Cheetah House First Do No Harm Meditation Safety Training
Level 3: INTERMEDIATE [practicum]
The intermediate level provides hands on, individualized training in specific competencies for preventing, detecting and working with meditation-related challenges including: Creating site-specific Screening, Monitoring and Safety Protocols; Person-centered approaches 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.
The intermediate practicum includes experiential skill building and interactive workshops with direct supervision by training faculty. Admission is by application. Psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, licensed mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, and other professional caregivers are invited to apply. Other professionals including mindfulness, meditation and yoga teachers, and coaches will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Admission is limited. Priority will be given to applicants who are strongly motivated to engage with the curriculum and use it in their professional lives.
Completion of levels 1 and 2 are a pre-requisite to applying for Level 3.
Applications will open in Spring 2026 for a Practicum starting in Fall 2026.
Level 3: INTERMEDIATE Courses
LEVEL 3A: Safety infrastructure
In the Screening and Monitoring module, you will learn how to appropriately monitor your students or clients for meditation-related adverse effects, including best practices and common fallacies. You will be given a buffet of different options to choose from and then create a monitoring system that makes sense for your specific context or situation. In the 2nd session, you will present your plan and get feedback from your training cohort and faculty.
In the Creating a Safety Protocol module, you will learn the essential elements of a crisis protocol, including informed consent, legal liability, and crisis plans. You will create a safety protocol for your specific context or situation and receive feedback from faculty
Prerequisites: Level 3 application
#of sessions: 2
Faculty: Willoughby Britton, PhD
Prerequisites: Level 3 application
#of sessions: 2
Faculty: Willoughby Britton, PhD
LEVEL 3B: Working with meditators-in-distress
The Initial Consult module will walk you through how to interact with a meditator-in-distress, and what information you need to decide what to do next.
In the Meditation Assessment Process (myMAP) module, you will learn to assess whether a meditation practice is a good or poor fit for a specific client using myMAP, followed by discussion/Q+A with faculty and your training cohort.
In the Scaffolding module, you will learn the art of scaffolding, by being a scaffolder, scaffoldee and observer. You will receive supervision and feedback from faculty.
In the Investigating Beliefs module you will learn to investigate limiting beliefs with Socratic dialogue derived from Cognitive Processing trauma therapy.
Nicholas Canby, PhD
Prerequisites: Level 3 application
#of sessions: 4
Prerequisites: Level 3 application
#of sessions: 2
Prerequisites: Level 3 application
#of sessions: 4
Prerequisites: Level 3 application
#of sessions: 2