Mental health and our booking process
Although meditation and mindfulness can be helpful in managing stress, depression and anxiety, according to UK best practice guidelines, the practice might not be suitable if you are experiencing major depression or other clinically diagnosed psychiatric illness such as personality disorder, major trauma (PTSD), psychosis or current self-harming.
To attend a course or retreat you need to be in a relatively stable period of mental well-being. Our leaders might not be able to offer the level of individual support you need if things are very difficult for you. It more be more appropriate to consider 1-1 therapy or counselling rather than a retreat.
For these reasons we have a booking process designed to make sure that a course or retreat is right for you at this point in time.
Our booking process
Once you have booked on to a retreat or course, you'll receive a link to a confidential booking form where you can provide information about any physical or mental health issues and your booking is not confirmed until you have completed this form.
It’s essential you complete our confidential booking form as soon as possible to ensure we can best accommodate your dietary or health-related needs. The Trust also needs this information for insurance purposes.
If you do not fill in the booking form at least one week prior to the retreat or course you may not be able to attend. In these circumstances no refund can be offered. If for any reason you cannot complete the form please get in touch.
If you are supported by a community mental health care team, we ask you to confirm that you have spoken to a psychiatric nurse or other relevant professional or therapist to help you decide if a mindfulness course or retreat is right for you at this time. We may follow up with you to discuss this further.
In some cases it might be advisable for you to wait until you’re feeling more psychologically resilient or try a more gentle introduction to mindfulness such as a 1-day Introduction to Mindfulness course or similar. If it is not the right time to come on a retreat you will be offered a full refund, or transfer to a course at a later date. If you have any questions or concerns or would like to discuss whether a retreat or course is suitable for you then please contact us.
Drug & alcohol addiction
Our retreats are not suitable for people who are currently addicted to drugs or alcohol.
This is because we do not have the expertise or environment to support people who are experiencing withdrawal and detox. Participants need to be at least 6 months into recovery and abstinence in order to attend.
Participant behaviour on a course or retreat
The Trust reserves the right to ask participants to leave a course, retreat or event if their behaviour is deemed inappropriate or is impacting negatively on the experience of other participants. The full fee may not be returned in such cases.
We also ask participants who want to leave any of our courses or retreats unexpectedly to inform the leader beforehand.
