Fostering Resilience for Health Professionals

“In dealing with those who are undergoing great suffering, if you feel “burnout” setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself.” -Dalai Lama

Replenish and revitalize yourself in this mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) meditation retreat for physicians, other health and mental health professionals, and their partners. Learn specific skills to foster resilience and reduce the risk of burnout. MBCT, an integration of mindfulness meditation practices and elements of cognitive therapy, offers a different way to encounter and identify habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour that can lead to overwork and stress. Development of specific burnout prevention strategies is included in the later stages of the program.

Retreat structure consists of large group teacher-guided mindfulness practices, including sitting, mindful movement and body scan meditations as taught in MBCT. Teacher-guided discussion, with a focus on meditation technique, supports the cultivation of sustained moment-to-moment attention. Periods of silence including guided practice further support a deepening of mindfulness. In addition, there will be time to take advantage of activities for relaxation and restoration in Hollyhock’s natural beauty.

Eligible for 20 hours of MOCOMP Section 1 unaccredited small-group activity credits for specialist Canadian physicians (40 hours total – 0.5 credits per hour). 

This program has also been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the British Columbia Chapter for up to 25.5 Mainpro+ Group Learning credits.

By the end of this retreat, you will:

• Learn a precise, actionable definition of mindfulness and understand it’s relationship to well-being and resilience
• Understand how to work with attention and awareness to develop mindfulness, matacognitive awareness, interoceptive awareness and equanimity
• Practice the ability to attend to present moment experience in a more spacious, non-reactive, and effective way through a carefully sequenced progression of meditations, including:
  • Mindfulness of breath
  • Body scanning
  • Mindfulness of sounds and thoughts
  • Mindfulness of challenging experiences
  • Loving kindness
  • Mindfulness interoceptive exposure task (MIET)
  • 3 minute breathing space
• Learn how to detect and skillfully respond to the warning signs of burnout by applying the Co-Emergence Model of Reinforcement
• Develop practical and effective strategies for cultivating mindfulness and equanimity in daily life

Apply Here

Dr. Mark Lau & Dr. Andrea Grabovac will also be offering Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Training on October 7-12, 2019. Register for both to get 10% off tuition.