When Laurence Magro was looking to hold her program on mind-body interventions and mindfulness-based therapies, she knew that the Wainwright House would be the perfect venue for her class.

“I’m delighted to be able to do this in Westchester and Wainwright being a holistic center; it was very appropriate for me to have a workshop here and they were very interested in the process,” said Magro, a licensed mental health counselor. “This course will teach you step-by-step how to tap into a deep internal resource that is available and patiently waiting to be released and used in the service of learning, growing and healing.”

Magro’s experience as a yoga practitioner and mediator has helped form her practice as a psychotherapist. Her eight-week class, “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction,” (MBSR) is an experiential program developed and popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn at UMass Medical School over the past 25 years.

“Mindfulness is intentionally paying attention to the present moment without being pulled into the mind’s usual elaborations of judgment, internal dialog and emotional reactions,” Magro said. “Mindfulness helps us to be with the experience of the moment with gentle compassion and a strong disciplined intention to simply stay present with whatever is happening in the moment, allowing space for the experience to arise and fall away without adding our usual overlay of suffering, frustration or panic.”

Those taking part in the program have already begun to learn how to come into, and remain, in the richness of the present moment, by paying attention to breath, physical sensations, thoughts and feelings through a variety of meditation techniques.

“Over the course of eight weeks we will go through several formal meditative techniques including sitting and walking, body scan…and you will focus on sensations and anything present in the moment,” she said. “We explore these different techniques, and every class will have a theme and it’s really about self discovery through the practices.”

In clinical research, MBSR has been proven to have a profound effect on one’s ability to effectively regulate the mind, the emotions and physical health. MBSR is used in complementary and alternative medicine programs at a number of universities, including UMass, Stanford, Duke, University of Virginia, UC San Francisco and many others around the world.

“It’s not about therapy and going into your past,” she explained. “It’s a very in-the-present moment. It allows people to not miss part of their life by not being present. This makes people more conscious and they have more of a choice of where they want to focus their attention so it provides more clarity of the mind for creative thinking.”

One participant who attended the initial class on Jan. 27 was impressed with how Magro was able to relieve a great deal of her stress.

“I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but I was quickly put at ease and really enjoyed the journey she brought us on,” she said. “I’m looking forward to the next two months and the challenges that are coming.”

Magro explained how the program provides a solid foundation for deep emotional healing and spiritual growth.

“It’s inspiring to observe how people in truly challenging physical and challenging situations are able in a matter of eight weeks of sustained work to improve their own well being and be inspirational to others,” Magro said. “The course includes practices and cognitive techniques and tips that apply to everyday life situations. MBSR offers a powerful integrated approach to working with our daily physical, emotional and psychological stress, as well as offering powerful coping tools for dealing with chronic pain and debilitating illness.”

Incidentally, a number of insurance companies based in the State of New York cover the cost of the program as a treatment for certain medical conditions such as pain management. Magro herself has used the program personally over the years in managing recurrent back pain.

Those in the class receive handouts, CDs of the practices and other guides that are expected to be used outside of the classroom.

“People have home practice to do so they can learn to devote time every day,” Magro said. “In the group a discussion highlights what people are discovering about themselves and their true challenges and it’s an integral part of this.”

The class will continue to meet on Wednesdays until the end of March.