The Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Institute of Meditation and Psychotherapy maintains responsibility for the program and its content. This course offers 20 hours of credit.

Social Workers: This program is pending approval by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS for 20.0 continuing education contact hours.

Nurses:  This program carries 20 Contact Hours and meets the specifications of the MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF REGISTRATION OF NURSING (244 CMR).

Licensed Mental Health Counselors: The Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy is recognized by the National Board for Certified Counselors to sponsor continuing education for National Certified Counselors. We adhere to NBCC Continuing Education Guidelines. This course is approved for 20 contact hours, Provider #6048 and is applicable for Commonwealth of Massachusetts Counseling/Allied Mental Health and PDP accreditation.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Participants will utilize mindfulness and concentration practices in the service of being present and deepening therapeutic presence.
2. Participants will be able to demonstrate an experiential understanding of mindfulness and compassion interventions through personal practice.
3. Participants will be able to describe the mechanisms by which mindfulness and compassion practices support psychodynamic, humanistic and other depth psychotherapies.
4. Participants will be able to implement mindfulness and compassion-based interventions for chronic feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt.
5. Participants will learn to explore unwholesome mind states without being overwhelmed by them.
6. Participants will be able to discuss ways to assist clients to integrate mindfulness practice in their lives.

Financial Asistance through Vallecitos

Scholarship Information from Bill and Susan