Major Patrick Burgess MBE

Mindfulness Specialist and member of the Defence Mindfulness Steering Group

Major Pat Burgess joined the Army in September 1992 and has had a long and distinguished career including operations to Northern Ireland, the invasion of Iraq (and subsequent tours) and a further three tours of Afghanistan. His interest in Mental Health, Resilience and more specifically Mindfulness started in 2009, whilst on operations in Afghanistan.  He has been practising Mindfulness since then and has gained further qualifications and experience in human sciences.

He is a member of the Defence Mindfulness Steering Group and has run weekly Zoom Mindfulness sessions throughout the COVID-19 period.  He is currently involved in the implementation of Physical Awareness Training (PAT), an innovative approach to bringing Mindfulness based coping strategies into the existing culture of physical training. He runs Mindfulness classes for the permanent staff, both military and civilian, at the Armour Centre in Bovington and has recently created a defence-wide online mindfulness course, which currently has seen over 4000 subscribers internally and has since been released on the Army’s external webpage as open source. His course content and delivery is endorsed by the Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body (CPCAB) and he has his own website: www.oneworldmindfulness.co.uk. This is not his day job! He has also delivered numerous presentations on Mindfulness and coping strategies across Defence, to Primary and Secondary schools, Erlestoke Prison, The Samaritans, MIND mental health charity and to those working in welfare and support roles on behalf of Army Headquarters Health (delivering training to over 6000 personnel to date). He also taught Mindfulness at Glastonbury Festival in 2019.

He has most recently been awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours List in recognition of his tireless work in bringing mindfulness to Defence.

He has a BSC(Hons) in Psychology, a Diploma in Mindfulness, and has been trained in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy at Oxford.