ABSTRACT
Teaching Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) requires a range of competencies including skills in teaching, in working with groups, in working with the client groups for which the course is intended, and in the organisational aspects of setting up groups. A distinctive feature of MBCT is the consistent and strong voice from practitioners in the field emphasising that the teacher's personal practice is a crucial underpinning to the teaching process. In the second edition of the MBCT manual, the MBCT developers go as far as to say that MBCT should only be called MBCT if it is grounded in the teacher's own practice - otherwise it cannot be called mindfulness-based. A teacher who is embodying mindfulness has taken in, at a level that goes deeper than conceptual understanding, what it means to connect with and relate to experience and the world through awareness of the present moment and with acceptance.
