Cultivating the Inner Holding Environment: An Intensive Mindfulness Retreat for Mental Health Professionals
With Bill Morgan, PsyD, Susan Morgan, MSN, RN, CS and Ron Siegel, PsyD
August 5 - 12, 2017
We are pleased to offer the 9th annual mindfulness retreat for mental health professionals at Vallecitos.
Many in our field have been studying mindfulness and its clinical applications for years but have not found time for more intensive meditation practice. Others appreciate the opportunity to refresh their meditation practice with like-minded colleagues. By deliberately stepping out of everyday life and into a retreat environment, the subtle habit patterns of heart and mind are more easily accessed, and mindfulness can begin to deepen.
This week we will study and practice setting up the internal environment conducive for making progress in mindfulness meditation. In our experience, practitioners in this cognitively oriented and high stress culture frequently struggle in this area. We will offer many instructions and guided meditations designed to create a personally meaningful and enriching environment in which mindfulness practice may flourish.
This yearly course provides a container in which to explore these practices with colleagues. The teaching is experience-near, focusing on the development of mindfulness practice and its relevance in our work with others, particularly in the delivery of accurate empathy and therapeutic presence. There will be daily mindfulness meditation instruction and three to four hours of meditation each day, study modules most afternoons in combination with dyadic or small group discussion, and individual meetings with teachers. The rest of the time we will observe silence, including during meals, to facilitate a deeper contemplative experience.
This is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself in an exquisite natural environment and work closely with leaders in the growing field of clinical mindfulness meditation and compassion. Every effort will be made by the teachers and staff to give each participant a delightful, educational retreat experience, so that you can return home with renewed enthusiasm for clinical work and for cultivating mindfulness and compassion in daily life.
20 Continuing Education units are available to psychologists, social workers and mental health counselors. Eligible participants will receive a certificate for 20 CEUs at the conclusion of the retreat.
This retreat is sponsored by the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy.
Teachers
Bill Morgan, PsyD is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Cambridge, MA. He is the author of “The Meditator’s Dilemma: An Innovative Approach to Overcoming Obstacles and Revitalizing Your Practice”. He is an Advisory Board and faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. Bill has participated in ten years of intensive meditation retreats in the past 50 years. For 25 years, together with his partner Susan, he leads mindfulness retreats for psychotherapists and caregivers, and more recently leads The Daily Sit and online householder retreats for the general public. Making practice meaningful and enjoyable are core to…
Learn more about Bill Morgan, PsyD
Susan Morgan, CNS is a psychotherapist in Cambridge, MA. She is an Advisory Board and faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy and contributing author to “Mindfulness and Psychotherapy”. Susan’s longstanding meditation practice includes a four-year meditation retreat at the Forest Refuge, along with yearly three months of retreat. For 25 years she has been leading retreats for caregivers. Since the pandemic, she and her partner Bill have led The Daily Sit, a LIVE daily online practice group offering short Dharma Talks, guided meditations and community connection tailored to the householder life. She identifies as a lay-monastic, and…
Learn more about Susan Morgan, MSN, RN, CS
Dr. Ronald D. Siegel is Assistant Professor of Psychology, part time, Harvard Medical School; serves on the Board of Directors and faculty, Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy; is author of The Extraordinary Gift of Being Ordinary: Finding Happiness Right Where You Are; The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems, coauthor of Sitting Together: Essential Skills for Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy and Back Sense; coeditor of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy and Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy: Deepening Mindfulness in Clinical Practice; and professor for The Science of Mindfulness: A Research-Based Path to Well-Being produced by The Great Courses. He is also a regular…
Learn more about Ron Siegel, PsyD