Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University
Advanced Study Institute in Cultural Psychiatry
Mindfulness in Cultural Context
June 3-5, 2013
Montreal, Québec
Advanced Study Institute Conference and Workshop (June 3-5, 2013)
To register for the ASI, please use the folowing form.
For more informaiton regarding the ASI, please have a look at the asi_conference_program.pdf.
Recent years have seen the enthusiastic embrace of mindfulness meditation and other techniques drawn from Buddhism as therapeutic interventions in psychiatry. Buddhism is portrayed as a psychology closely akin to cognitive psychology. However, in the societies where it originated, Buddhism is a system of practice that has strong ethical and moral dimensions. How does extracting techniques like meditation from the tradition and social context in which they originate change the nature and effects of the practice? What is the relationship of these practices to everyday Buddhism as lived in Asian countries or by migrants to the West? How has the Westernization and psychologization of Buddhism and other contemplative traditions altered their meaning? What does contemporary cognitive neuroscience tell us about the nature of meditation and allied techniques? What are the implications of a cultural/contextual view for the continued dialogue between Buddhist thought and psychiatry? This workshop and conference will explore the nature of mindfulness meditation in cultural context. Sessions will address: (1) the varieties of mindfulness and its location in religious, spiritual and moral traditions including Buddhist philosophy and psychology; (2) cognitive neuroscientific research on meditation and mindfulness; (3) the meanings of mindfulness, meditation and related practices in cultural contexts both globally and in migrant populations; and (4) the uses of mindfulness as a therapeutic intervention in contemporary psychiatry and psychology.
The format will be a one-day conference (June 3) oriented toward mental health practitioners followed by a two-day workshop (June 4-5) for researchers in culture and mindfulness.
Guest Faculty
Sushrut Jadhav, Brendan Ozawa-De Silva, Chikako Ozawa-De Silva, Geoffrey Samuel, Evan Thompson
McGill Faculty
Suparna Choudhury, Ian Gold, Thubten Jinpa, Laurence J. Kirmayer, Amir Raz, Allan Young
There will be a poster session on June 3, 2013. To submit a poster, please complete the 2013_poster_presentation.pdf form and send it with your application for the ASI Conference.
If paying by credit card, please use the 2013_credit_card_authorization_form.pdf.
For payment via wire transfers, please click on the following link.
Please note that the deadline for the Summer School Program does not apply to the Advanced Study Institute.