The Oxford Mindfulness Centre was founded in 2007 to realise the potential of mindfulness-based approaches in mental and physical health and to promote the well-being of people in their world of work, home and family life. Its aim is to be an international centre of excellence that can also meet local need, and to extend our understanding of the relevance of mindfulness through research, training and providing classes for NHS patients. With independent charitable status (Registered Charity No: 1104059), it is a centre within the University’s Department of Psychiatry, and works closely with the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Mental Healthcare NHS Trust .

The Oxford Mindfulness Centre will support the extension of mindfulness provision in three ways:

Providing mindfulness classes for NHS patients

To date, the work in Oxford has focused on helping patients with depression and chronic fatigue. Those who have taken the courses have valued them enormously; but the opportunities for GPs to refer their patients are extremely limited. The Centre provides much-needed expansion of this capacity and extends the availability of the approach to patients with other problems.

Training mental health practitioners

The Centre has set up approved courses in the application of MBCT in healthcare settings, taking account of the reality that people who are going to teach this approach must establish a personal practice for themselves. The range of courses is wide: from one-day introductory seminars and workshops, to a two-year Master of Studies (MSt) programme.

Research

We carry out research on the psychological and biological processes underlying vulnerability to mental illness and the effectiveness and mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based approaches.

Charitable Support

The Oxford Mindfulness Centre is supported by the Society for the Wider Understanding of the Buddhist Tradition (‘So-Wide’) . Based in Oxford, So-Wide is a fundraising charity. It has supported the setting up of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies (OCBS) .

The OCBS studies the Buddhist contribution to the History of Ideas and in that context undertakes philological teaching and research into Buddhist texts across a wide range of languages. It is also centrally concerned with the study of Buddhism in society, and so is involved in related areas from Development Studies to Art History. In conjunction with So-Wide, the OCBS has from the first been committed to cross-fertilisation with other disciplines, including prominently the sciences. The OCBS is directly present within the University in the form of the Buddhist Studies Unit, which is hosted in the Oriental Studies Faculty.

So-wide’s purpose is to diffuse a sound, academically acceptable understanding of the Buddhist tradition, so that the  resources it affords can be applied wherever they may be useful.  Consistent with this, it believes that the usefulness of the mindfulness approach must be evidence-based, grounded in the best available neuroscience research, and it is for this reason that it is supporting the on-going work of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre. It does not seek to foster or extend Buddhism as a religion.