It is hard to verbalize the surprisingly profound impact this experience (so much more than a program) has had on me. It has been so complete—spiritually, emotionally, professionally, and intellectually.
Amanda Peacock, LCSW
The experience in the Mindfulness & Psychotherapy program has been absolutely transformative for me. Not only has it been personally enriching, but it has also sparked new professional developments and interests.
Jennifer Earls, MA
I have gotten so much out of the program so far this year. It has been transformative for me, both personally and professionally. I use what I am learning in this program every day, both in my work with clients as well as in the rest of my life. You have created an emotionally safe, intellectually stimulating, and interpersonally rich context in which to learn and grow.
Paula Fuchs, Psy.D.
When I signed up for the program, it was done to help me bring mindfulness into my work. As it turns out, something that I had not expected has happened — I have brought meditation and mindfulness into my own life in a way that has become so important and valuable to me and has had a deep impact on my life.
Jeanne Mahoney, MSW
I just wanted to say again how thrilled I am to be part of this program. Each week, I’m more & more amazed at the line-up of incredible teachers we’ve had. When I talk to colleagues about it, they are so impressed. Thanks again for this opportunity.
Ann Biasetti, LICSW
This has been such an important experience for me... The combination of the program material, the commitment to – and support of – meditation, and the wonderful connections in the group have had an enormously positive impact on both my life and my work. Introducing aspects of mindfulness into my clinical work has begun to add a new energy and another dimension to the therapy.
Barbara Furstenberg, Psy.D.
Almost a year has passed, an incredibly self-fulfilling year... I found precisely what I needed. The incredible classes, exciting speakers, relaxing retreats, and new friends made this year are simply unforgettable. I sincerely want to thank you for this opportunity.
Hila Brukman, Art Therapist
Options for Participation
Students may attend the opening and closing retreats in-person or remotely via Zoom.
All other real-time group meetings during the year are held online.
The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies is happy to be partnering with the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy on their Certificate Program in Mindfulness & Psychotherapy.
This is a 9-month immersive training for mental health and other healthcare professionals in the application of mindfulness to psychotherapy and the delivery of care. Unlike many other professional programs, this program draws heavily on a deeper understanding of mindfulness in the context of a path of awakening, a strong commitment to the creation of a supportive learning community, and support for every student’s personal engagement with practice and the program material.
This program forms the core for the Advanced Fellowship in Mindfulness and Psychotherapy at the CHA Center for Mindfulness and Compassion affiliated with the Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry – the first such professional advanced clinical fellowship for training mental health professionals associated with a major medical school.
The certificate program consists of two retreats (at the opening and closing of the program) for didactic instruction, community building, and meditation instruction/practice, and online components including:
- Ongoing instruction/discussion with faculty members
- Small-group moderated live discussions, case consultation, and practice instruction
- Asynchronous video lectures and readings by international experts
- Active online discussion forum on program material
Prerequisites / Admission:
This program is by application only. It is expected that applicants are familiar with mindfulness meditation, and though the focus is on psychotherapy, those in other helping professions will be considered. Enrollment is limited.
Continuing Education:
CE credits for psychologists, social workers, and counselors have been applied for. CMEs are not available for physicians. Up to 60 CEs are offered for those completing the program.
Program Overview
Application Timeframe | Rolling applications open until August 30, 2024 (or until the program fills) | |
Program Dates | September 6, 2024 - May 18, 2025 (including two retreats and regular online programming) | |
Retreat Dates | September 6-11, 2024 May 15-18, 2025 |
|
Program Options | Students may attend the opening and closing retreats in-person or remotely via Zoom. All other real-time group meetings during the year are held online. | |
Program Duration | Approximately 35 weeks | |
Time Commitment | Approximately 4 hours/week | |
Participation Expectations | Attendance at retreats (in-person and remote options available) and weekly online Office Hours and Section Meetings (schedule to be coordinated after registration) | |
Asynchronous Components | Recorded video lectures Suggested readings Peer discussion board |
|
Prerequisites | This program is for psychotherapists and those in other helping professions. Applicants should have experience with mindfulness meditation. |
Program Overview
Application Timeframe | Rolling applications open until August 30, 2024 (or until the program fills) | |
Program Dates | September 6, 2024 - May 18, 2025 (including two retreats and regular online programming) | |
Retreat Dates | September 6-11, 2024 May 15-18, 2025 |
|
Program Options | Students may attend the opening and closing retreats in-person or remotely via Zoom. All other real-time group meetings during the year are held online. | |
Program Duration | Approximately 35 weeks | |
Time Commitment | Approximately 4 hours/week | |
Participation Expectations | Attendance at retreats (in-person and remote options available) and weekly online Office Hours and Section Meetings (schedule to be coordinated after registration) | |
Asynchronous Components | Recorded video lectures Suggested readings Peer discussion board |
|
Prerequisites | This program is for psychotherapists and those in other helping professions. Applicants should have experience with mindfulness meditation. |
Offered in partnership with the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, the Certificate Program in Mindfulness & Psychotherapy is a 9-month immersive training for mental health and other healthcare professionals in the application of mindfulness to psychotherapy and the delivery of care. Unlike many other professional programs, this program draws heavily on a deeper understanding of mindfulness in the context of a path of awakening, a strong commitment to the creation of a supportive learning community, and support for every student’s personal engagement with practice and the program material.
This program forms the core for the Advanced Fellowship in Mindfulness and Psychotherapy at the CHA Center for Mindfulness and Compassion affiliated with the Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry – the first such professional advanced clinical fellowship for training mental health professionals associated with a major medical school.
The certificate program consists of two retreats (at the opening and closing of the program) for didactic instruction, community building, and meditation instruction/practice, and online components including:
- Ongoing instruction/discussion with faculty members
- Small-group moderated live discussions, case consultation, and practice instruction
- Asynchronous video lectures and readings by international experts
- Active online discussion forum on program material
Prerequisites / Admission:
This program is by application only. It is expected that applicants are familiar with mindfulness meditation, and though the focus is on psychotherapy, those in other helping professions will be considered. Enrollment is limited.
Continuing Education:
CE credits for psychologists, social workers, and counselors have been applied for. CMEs are not available for physicians. Up to 60 CEs are offered for those completing the program.
Program Information
Program Components
Opening Retreat:
The opening retreat will offer a deep dive into Buddhist psychology, orientation to the program, didactic instruction on the role of the clinician’s own mindfulness practice, meditation instruction and practice, and opportunities to become familiar with the year’s learning community.
Weekly Online Events:
- Office Hours: The full cohort will meet in real-time with that week’s lecturer for discussion and Q&A. Office Hours are held approximately 2 out of 3 weeks for 90 minutes (Wednesdays, 8:00-9:30 PM ET).
- Section Meetings: On the weeks when Office Hours are not held, groups will meet with program faculty and have time for deeper sharing, conversation, case presentations, and discussion of program material. Section Meetings are held in small groups every three or four weeks for 90 minutes. Section Meetings are assigned based on student time zones after registration.
Asynchronous Online Events:
- Most weeks, a lecture will be recorded by that week’s faculty member to be viewed prior to Office Hours. Required readings associated with that presentation are provided. Suggested readings are offered for those who wish to explore a particular topic more deeply.
- An active discussion board provides a way for peer-to-peer conversation and to post questions to the faculty.
Closing Retreat:
The program will conclude with a closing retreat, during which we will practice mindfulness meditation together, consolidate what has been learned during the year, set our intentions for ongoing learning and practice in the future, and identify opportunities to support one another as a community after the end of the program.
Retreat Information
Retreat Information:
- The opening retreat* will be held September 6-11, 2024 at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, Massachusetts.
- The closing retreat* will be held May 15-18, 2025 at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, Massachusetts.
*Remote students will attend programmed periods virtually via Zoom during the retreats.
Retreat options — In-Person or Remote:
For the 2024-25 program, there are two available options for attending the opening and closing retreats:
- Residential attendance (5 and 3 nights) at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, Massachusetts.
- Remote attendance (attendance by Zoom for selected elements of the opening and closing retreats)
All programming between the two retreats will be held online, and it will be the same for all participants. Participation in the retreats and the online program between retreats is required for program participation.
Curriculum
Andrew Olendzki, Ph.D.: Fundamentals of Buddhist Psychology: 1) The Phenomenal Field 2) The Construction of Experience 3) Interdependent Arising of Self. 4) Working with Mental States. 5) A New View of Health
Paul Fulton, Ed.D.: Mindfulness as Advanced Clinical Training for the Psychotherapist, 1) What Variables Predict a Positive Treatment Outcome? 2) What does the Clinician’s Mindfulness Contribute to a Positive Treatment Outcome?
Susan Morgan, CNS, and Bill Morgan, Psy.D.: Meditation Instruction
Liz Roemer, Ph.D.: Mindfulness and Acceptance-based Behavioral Therapies for Anxiety
Dennis Tirch, Ph.D.: Shame and Self-Criticism: Contributions of Compassion Focused Therapy
Ron Siegel, Psy.D.: Fitting the Practice to the Problem
Shelly Harrell, Ph.D.: Sociocultural and Sociopolitical Considerations for the Use of Mindfulness in Psychotherapy
Zindel Segal, Ph.D.: What is the Role of Mindfulness Practice in the Management of Mood Disorders?
Chris Germer, Ph.D.: Self-Compassion in Clinical Practice
Rod Owens: Compassion that Meets the Times: Exploring the Stages of Developing Radical Compassion
Ron Siegel, Psy.D.: Beyond Symptom Management: Treating Psychophysiological Disorders
Jan Surrey, Ph.D.: Psychotherapy as Relational Mindfulness Practice
Zev Schuman-Olivier, MD: Mindfulness and Meditation in Addiction Treatment and Recovery
Gita Vaid, MD: Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and its Relationship to Mindfulness and Contemplative Psychotherapy
Paul Fulton Ed.D.: Understanding Suffering
Susan Kaiser-Greenland & Chris Willard, Psy.D.: Teaching the ABCs of Attention, Balance and Compassion to Children, Teens, and their Families
Willoughby Britton, Ph.D.: Adverse Effects of Mindfulness Meditation and MBIs
Rick Hanson, Ph.D.: Neurobhavana: Mindful Cultivation and Positive Neuroplasticity
Sara Lazar, Ph.D.: Neuroscience of Mindfulness & Meditation
Paul Fulton, Ed.D.: Personality in Mindfulness & Psychotherapy
Jud Brewer, MD: Craving to Quit: Breaking the Addictive Loop
Susan Pollak, Ed.D.: How to Speak to, Teach, and Apply Mindfulness and Compassion with Patients
Alice Rosen, Ms.Ed., LMHC: Addressing Disordered Eating Through Mindfulness, an Essential Healing Alice Rosen Factor
Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, DMin, LICSW, & Robert Chodo Campbell, HCC: Contemplative Approaches to Living, Dying and Death
Stephanie Morgan, Psy.D., MSW: Sila or Morality Practice: Implications for Psychotherapy
John Briere, Ph.D.: Mindfulness, Insight, and Trauma Therapy
Paul Fulton Ed.D.: Self in Psychotherapy and Mindfulness
Susie Fairchild, LMHC, Jorge Armesto, Ph.D., C-IAYT, S. Lee Chew, MS, LCMHC: Section Meetings: section-faculty-moderated small group discussion of program material and its application to student work environments
Registration Information
This program is by application only. It is expected that applicants are familiar with mindfulness meditation, and though the focus is on psychotherapy, those in other helping professions will be considered. Enrollment is limited.
Applications are processed as received and are usually responded to in 3 weeks or less.
A 10% application fee must accompany applications. This fee is applied to tuition on acceptance or returned in full if you are not accepted.
A limited number of admissions are available at a scholarship rate (a discount on the full tuition). Please see the rates below. In addition, limited donated funds are available to BIPOC and international applicants. To inquire about reduced tuition, please write to the BCBS front office at contact@buddhistinquiry.org.
- Three residential spaces (or 10% of available residential seats) will be held for self-identified BIPOC participants until eight weeks before the program begins. If the three spaces remain unfilled at that time, they will be open to anyone who would like to join the program.
- When a program has a waitlist of participants, spaces will be prioritized for BIPOC participants and then offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
Application Links:
9-Month Program and Residential Retreat Option:
- Meals + Lodging Included (transportation not included)
- Standard Tuition: $4,750
- Scholarship Rate: $4,100
9-Month Program and Residential Retreat with Off-Campus Housing Option:
- Meals Included (lodging not included)
- Standard Tuition: $4,350
- Scholarship Rate: $3,785
9-Month Program and Remote Retreat Option:
- Standard Tuition: $3,500
- Scholarship Rate: $3,050
10% deposit due with application (refunded if not accepted)
100% of the remaining balance due by July 1, 2024
Deposit non-refundable (if accepted)
50% of tuition will be refunded if canceled before August 2
No refunds after August 2
Unlike other BCBS programs, teachers for this program are not supported by teacher dāna. Instead, compensation for the teaching faculty is included in the program fees for this professional certification program.
CEUs for psychologists, social workers, and counselors have been applied for. CMEs are not available for physicians. Up to 60 CEUs are offered for those completing the program.