Directors

A message from Drs. Monteiro & Musten: In 2023, the OMC celebrated its 20th anniversary. We are mindfully (a bit sadly) entering our pre-retirement phase of life. Having developed and offered mindfulness interventions for the last 20 years, we are immensely grateful for and humbled by the commitment of our colleagues, program participants and the very special facilitators who trained at the OMC. They have, without exception, made our practice more profound and our joys immeasurable.

Dr. Lynette Monteiro, C.Psych. is a psychologist in private practice, Clinical Professor (University of Ottawa), and co-founder of the Ottawa Mindfulness Clinic (OMC). Born in Rangoon, Burma, she was strongly influenced by her grandmothers, one who was Catholic and the other Buddhist. Through her work as a Zen practitioner and psychologist, Lynette also understood the intricate link between physiology and emotional states as she explored what it meant to grow up in a violent dictatorship and experience being uprooted from family and friends as a child. She is trained in MBSR, MBCT, MiCBT, Buddhist Chaplaincy, and is Certified as a Teacher of Mindful Self Compassion. As Director of Professional Training and a Clinical Supervisor, Lynette has developed a comprehensive training program for professional training in Mindfulness Interventions. Her writings on Buddhism are published at 108 Zen Books and writings on Mindfulness are found here in the Ottawa Mindfulness Clinic blog. Articles in peer-reviewed journals are available on Academia.edu.

Dr. R.F. Musten, C.Psych. is a psychologist in private practice, Clinical Professor (University of Ottawa) and co-founder of the Ottawa Mindfulness Clinic. As Director of Programming at the OMC and Clinical Supervisor, he has facilitated several MBSM programs on burnout resilience and managing operational stress injury since 2003. He is a trained teacher of Mindful Self-Compassion. Frank’s private practice focuses on work-related stress, work-place harassment, and the psychological consequences of wrongful dismissal. He has published in Organizational Psychology books and articles for various magazines including Canadian Business, Ottawa Magazine, and Ottawa Business Life. Along with these research positions, and while in private practice, he taught Organizational Behaviour at York University, the University of Ottawa, and Concordia University. He offers seminars and workshops on workplace stress management to Federal Government departments, universities, and other organizations.

Together, Drs Monteiro and Musten developed Mindfulness-Based Symptom Management (MBSM), a program belonging to a class of Second-Generation Mindfulness Interventions that focus on the development of mindfulness practices in the context of clarifying values that promote health and well-being.

Mindfulness Starts Here: An eight-week guide to skillful living is the MBSM workbook co-authored by Lynette Monteiro and Frank Musten. Other publications include contributions to edited books Buddhist Foundations of Mindfulness (Springer 2015) and Lotus Petals in the Snow: Voices of Canadian Buddhist Women (Sumeru Press 2015). They are co-editors of Practitioner’s Guide to Ethics and Mindfulness Based Interventions (Springer 2017).