Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction ─ The MBSR Program for Enhancing Health and Vitality

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is a concise, thorough, concrete, and a very practical introduction to mindfulness and stress. It’s designed to work either as a text in a classroom or training situation or as an individual’s guide to understanding and practicing MBSR. It features straightforward instruction in the main exercises of MBSR?mindfulness meditation, walking and eating meditation, Yoga, Body-Scan, informal everyday practices?and builds these skills step by step. Authentic personal stories from MBSR class participants allow readers to benefit from and relate to others’ experiences, and helpful summaries are included for quick reference.

At its core, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is an intensive training in mindfulness, which the originator of the eight-week evidence-based process, Jon Kabat-Zinn, defined as ?the awareness that arises by paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.” Rooted in the Buddhist traditions of Asia, as well as finding expression in other contemplative traditions, mindfulness has been integrated in the West since the 1970s.

Mindfulness is a simple yet powerful approach, available to everyone, which can help with life’s psychological and physiological challenges. By fully engaging in the present moment, we are guided step by step to relate to our difficulties with compassion and a non-judgmental attitude, enabling us to live life with more serenity and fulfillment. MBSR has been shown to be effective in reducing symptoms associated with chronic illness, anxiety, psoriasis, pain, burnout, cancer, and other conditions with stress-related symptoms.

The more than 900 participants of the authors’ MBSR teacher-training program in Europe have expressed that they prefer to recommend this book to their students as the basic course text because of its accessibility and concreteness.

Authoritative and yet easy to absorb, it stands apart from general introductions to mindfulness as it is informational, inspirational, and prescriptive. It follows the MBSR course as developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, explaining and illuminating the main themes of each of the eight weeks of the program. It can be worked with incrementally over a period of two months or read in one sitting. Many MBSR teachers assign sections from the book to their classes on a week-by-week basis.

Because it’s a course book, rather than one of many MBSR workbooks, readers are not required to do the exercises upon reading to profit from them. They can choose to practice a meditation if they wish, but the course book is meant to give background information as well as very practical examples of how MBSR can work for them. Many readers of the German version of the book say they bought it to help them decide if MBSR was for them before enrolling in a program.

Linda Lehrhaupt, Ph.D. is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches (IMA) and one of Europe’s best-known MBSR teachers. With more than 30 years of experience as a teacher and supervisor in mindfulness-based approaches, she has a rich background in its integration in education, healthcare, and personal development. She has been certified to teach MBSR by the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and also holds a degree in Education and advanced degrees in Performance Studies. She is a founding member of the German National MBSR-MBCT Teachers Association.

She began teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in 1993 and has been training MBSR teachers since the founding of the IMA in 2001. More than 900 people have completed the IMA’s MBSR teacher-training programs in Germany, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, and Poland. Dr. Lehrhaupt has taught many hundreds of workshops in mindfulness-based approaches, as well as scores of mindfulness and Zen retreats.

A Zen practitioner since 1979, Dr. Lehrhaupt has received full ordination as a Zen priest and teacher in the White Plum Lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, one of the oldest and most rigorous Buddhist communities in the United States. She has been leading meditation retreats internationally since 1992 in Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Norway, Ireland and Austria. She regularly teaches groups and workshops of from 25 to 100 persons or more.

Dr. Lehrhaupt was born and grew up in New York City and has been living with her family in Germany since 1983. She also spends part of the year in southwest France at La Martinie, a retreat and meditative arts center in the Dordogne, France, which she founded with her husband.

Petra Meibert, Dipl. Psych., is a psychologist and a member of the faculty of the Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches (IMA), where she also works as a teacher and supervisor. One of Germany’s leading experts on MBSR and MBCT and the application of mindfulness in medicine and psychotherapy, she completed her training as an MBSR teacher at the IMA and continued it with courses at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Since 1990 she has been integrating humanistic body-centered psychotherapeutic methods in her work with clients. She began teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in 2003 and shortly thereafter Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). As well as being in all of the IMA’s teacher-training programs as a faculty member, she is director of the IMA’s MBCT teacher-training program, through which almost 200 teachers have qualified. She is also vice president of the board of the German National Association for MBSR and MBCT Teachers.