Who is Running the Course?
Carmel O’Hara
Carmel O’Hara (M.Med Sc/Psychotherapy, Dip Counselling), is a systemic psychotherapist and addiction counsellor for three decades. From 1985 to 1995 she worked at the Rutland Centre as an addiction counsellor.
She currently works with families, couples and individuals with many issues including where addiction had been the central theme for family life for many years.
Carmel has also been engaging with her own mindfulness practice for many years. She has just completed year one of a two year Master’s Degree in Mindfulness Based Interventions in Clinical Settings (MSc) in Psychology at University College Dublin. Carmel has a special interest in facilitating Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention groups and she has completed the teacher training module in the UK with Sarah Bowen and Devin Ashwood. Sarah Bowen is one of the pioneers of the MBRP model from the University of Washington in Seattle, and Devin Ashwood is a leading practitioner in this model in the UK.
Carmel is accredited with the Addiction Counsellors of Ireland, and with the Family Therapy Association of Ireland, and the European Association of Psychotherapy. She is also currently a supervisor on a four year Masters of Science in Systemic Family therapy at the Clanwilliam Family Institute, Dublin. She also has a private psychotherapy practice at Oscailt Complementary Health centre Dublin.
How Much? 8 weeks ?350.00
The course fee includes a CD, Course handouts,
weekly sessions and the Full Day of Mindfulness
Days Tuesdays from 10am until 12.30pm
Starting Date Tuesday September 15,22,29,Oct 6,13,20,Nov 3,10
Day of Mindfulness Sunday Nov.8 10am -4pm
Booking & Information:
Call: (01) 660 3872
or email info@oscailt.com
www.oscailt.com
Early booking is recommended as only a limited number of places are available on each course.
Where:
Oscailt Integrative Health Centre,
8 Pembroke Road, Dublin 4
Mindfulness Based Relapse Preventio at Oscailt(MBRP)
8 Week Course in Mindful Living
Beginning September 2015
This course offers an accessible and practical introduction to a range of Mindfulness practices for those in recovery from addictive behaviours.
Mindfulness is a simple practice that connects us to our sense of presence.
MBRP practices are intended to foster increased awareness of triggers, destructive habitual patterns and automatic reactions that seem to control much of our lives
WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Mindfulness is a way of being, or seeing, that involves coming to one’s senses in a very real
way. Through learning to be with or in your experience more fully, you will develop a more refined, intimate experience of living.
When we engage with our experience in this way, change naturally occurs. Over time, we may notice that it alters our automatic conditioned responses to ourselves and the world, thus affording us freer, more spontaneous and less encumbered engagement with every moment. This can enable us to experience life in both richer and simpler ways.
Background of the Course:
MBRP is a treatment approach developed at the University of Washington for individuals in recovery from addictive behaviours. The foundation of MBRP comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn’s eight week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Programme and Segal, Williams, and Teasdale’s Mindfulness Based Cognitive Based Therapy Programme. (MBSR, MBCT)
What are the aims of the Course?
The mindfulness practices in MBRP are designed to help us pause, observe present experience, and bring awareness to the range of choices before each of us in every moment. We learn to respond in ways that serves us, rather than react in ways that are detrimental to our health and happinness.Ultimately, we are working towards freedom from deeply ingrained and often self-destructive habits.
These benefits often include:
- Developing awareness of personal triggers and habitual reactions and learning ways to create a pause in this seemingly automatic process
- Change our relationship to discomfort, learning to recognise challenging emotional and physical experiences and responding to them in a skilful ways.
- Fostering a non-judgemental, compassionate approach toward ourselves and our experiences/
Mindfulness skills based on principals of self –compassion and acceptance of all experiences, including craving and urges, if met with kindness and flexibility can lower relapse risk (Bowen et al 2011)
What does the Course involve?
The Course is carefully structured to support participants’ learning:
- A two-hour and a half session once a week for 8 weeks.
- 40 minutes of home practice on all non-class days during the course
- A full day of Mindfulness during the course
The Focus on this course won’t be on the specifics of the addiction but rather on the commonality that unites all addictive behaviours and that is centred around ones thought processes and dealing with cravings. The course is not a therapy group and it is not a substitute for therapeutic work. However, as the practice of Mindfulness can bring us into more direct contact with our bodies, emotions, thoughts, it is important that those interested in participating have access to therapeutic support if and when needed.
Within this structure, the skill of mindfulness will be taught principally through sitting, lying and walking meditations. We will also engage in group discussions, which support participants in learning how to use the understandings gained in these practices in daily life.
For maximum benefit, the course requires of participants to be willing to commit to engaging in the various mindfulness practices on a daily basis as best as one can. While this commitment may make the course seem challenging at times, this deep engagement allows participants to absorb the benefits more fully.
WHO IS THE COURSE AIMED AT?
The criteria for those who may be interested in applying to participate on this course is that they need to be in recovery from an addiction for a minimum of six months and who are abstinent and not using other substances as a substitute (unless prescribed by a medical practitioner). The individual needs also to be engaging in an active recovery treatment programme with the fellowships, and or with a formal aftercare programme. Those that are in recovery for many years but who feel that they could benefit in cultivating an active mindfulness practice are also welcome to engage in this course.
