Looking Back

Some Reflections on the Beginnings of the UVA Mindfulness Center

By Allie Rudolph

I appreciate having been asked to share my reflections on how the UVA Mindfulness Center got started. My first reaction on being asked was:  Wow!… I can’t believe it’s been 30 years! My second reaction was, and continues to be, an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for the group of far seeing and dedicated people who got together not only to bring mindfulness to the University of Virginia, but to the Charlottesville community at large.

As the clinical social worker who joined the faculty of the then nascent Department of Family Medicine in 1980, my primary role as a faculty member teaching residents, medical students and other students rotating through the Department, was to help integrate the behavioral sciences into the curriculum of the Medical Center. I thus became more focused on bridging the gap between evidence-based science and mind/body approaches and the healing arts in general, exploring both what healing means and how to offer tools to both doctors and patients that would facilitate the healing process. Thanks to this exploration. I discovered meditation and mindfulness and personally began a formal meditation practice that helped me incorporate its teachings and methods into my psychotherapy practice and teaching.

In 1993 I had a good fortune to learn of a workshop in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) that was being offered by Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleague Saki Santorelli at the Medical Center of the University of Massachusetts in Worcester. My good fortune continued when I found Tussi Kuttner Kluge attending the same workshop. Tussi was a massage therapist and had recently opened the Dogwood Institute in Charlottesville, the first local mind-body center. We quickly learned that we lived in the same city and that we shared identical aspirations of bringing mindfulness to our community, so we joined forces. We attended the first teacher training for MBSR at UMass in 1994 with Jon and Saki and soon after in 1995 we began an eight-week program in MBSR at the Dogwood Institute, which was the first such program in Charlottesville.

Based on the experience we gained in teaching the first few classes at the Institute, Tussi supported and helped launch the University of Virginia Mindfulness Center.  Its first class was offered to patients referred by the Family Medicine Department who were suffering from difficult health and stress-related issues.  As we continued to offer classes, they were well received and the future of the program was secured by a supporting grant given by Tussi’s late husband, John Kluge.

I am grateful to the Department of Family Practice and to its chair Lewis Barnett M.D. who supported and agreed to the establishment of and to house the Mindfulness Center in 1996.  I offer special thanks to David Waters Ph.D, my work partner and co-director of the Family Stress Clinic at which we taught, saw patients and consulted with students and other faculty.  David offered unwavering support for the MBSR program from its beginning and throughout its ten-year tenure in the Department.

We were very fortunate to have Dr. Matt Goodman from the Department of Medicine step forward early in the development of the program and join in teaching classes with us.  He offered not only a physician’s presence but a delightful easygoing and fun style of teaching.  Over time we were able to offer three to four MBSR programs a year.  A highlight of that time was offering a day-long retreat on the Morven estate, led by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who also addressed the University community at a formal dinner at the Rotunda.

As we evolved, Matt and John Schorling began offering MBSR for physicians and other healthcare providers, and additional MBSR-trained teachers joined us.  These included a Mindfulness of Eating series led by health educator Gail Todter PhD; and mindfulness training to the UVA football team offered by Joe Jackson PhD; and MBSR courses taught by Mark Oberman, Susan Stone and Sam Green.

At the time of my retirement in 2006, the Department of Medicine became the home of the Mindfulness Center and Dr. John Schorling has served as its director to the present time.

Based and grounded on the Buddhist teachings and practices in wisdom and compassion, I am honored to have been a part of this endeavor. I am happy in thinking back on how this small ripple in the huge wave of mindfulness taught across the world, has touched the hearts and minds of so many people in our community and continues to do so.   I am grateful for all the teachers and mentors who have guided my path, for all my colleagues connected to the Center and for the courage of all the students and patients who have embarked upon engaging in these invaluable teachings.

Now getting older and experiencing an aging body and brain, and witnessing so much turbulence in our country and the world, I remain so very grateful that mindfulness was introduced into my life and it continues to be a foundation of support and guidance as I navigate the many rapids of change that life brings.

And, with deep appreciation to my teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn, I commend to you his instruction that “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”   And he would often add, “Practice as if your life depended on it; weave your parachute every day, rather than the time you jump out of the plane.”