Some of the teachers I have learnt from along the way....
My initial training in secular mindfulness-based approaches began at at the Centre for Mindfulness Research & Practice at Bangor University when I took part in an MBSR course in 2011. This is where I met Trish Bartley and I went on to undertake teacher training in MBSR in 2013 with Trish and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for cancer teacher training with her again the following year. I owe her a great debt of thanks, for helping me on my way and share her teaching biography with you from her website.
Trish has a background in community development. She worked for many years with groups of marginalised people in the UK and South Africa facilitating their leadership, creativity, and dignity. Her first book 'Holding up the Sky: Love, Power and Learning in the Development of a Community' describes her research with local village people in a rural area of South Africa. This was published by the Woodward Trust - one of the Sainsbury charities in 2003. She has been involved in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy since the early days of its development in the UK. She was fortunate in moving to North Wales just as the MBCT for Depression trial was finishing - and was involved in the early trainings of teachers in 1999. Her mindfulness teachers include Jon Kabat Zinn; John Teasdale and Mark Williams. She started teaching people with cancer in 2001, in a regional oncology department in North Wales. Over the years of this work, she developed and adapted the 8 week MBCT programme specifically for people with cancer. 'Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Cancer : Gently Turning Towards' was published by Wiley Blackwell in 2012. A new book called 'Mindfulness: A Kindly Approach to Being with Cancer' also published by Wiley is due out in November 2016. This has been written for people with cancer themselves. Trish continues to teach people with cancer and now also trains mindfulness teachers to deliver this programme to cancer patients. Trish is one of the founding members of the core training team of the Centre for Mindfulness, Research and Practice (CMRP) at Bangor University. She currently teaches on the masters programme, and trains teachers and leads retreats in the UK and abroad.
