Training for professionals outside healthcare fields

Oasis Institute
#1

Hello.
I have established my personal practice more than 4 years ago. In terms of formal training: I started with the 8 week course from the mindfulness institute at the Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia (taken twice at the foundational level), followed by another 8 week graduate course also from Jefferson (link to the institute below). In my understanding their teaching is based on the UMass system/model, although I don’t know about affiliations, etc. http://hospitals.jefferson.edu/departments-and-services/mindfulness-institute/

For the last 2-3 years I have taken weekly instruction from one of their teachers and have done some silent retreats at Omega. I understand that the last two are not considered training, just experience.

I have a Masters and a graduate certificate, but in Electrical Engineering. I would like, in addition to strengthening my practice, to work towards being able to teach MBSR in time. However, many of the courses listed for this purpose apply only to healthcare professionals, and the accreditation requires advanced degree in that field.

I would like to understand if this certification is available to me at all. The website indicates that it might be, based on an evaluation AT THE END (if I understand correctly) but in the meantime I will not be able to take the required courses … I would like to discuss if there are any options and how to proceed.Thank you.

1 Like
#2

Hi Catalina,

Thanks for your query. From your description of your background, it seems
quite suitable for entering the Oasis professional training pathway toward
teacher certification in MBSR. For our advanced degree requirement we
accept degrees from a whole variety of fields, so you wouldn’t have to
defend your certification review on that basis, when the time comes. Your
certification review process would be similar to anyone who has a Masters
degree in any field.

I didn’t know that Omega offered fully silent retreats until very recently,
and I am not sure if the ones you attended would meet our retreat
pre-requisites or not. Can you tell me a little bit more about them? Were
they led by a teacher? Was mindfulness the main thrust of the teaching
involved? Were they 5 days or longer? And was the program silent throughout?

Kind regards,
Eowyn

#3

Hello and thank you for the reply Eowyn.

The information about the degree requirement is music to my ears :) I am glad I asked because I had myself pretty convinced that this was a big barrier.

I do see that I expressed myself incorrectly about the Omega course, sorry about that. I guess I was trying to covey the fact that I had experience with silent practice beyond “one sit at a time” (is there a term for that?). At Omega we were free to wear the “silent” badge for the stay, but indeed it was not fully silent. Similarly, Jefferson organizes quarterly meditation days for the graduates, with silent practice beyond the individual sits, but not fully silent and only less than a day.

My mentioning Omega and my weekly classes was meant not as a description of formal training. Rather it was meant to convey that there is a base from which to make the step to silent retreats and to other advanced courses, although without a heath-care practitioner background.

Concretely: The Omega course was “Insight meditation” 3 day course with Matthew Daniell, last September. Please let me know if further information for the courses already done would be helpful, I can request formal descriptions. And since my first concern with the degree requirement is out of the way, maybe we can discuss afterwards what would be the next course(s) I should look into.

Thank you, Catalina

#4

That clarifies your situation, Catalina, thanks. The next step for you in
preparing to enter the Oasis training pathway would be a fully silent
retreat. Such courses are a wonderful way to deepen in the practice. You
can find listings of those that meet our requirements here:

http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/training/retreats/

You’ll see that there are a range of venues, dates and teachers, and that I
Iead a few of those retreats myself.

Let me know if you have further questions.