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Would you like to deepen your mindfulness meditation practice and learn to teach Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction / Cognitive Therapy Programmes?
Registration is now open for our next professional teacher training programme, starting in October 2024. Come along to our open evening to find our why our training is so special. Register for our open evening to receive a link and a reminder.
The Mindfulness Centre offers an 18 month training programme in teaching mindfulness-based interventions.
Have a look at our brochure here
Get in touch - we would love to hear from you: info@mindfulness.ie
M.A. Mindfulness-Based Approaches (Bangor University), H.Dip. Ed., Post-Grad. Dip. Psych., Member PSI.
Helen worked as a post primary school teacher from 1980 to 2019. She worked mainly in the Community and Comprehensive school sector, in the area of learning support. She was a member of the Visiting Teacher Service to the Traveller Community from 1997-2007.
Helen trained as Systemic and Family Therapist with The Clanwilliam Institute in the ’90s, while also completing a post-graduate Diploma in Psychology. She is a member of the PSI.
Over the years, Helen took time away from teaching and worked in various education-related capacities in Australia and the U.K.. She also worked in the community and voluntary sector, spending time as a project manager for people in recovery from addiction in the Fingal Centre, an ICTU Centre for the Unemployed in Finglas, where she also spent a year as Acting Centre Director. She also worked in second chance education with the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU).
In addition to her Masters studies at Bangor University, Helen completed all trainings and supervision with senior teachers including Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of MBSR and Saki Santorelli (in the photo above!), Melissa Blacker, Florence Meleo Meyer and Pam Erdmann at the Center for Mindfulness (CFM) at The University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
Helen trained in supervising mindfulness teachers with the late Cindy Cooper at Bangor University and has been supervising teachers since 2015. She also trained in teaching Mindful Self Compassion with the founders of the programme, Dr Chris Germer and Dr Kristen Neff. Helen has been practicing meditation and yoga since 1997 and teaching them since 2004.
Helen was part of the team that developed the M.Sc. programme in Mindfulness-based Interventions within the School of Psychology in UCD, and she has been a senior lecturer on the programme since its inception in September 2014.
Helen and Josephine Lynch co-founded what was to grow into the Mindfulness Centre in 2008. They have been bringing international teachers to Ireland to lead CPD and retreats for Irish mindfulness teachers and teacher trainees since 2008. Through this work, she and Josephine were part of the group which spearheaded the development of the professional body for mindfulness teachers in Ireland, the MTAI (www.mtai.ie), formally established in February 2018. To the best of our knowledge, it is the only such national professional body for mindfulness teachers in the world. She is still involved with the MTAI, supports its work and adheres to its Standards for Good Practice.
Since 2015 Josephine and Helen have invited world renowned Dharma teachers to lead an 7 day residential retreat in Ireland every year. These include Christina Feldman, John Peacock, Akincano Weber, Bernat Font and Gerit Stöcklmair from The Bodhi College and Melissa Blacker Roshi, ex CFM UMass and now Abbott of Boundless Way Zen Temple in Worcester Massachusetts with her husband David Rynick. In 2024 we hope to host Christoph Köck and Jaya Rudgard, also from the faculty of The Bodhi College, for a 6 day mindfulness residential retreat in Castletown Co Laois. the dates are 11th - 17th August.
Helen continues to deepen her personal practice and understanding of the power of living more mindfully with regular attendance at retreats and trainings led by world-renowned teachers including Christina Feldman, John Peacock, Akincano Weber, Stephen and Martine Batchelor, Christoph Köck, Jaya Rudgard and other teachers at The Bodhi College and has attended retreats led by John Teasdale, Melissa Blacker, David Rynick, Sharon Salzberg and the late Thich Nhat Hanh, among others. She participated in a 2 year programme in Buddhist Psychology with the Bodhi College in 2012-2014, and began another 2 year study programme with them in December 2021.
Helen teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction / Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation.
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M.A. in Teaching Mindfulness-Based Approaches, Bangor University, Wales
Josephine Lynch, M.A. Mindfulness-based Approaches (Bangor University), Lic. Ac., Dip. Herbal Medicine, has also gained the Certificate of Competence to Teach Mindfulness-Based Courses from the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University. She completed a two year programme with the Bodhi College in early Buddhist Psychology and its influence on contemporary practice. She is also a qualified to offer supervision to mindfulness teachers.
Josephine was among the first people to bring the teaching of mindfulness in the tradition of Jon Kabat-Zinn to Ireland and has been teaching MBSR/MBCT since 2005. She also teaches Mindful Self-Compassion and, having undergone a period of intensive supervision, and has completed all requirements to become a fully certified teacher of the Mindful Self-Compassion program as outlined by the Center for Mindful Self Compassion. Josephine was part of the team that brought the world renowned Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh to Ireland in 2012.
Josephine is one of the core team of teachers on the M.Sc. in Mindfulness-Based Interventions in UCD and had been involved in programme development and delivery since its inception in 2014.
Josephine’s background is in Mind / Body Medicine and she has worked most of her life using acupuncture, shiatsu and herbal medicine to foster mind / body wellbeing. She was involved in developing and working with Sláinte Pobal in Dublin in the 1990’s, an initiative to bring courses in health education into areas of socio economic disadvantage.
Josephine was one of the founder members of the professional body, the Mindfulness Teachers Association of Ireland (MTAI.ie) which represents mindfulness teachers in Ireland and was its first chairperson from February 2018 until October 2020. She has been organizing CPD for mindfulness teachers and teacher trainees since 2008, fostering and supporting the development of a strong community of mindfulness teachers in Ireland.
Josephine is one of the founders of The Mindfulness Centre (mindfulness.ie, 2008), and she is co-director of the 18-month Professional Mindfulness Teacher Training programme which the Centre has been running since 2015.
