Cheetah House First Do No Harm Meditation Safety Training
A comprehensive evidence-based training by the world’s top experts
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Asynchronous, on-demand
Faculty Q+A: Spring/Summer
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Didactics: 6 hrs
APA-approved CE Credits: 4
Faculty Hrs: TBD
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Willoughby Britton, PhD
Scott Lippitt
Jennifer Lang
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Asynchronous, on-demand
Faculty Q+A: Spring/Summer
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Didactics: 24 hrs
APA-approved CE Credits: 24
Faculty Hrs: TBD
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Willoughby Britton, PhD
TBD
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Fall, Winter
with Cohort + Faculty
By Application only
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Didactics: 7 hrs
APA-approved CE Credits: 7
Supervised skills practice = 23 hrs
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Willoughby Britton, PhD
Nicholas Canby, PhD
LEVEL 4: ADVANCED PRACTICUM
Faculty shadowing
Live Sessions with meditators-in-distress
Capstone Project
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scheduled with faculty mentor
By invitation only
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TBD
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Willoughby Britton, PhD
Nicholas Canby, PhD
Cheetah House Care Team
SPECIALTY TRACKS + ELECTIVES
Meditation Teachers
Researchers
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Asynchronous
self-paced
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TBD
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Depends on courses
TRAINING FACULTY
Training faculty consist of top experts on meditation-related challenges, including clinicians, researchers, religious studies scholars, yoga and meditation teachers. Perhaps most importantly, the Cheetah House safety training includes individuals who have lived experience of meditation-related difficulties and what was helpful, unhelpful and harmful. Many of the training faculty serve on theCheetah House Care Team and actively provide support to meditators-in-distress.
TRAINING OVERVIEW
The full training is 4 levels.
Levels 1 +2 are self-paced didactic videos paired with periodic discussion/Q+A sessions with faculty.
Levels 3 and 4 are group practicum experiences directly supervised by faculty. Space is limited and acceptance is by application
SELF-PACED CURRICULA
Level 1 is an introductory overview of meditation-related difficulties and 2 survivor stories.
Level 2 has 4 parts: 2 on Phenomenology, one on cultural competencies, and one on interpersonal dynamics
Levels 2A +B take a deep dive into different types of meditation-related challenges (phenomenology), including fear and terror states, traumatic re-experiencing, energy-like somatic experiences (ELSEs), visual hallucinations, delusion-like ideation, changes in sense(s) of self, and meditation-induced dissociation.
Level 2C explains the central role of Buddhist Modernism, and includes sessions on the historical Buddhist view(s) of “meditation sickness” , “kundalini”, the role of worldviews, and criteria for distinguishing between “progress” and pathology and when to intervene.
Level 2Dis a module on interpersonal dynamics, power and control with experts in cultic dynamics, coercive control, institutional betrayal, tradition-specific ideologies and the lived experience of helpful and harmful teachers.
PRACTICUM EXPERIENCES (APPLICATION REQUIRED)
Level 3 (intermediate practicum) provides hands-on, individualized training in specific competencies, including: Creating site-specific Monitoring and Crisis Protocols; Active listening and Scaffolding; Meditation Assessment Process (myMAP). Each topic consists of a didactic video followed by an experiential opportunity to practice those skills and get feedback from faculty.
Level 4 (advanced practicum) is for meditation teachers and clinicians who want to be fully competent with or specialize in working with meditation-related difficulties. The advanced practicum includes shadowing members of the Cheetah House Care team in their individual sessions and support groups for meditators in distress, followed by a one-on-one supervision with the Care team member. Completion of other modules is a prerequisite for acceptance into the advanced practicum.