MBSR?
Programs
CDs and DVDs
The Awareness and Relaxation Faculty
Soudabeh Azizi, MFT holds a Master of Arts degree in Counseling Depth Psychology. She is a licensed Marriage, Family, and Child therapist in private practice in Menlo Park, Ca. She has been a practitioner of mindfulness meditation since 1980 and teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program. She is a part time faculty member at Foothill College in Los Altos. She has been an active contributor to the Zen Hospice Project of San Francisco, providing services to their clients at Laguna Honda Hospital in mindful and compassionate approaches to death and dying. She can be reached by email at
Jan Landry, BSN MA has worked in the field of hospice care both as a nurse and as a chaplain, for over 30 years. Her work in the field of death and dying, serves as an ongoing reminder of how precious each and every moment of life is, and informs her meditation practice which has developed and deepened over many years. She is a yoga practitioner, a student of the Ridhwan School and of life. As a teacher of mindfulness meditation, she hopes to support others in cultivating a practice of mindfulness that fosters awareness and deep listening to the inner wisdom of one's own heart. She can be reached by email at
Julie Forbes, Ph.D., teaches the Mindfulness Meditation Program for A.R.T. in corporate, educational, community and clinical settings. She received a doctorate in psychology in 1999 and has twenty years of experience working in the computer industry. Julie’s inpiration for teaching originates out o fher own meditation practice, which she initiated in 1985. She has completed professional training in Mindfulness–Based Stress Reduction with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. and through the Stress Reduction Clinic at El Camino Hospital. She can be reached by email at
Ed Plonka, M.D. is a geriatric/internal medicine physician practicing at El Camino Hospital. He has a special interest in working with chronic illnesses and death and dying. He has been practicing mindfulness-based stress reduction since 1998 and teaching since 2009. He can be reached at
Marcy Reynolds, B.A., is a longtime student of holistic health, having taught qigong, yoga, nutrition and western herbalism for many years. Chronic Fatigue led her to the self-healing practice of qigong which has been instrumental in her complete recovery and continues to bring depth, peace and healing into her life and the lives of her students. She can be reached at
Bob Stahl, Ph.D. has founded 7 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs in medical centers throughout the San Francisco bay Area and currently directs programs at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, and O'Connor Hospital in San Jose. Bob also serves as an Adjunct Senior Oasis Teacher for Oasis - the institute for mindfulness-based professional education and innovation of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Bob has conducted many mindfulness programs for physicians and health care professionals, as well as for those seeking relief from chronic stress and illness. He is a long time practitioner of mindfulness meditation, having practiced for over eight years in a Buddhist monastery. Bob is a certified mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher from UMass Medical Center. He can be reached by email at
Joji Yoshimura, Ph.D. is a psychologist at Kaiser Medical Center, Santa Clara in the Department of Psychiatry, where he teaches Mindfulness based classes. He has taught MBSR at San Jose and Santa Clara Kaiser Medical Centers, and is currently teaching MBSR at Stanford University as part of a research project on Social Anxiety. He has work in the field of mental health for over thirty-five years. In addition to working at Kaiser, Joji has a private practice in Cupertino. Joji can be reached by email at .
Karen Zelin, B.A., is a Mindfulness and Yoga and a Mindfulness Meditation teacher for A.R.T. at the Santa Cruz Medical Foundation. She has been a student of meditation and yoga for many years and is currently enrolled in a teacher training program at the Iyengar Institute of San Francisco. She also works as a trainer for the Catalyst Consulting Team, teaching leadership and team development. Karen has completed professional training in Mindfulness–Based Stress Reduction with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. She can be reached by email at