Meeting Suffering: Clarity and Calm in the Care of Serious Illness

Instructors: Elana Rosenbaum, LICSW, and Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN

Dates: October 9-12, 2009

Location: University of Massachusetts - Amherst, MA

Program Brochure  

Registration Details 

Online registration is now closed for this program. We will be extending the registration deadline until September 16th. Please call 508-856-1097 or email cfm.oasis@umassmed.edu to register.

Program Description

Overview

Witnessing physical pain and emotional turmoil of those facing serious illness can greatly challenge health care professionals who are providing the care.  This is compounded by the inherent intense nature of modern, Western medicine that is fast-paced, high-tech and fragmented.  Consequently, a sense of feeling powerless and depleted often results. 

Mindfulness practice has the potential to foster resiliency of health care professionals by providing self-care tools to manage cumulative work-related stress and by enabling them to be more present and connected with their patients and colleagues.  Mindfulness can also be incorporated into clinical care, teaching patients basic techniques to alleviate their emotional and physical suffering.  Empowering patients and providing holistic care in this way further strengthens professional satisfaction and meaning, thus augmenting resiliency and minimizing burnout.

Meeting Suffering: Clarity and Calm in the Care of Serious Illness will provide health care professionals with easy-to-understand mindfulness practices that can be applied to their personal lives and to their work with particular clinical conditions and settings.

This training is specifically geared toward health care professionals working with individuals experiencing serious life-threatening or debilitating illnesses. 

Participants will learn

• to foster resiliency and prevent burn-out
• to develop effective self-care tools to be manage work-related stress
• to become more present and connected with patients and colleagues
• to enhance the quality of life of seriously ill persons by using and adapting techniques for different clinical settings

The mindfulness techniques that we will experientially and didactically explore during this training program have been specifically adapted for health care professionals who care for persons with life-threatening or debilitating illnesses.

Rich and insightful training activities integrated throughout the training include the following:

• Practicing five different mindfulness meditations
• Practicing compassion and loving-kindness meditations
• Exploring and practicing the power of presence
• Discussing and role playing mindfulness application in patient-specific settings and situations
• Discussing the nature of suffering and its alleviation
• Exploring and working with negative mind states and physical discomfort
• Using writing (narrative and/or creative) to foster insight and augment meditation experiences and group discussions
• Discussing theoretical perspectives related to mindfulness, resiliency, stress and coping
• Discussing scientific foundations of mindfulness and research studies as they relate specifically to health care professionals’ resiliency and to the care of persons with serious medical conditions

Prerequisites

A mindfulness-based meditation practice and participation at a silent retreat are preferred, although not required.  Attendance at other CFM Oasis Professional Training programs is preferred (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Mind-Body Medicine: 7 Day Residential Training/Retreat, Practicum in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Teacher Development Intensive in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction)