Becoming a mindfulness teacher – no clear path

During the present upsurge of interest in mindfulness, I am often asked what course one needs to do to become a mindfulness teacher.

My reply is that currently there is no generally recognised or required route into the general teaching of mindfulness in Ireland or the UK. The situation is probably the same in most other countries.

In my view, people who teach mindfulness should have practised it for some time, meaning years rather than months, should have attended courses and workshops in mindfulness and should have read widely in it –  but none of these is a requirement laid down by anybody.

My Professional Certificate in the Therapeutic Use of Mindfulness is aimed at people who want to incorporate mindfulness into the work they are already qualified do with individuals or groups e.g. counselling, nursing, psychology, coaching, hypnotherapy, HR etc. While it is not specifically a teaching course I know that people who teach mindfulness have found it helpful. It is a short course, three days spread over two weeks, and I present it for the Institute of Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy. It will run in Dublin and Belfast before the end of 2016 but please note that it may not run after that as we restructure how we work.
If you are in search of a specific teaching course you could look at courses run by The Sanctuary (www.sanctuary.ie) or by Bangor University in Wales (http://www.bangor.ac.uk/mindfulness). University College Dublin has an expensive Masters in Mindfulness Based Interventions. If you are in the UK (where there is also no requirement for specific training) you could check out courses run by Oxford, Bangor, Exeter and Aberdeen universities. The Oxford University training page is at this link. You’ll also find various shorter workshops on offer at Oxford.

Naturally, to teach specific applications such as  Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, you would need to have done the training for that specific application so my remarks above refer to the general teaching of mindfulness to groups or individuals.

​Breathworks, Funded by the Vidyamala Burch to work with people living with chronic pain, has begun to offer a teacher training course in Ireland.  Find out more at this link.

Coventry University as an MSc in Mindfulness and Compassion which it says will equip students to pursue careers allied to mindfulness. More at this link.