Experiences with MBSR at a university hospital: A report from the establishment of an MBSR research clinic and professional training institute
Speaker: Lone Fjorback, PhD; Jacob Piet, PhD; Karen Johanne Pallesen, PhD
Format: Audio & Slides

Collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, i.e. between practitioners, clinicians, researchers, and scholars, is needed to effectively run an MBSR research clinic and professional training institute. The establishment of such collaboration poses specific challenges. In this session, we will present some general reflections and concrete examples of the ways in which we work to realize our common vision of an MBRS research clinic and professional training institute.

Our group has expertise in MBSR clinical intervention, clinical research, brain research, MBSR delivered to the community, and education of MBSR teachers. We share an interest in mindfulness as an embodied practice that provides the foundation of greater wellbeing, primarily through a modulation of psychological and (ultimately) biological mechanisms, and with socio-cultural and philosophical aspects being influential and integrated in these processes. In practice, we take particular interest in the application and transmission of MBSR at a university hospital and in the broader society.

As we hope to show, recognizing the reality of different individual, institutional and disciplinary agendas is as important an element in the development of productive collaborative networks as is a shared interest in mindfulness. Far from being an obstacle, it is a key element of the life force of such networks, and a source of inspiration, growth, and creativity.