the mindfulness institute.ca
the mindfulness institute.ca is proud to serve as a resource site, both as a connection to the emerging neurocognitive and clinical research on mindfulness, and to mindfulness-based programs and their applications in individual, healthcare, and workplace settings. The emerging research findings on mindfulness are exciting, as they provide early scientific understanding and evidence for the benefits of mindfulness meditation that have been experienced and known by mindfulness practitioners for over 2600 years.
You are invited and encouraged to do your own research – through browsing our website and links – to learn more about the science, applications, and potential benefits of mindfulness in order to understand why this practice may be worth an investment of as little as 15 minutes a day of your time. Or – as many mindfulness practitioners believe – why your health might literally depend upon it.
At present, the mindfulness institute.ca runs programs in Alberta, Canada, however many of our links provide information about resources across North America.
Consultants
Catherine L. Phillips, MD, FRCP(C), is a psychiatrist affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, where she teaches seminars in psychotherapy as well as mindfulness, is a psychotherapy supervisor, and offers an elective in Mindfulness in Psychiatry. Through this affiliation and her work as consultant psychiatrist to the Canadian Forces, she also provides clinical rotations in PTSD to family practice residents and electives in military psychiatry.
Dr. Phillips received her MD through the U of A and completed her training in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She has had a lifelong interest in what is now commonly referred to as mindfulness. Dr. Phillips considers her childhood musical studies to have played an important role in developing her mindfulness aptitudes; she is an accomplished musician, and is an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, in piano performance. She has practiced Hatha Yoga and other mind-body work for over 30 years, and was first introduced to formal meditative techniques in 1982. During personal psychoanalysis, her passion became an inner exploration and understanding of the similarities, differences, and overlap between traditional western psychotherapies and meditation.
Dr. Phillips has integrated mindfulness and psychotherapy for many years in her clinical practice, and following a workshop in MBCT and two 7-day residential training programs she has run over 26 MBSR programs including MBT-M (Mindfulness Based Therapy for Military modelled on MBSR). She has additionally completed a 92-hour Teacher Development Intensive in MBSR through the Center for Mindfulness Mass. Dr. Phillips speaks and provides workshops on mindfulness for health care and other professionals as well as the general population. She also offers consultation on the integration of mindfulness in education, the workplace, and other medical and non-medical settings.
Shreyasi Gollapudi, MD, is a fourth year Psychiatry resident at the University of Alberta. She completed a five month “Mindfulness in Psychiatry” elective with Dr. Phillips in 2010. She began her formal mindfulness practice at that time. During the elective she participated in the eight week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, and later co-facilitated the group with Dr. Phillips for an additional eight weeks. She also had the opportunity to provide short-term mindfulness-based psychotherapy. She attended the foundational training retreat “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Mind-Body Medicine” with Drs. Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli in February 2011. She will complete further training to run MBSR groups in future.
Neil Mulholland, Ph.D., is a senior psychologist in child and family psychiatry at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital and an Assistant Clinical Professor in psychiatry at the University of Alberta, Edmonton AB. He has been in professional practice for 30 years and has studied a variety of meditation practices for 40 years, including with various teachers in India and North America. He has also instructed and integrated these practices in his clinical work, particularly psychotherapeutic meditation skills, and he offers mindfulness training to health care professionals at the Glenrose.
Dr. Mulholland is a student and researcher in Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), which is regarded as an extension of mindfulness. He is committed to the strong evidence-based practice which this field provides to both mental-health practitioners and their clients/patients.
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