After her first Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course in 2003, Joan took her first steps on her path to becoming a facilitator. Nineteen years later, she has taught MBSR around the city at different venues, particularly at the Martha Stewart Center for Healthy Living, Mt. Sinai Hospital, for over the last 15 years.
She completed the Professional Training workshop led by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD., and Saki Santorelli, Ed.D, Exec. Director of the UMass Center for Mindfulness (CFM) in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, as well as the MBSR practicum and Teacher Development Intensive at CFM in Worcester, MA. As a former family caregiver, she tailored the 8-week course to caregivers’ concerns. With Patricia Bloom, MD, she developed a pain intervention model MBPR, Mindfulness-Based Pain Relief.
She deepens her practice and understanding through retreats, courses, studying online with Sharon Salzberg, Tara Brach, and Jack Kornfield, and at Zen Contemplative Care and New York Insight, as well as continuing extensive reading and ongoing personal supervision. She is a storyteller with a MA in cross-cultural mythology, Jungian and religious studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute, CA, and a MFA in film from School of the Arts at Columbia University. She is a certified Coach of Open Focus™ Attention, a dynamic pain management tool.
Over the last two years, she deeply trained in pain management as she healed from a sacrum fracture.
