Erik van den Brink studied medicine in Amsterdam and trained and worked in psychiatry in the UK. From his return to the Netherlands in 1995 until 2015 he worked as a psychiatrist/psychotherapist in the ambulant mental health services in Groningen. In the latter half of his career, he worked at the Center for Integrative Psychiatry, an innovative mental health clinic, and at a psycho-oncology center. He retired from clinical work in January 2021.

Erik has always been interested in methods that empower people’s self-healing capacity and was one of the pioneers introducing mindfulness-based and compassion focused interventions in mental health services in The Netherlands. He developed as a mindfulness teacher and trainer based on a long-standing personal meditation practice and was trained by founding teachers in MBSR/MBCT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Compassion Focused Therapy, Mindful Self-Compassion, Mindfulness-Based Supervision, and Interpersonal Mindfulness (Insight Dialogue). With Frits Koster he developed the MBCL programme and co-authored several publications. Erik is a guest teacher and trainer for various mindfulness training institutes across Europe and beyond. At request he oƯers eight-week IMP courses or 3 day IMP intensives.

https://mbcl.org/

Relevant publications

- Van den Brink, E. (2023). Interpersonal Mindfulness – Awakening together. In: Koster, F., Heynekamp, J. &

Norton, V. (Eds.), Mindful Communication – Speaking and listening with wisdom and compassion, pp. 36-

53. London: Routledge.

- Van den Brink, E., & Koster, F. (2021). Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living – Cultivating

Relationality with ‘Heartful Mind’ and ‘Mindful Heart’. In: Aristegui, R., Garcia Campayo, J. & Barriga, P.

(Eds.) Relational Mindfulness, pp. 123-144. Springer, Cham.