Jim Hopper, Ph.D. & Dana Moore, M.A.R., M.A.
(last updated 9/25/2008)

Hello and thanks for your interest in our 5-day workshop/retreat at Kripalu. We are delighted and honored to have this opportunity to share what we've learned about Buddhist psychology and meditation, yoga, neuroscience and the transformation of trauma and addictions. Here we provide additional info beyond Kripalu's catalog and website description. We also suggest resources (websites, books, etc.) that you may find useful, whether you attend our program or not. Please don't hesitate to email us with any questions or suggestions, or if you can't attend this program but are interested in others. (Remove numbers [inserted to prevent spam] and put 'Kripalu' in subject line: jim@jim22hopper99.com or dmoore@jri88.org) With warm wishes, Jim & Dana Program Info From the Kripalu catalog and website: Suffering is universal. Who is free from sickness, old age, and death? We vacillate between pleasure and pain, contentment and dissatisfaction, often reacting to the present based on past hurts or traumas and seeking escape in bad habits and addictions. What can we do to help ourselves and others? This retreat examines our human predicament through the lenses of mindfulness, yoga, and contemporary insights from the world of neuroscience. We will focus on tools for transforming our habitual thoughts, emotions, and behaviors into openings for freedom, love, and happiness. Jim Hopper and Dana Moore will integrate current trauma theory and treatment, key concepts and practices of Buddhist psychology and Kripalu Yoga, and cutting-edge neuroscience findings. They will teach skills drawn from their personal experience as practitioners and their professional work in psychiatric neuroscience research, mindfulness-based psychotherapy, and teaching yoga to trauma survivors. Participants will gain valuable, practical information, especially mental-health professionals seeking specific skills for use in clinical work. Individuals who suffer from trauma and addiction are especially encouraged to attend, along with therapists, yoga teachers, body workers, physicians, and researchers. More info: We invite you to join us for this innovative and highly experiential workshop at a leading retreat center for yoga and health. Our presentations will be accompanied by plenty of time for questions and discussion. Each day participants will learn and practice meditation and yoga. During the ample free time (2.5 hour mid-day break and free evenings), you will have plenty of opportunities to enjoy being at Kripalu – a beautiful place with many wonderfully peaceful, healing and rejuvenating offerings, including hiking, hot tubs, and excellent food. See Kripalu's Guest Information, including Accommodations, Arrival Information, Dining, and Healing Arts (i.e., options for one-on-one care and support). Last but not least, if you are a mental health professional, you will recieve 23.5 hours of continuing education credits. Learning Objectives Upon completing this course, participants will be able to: Describe key Buddhist psychological principals of craving, aversion, and ignorance. Explain parallels between Buddhist principles of craving, aversion and ignorance and neuroscience research on these psychological and behavioral processes. Describe the fundamental roles of craving, aversion, and ignorance in perception, cognition, emotion and behavior. Explain the brain’s ‘default mode’ and how it involves ongoing processes of craving and aversion while perpetuating ignorance. Describe how trauma-sensitive Kripalu yoga cultivates attentional and cognitive capacities necessary for trauma recovery. Apply Buddhist, yoga and neuroscience principles and insights to increase one’s understanding of traumatic and addictive conditioning in oneself and others. Explain how Buddhist and yoga methods may alter brain processes involved in posttraumatic fears and addictions. Practice Buddhist methods for cultivating concentration. Practice trauma-sensitive Kripalu yoga methods that increase awareness and mindfulness of sensations, movements, and emotions. Practice Buddhist methods for cultivating mindfulness. Practice Buddhist methods for cultivating lovingkindness and compassion. Apply concentration methods to alter the brain’s default mode. Apply trauma-sensitive Kripalu yoga methods to calm the body and brain, and to increase awareness and mindfulness of sensations, movements, and emotions. Apply mindfulness methods to gain direct insight into default mode brain functioning. Apply mindfulness methods to gain direct insight into conditioned responses of craving and aversion toward external stimuli and interpersonal interactions. Apply lovingkindness and compassion methods to calm the brain and body. Apply mindfulness, lovingkindness and compassion methods to increase acceptance and peace, and to decrease judgmental thinking and the strength of conditioned craving and aversion, including emotional responses of fear, shame, and guilt. Demonstrate how Buddhist meditation and yoga exercises can be modified to be safe and effective for trauma survivors. Recommended Websites Mindfulness and Kindness - Inner Sources of Freedom and Happiness - Jim's webpage written especially for those living with the effects of trauma. The Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy in Newton, Massachusetts - A great organization with many offerings for therapists. Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare, and Society in Wooster, Massachusetts - Founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn and colleagues, this organization developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and has trained people to run MBSR programs around the world. The web site has information about the their annual conference, finding colleagues who have adapted the MBSR approach to specific client groups, etc. Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts - Where Jim has done a number of retreats. It's one of the oldest, most respected and best-run retreat centers in North America. Green Mountain Dharma Center in Hartland-Four-Corners, Vermont - This is main North American retreat center of Thich Nhat Hanh's organization, and we know people who have had very good experiences doing retreats there. The Center for Mindful Eating - This is a "forum" for "professionals who wish to help their clients develop healthier relationships with food and eating, and to bring eating into balance with other important aspects of life." Iyengar Yoga Resources - This yoga method can be good way to cultivate mindfulness for people who need a physically active and movement oriented approach and/or don't (yet) feel at home in their bodies. Self-Compassion - Kristin Neff's site, about "a healthier way of relating to yourself," includes scholarly research and exercises for how to increase self-compassion. Pat Ogden's Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute provides training in body-oriented therapy that includes a major mindfulness component, including methods for "tracking" bodily sensations, helping clients process traumatic memories and conditioning in states of optimal arousal, etc. This approach is grounded in sound and ethical clinical practices that do not violate clients' boundaries. Doing Time, Doing Vipassana and Changing From Inside - Films on prisoners doing intensive vipassana or 'Insight' meditation retreats (in the Goenka vipassana tradition, which is more structured and more focused on body scan meditation than retreats at the Insight Meditation Society). Recommended Books Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana – Free on the web or Amazon.com The Lost Art of Compassion: Discovering the Practice of Happiness in the Meeting of Buddhism and Psychology, by Lorne Ladner Mindful Recovery: A Spiritual Path to Healing from Addiction, by Thomas and Beverly Bien Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, by Christopher Germer, Ronald Siegel, Paul Fulton (Editors). Written for therapists, but accessible to those familiar with therapy concepts and principles. What the Buddha Taught, by Walpola Rahula When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, by Pema Chodron The Attention Revolution, by Alan Wallace Buddhism with an Attitude, by Alan Wallace Please feel free to email us with suggestions for other resources that have been helpful to you (remove numbers [inserted to prevent spam] and put 'Kripalu' in subject line: jim@jim22hopper99.com or dmoore@jri88.org). www.jimhopper.com www.jimhopper.com/mindfulness