Rebecca Crane joins us to speak about competencies for mindfulness teachers.
Mindfulness programs are very popular right now, building upon a decades long foundation built by a very limited set of experienced teachers. These professionals have dedicated their lives to this particular discipline, and the interconnected aspects of quality and integrity so critical to maintaining the high standards for program delivery.
However, as time progresses and demand for mindfulness, any mindfulness, increases, so too does the risk of fidelity loss. Not everyone sincerely interested in helping others learn about contemplative practice are adequately experienced in teaching it, and their own practice may be insufficiently developed. And there may be those who simply start teaching without the best of intentions, simply interested in adding a new profit stream to their therapeutic vocation, without having received training, or direct engagement from an experienced teacher. Situations like these are becoming more common, and those interested in taking a mindfulness course have few options to ensure the teacher has any degree of competency. Fortunately, the first steps of developing what those competencies are, measurements for them, and mechanisms for assessments are well underway.

Rebecca Crane directs the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice, and has played a leading role in the development of both the training and research sides of the centre since it was founded in 2001. Prior to this she worked for 15 years in the mental health field as an Occupational Therapist and an integrative counsellor. Rebecca has had a personal interest in meditation for over 25 years and personal practice is an integral part of her life. She has received training in the use of mindfulness-based approaches through working with Mark Williams and colleagues from the early development of MBCT teaching, through to recent work on the Oxford / Bangor University investigation of MBCT for people with recurrent depression and suicidality; through a 15 year and ongoing engagement with the teachers and MBSR training programmes at the Centre for Mindfulness in Massachusetts. Rebecca is a certified MBSR teacher with the Center for Mindfulness in Massachusetts and has written Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: Distinctive Features.