About this Event
This in-person training is designed for licensed mental health clinicians who wish to deepen their understanding of mindfulness through direct, experiential practice grounded in Buddhist teachings. "Mindfulness" is now widely used in clinical settings, yet is often introduced through brief trainings that emphasize technique rather than direct understanding. Many clinicians guide clients in mindfulness practices without having had the opportunity to develop a sustained personal practice or explore the roots and lineage from which these practices emerge. When mindfulness is extracted from its original context, and taught without this depth of understanding, it can lose clarity, potency, and integrity—becoming something quite different from the practice it was originally intended to be. This can be a real disservice to clients that would benefit from these powerful teachings. This training offers clinicians the opportunity to deepen their own experiential relationship to mindfulness, informed by Buddhist traditions, so that mindfulness can be shared with clients in a way that is clear, grounded, and authentic. Emphasis is placed on cultivating mindfulness as a lived quality that supports a clinicians presence and therapeutic effectiveness. This training is offered as an entry point and an invitation to deepen, rather than a comprehensive mindfulness education. Participants are encouraged to continue cultivating their own personal practice and, where appropriate, to seek further training, mentorship, or study to support ongoing development and ethical integration of mindfulness in clinical work.
This is an experiential training that will explore:
- Core principles of mindfulness as understood in Buddhist teachings
- Mindfulness as a lived, experiential quality rather than a conceptual definition
- Common misconceptions of mindfulness
- The importance of clinician embodiment and presence in facilitating mindfulness with clients
Participants will engage in guided mindfulness practices, reflection, discussion, and didactic teaching designed to deepen personal understanding and clinical application.
Objectives
Upon completion of this training, participants will be able to:
1. Describe core elements of mindfulness from a Buddhist-informed framework
2. Identify the experiential qualities of mindful awareness as distinct from technique-based instruction
3. Apply mindfulness in clinical sessions with greater confidence, attunement, and ethical responsibility
4. Understand how a clinician’s personal mindfulness practice impacts the therapeutic process
Presenter: Natalie M. Collins, LCSW-C, LICSW
Natalie Collins is a licensed clinician with strong clinical experience and training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and DBT Prolonged Exposure (DBT-PE). On her team, she is recognized for the depth of her DBT-PE work, with her personal meditation practice supporting the presence, insight, and compassion necessary for transformative trauma treatment. She provides both individual and group therapy, integrating mindfulness in ways that are effective, authentic, and approachable.
Natalie’s connection to mindfulness meditation began early, influenced by her parents, who met in a Zen Buddhist monastery. She later briefly lived at that same monastery, engaging in intensive study and practice, and received lay ordination, giving her the dharma name NyoRen. She is currently deepening her contemplative training through a mindfulness meditation teacher program with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. This extensive experience and lineage-informed understanding informs her approach, allowing her to bring these teachings to her work in ways that are grounded, practical and accessible for clients and clinicians alike. Though most importantly, she teaches by genuinely practicing, not preaching (okay, some gentle preaching), communicating wordlessly through the felt quality of her own embodied practice.
In addition, Natalie is a certified Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher, 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher, and 95-hour Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher, with experience teaching mindfulness, yoga, and meditation to children, adolescents, and adults since 2015. She continues to lead trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness practices in a variety of settings, supporting clients’ emotional regulation, acceptance, and self-understanding.
*Continuing Education Information
Rathbone & Associates is authorized by the Board of Social Work Examiners in Maryland to sponsor social work continuing education programs and maintains full responsibility for the programs and their content. These trainings qualify for Category I continuing education units. Please contact your state board for verification of reciprocity with other states and professions. In order to receive a certificate, registrants must attend the entire session.
Cpaital Youth Services DBA Rathbone & Associates is a sponsor of continuing education credits for psychologists in Maryland under the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Rathbone & Associates maintains responsibility for the program content.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Rathbone & Associates Bethesda, 4701 Sangamore Road, Bethesda, United States
USD 108.55
