Dr. Yowon Choi

Dr. Yowon Choi is a licensed psychologist in South Korea and a federally certified psychologist in Switzerland. For more than 20 years she has worked as a psychotherapist and mindfulness teacher in South Korea, the United States, the Netherlands and Switzerland, which gives her work a culturally aware, international outlook.

She has worked with many different people and concerns. Drawing on her own life in several countries, she specializes in supporting individuals and families facing acculturation stress, relocation, and the complex relationships of multicultural settings. She brings both scientific knowledge and a deep meditation practice to her work, combining the latest findings of psychological science with compassionate care to help every client grow in a real and lasting way.

Psychotherapy and coaching

Yowon works as a psychotherapist in Korea, with individuals, couples and groups. She creates a supportive setting in which clients can work on personal and relationship challenges, Her approach is integrative: she combines evidence-based methods to foster psychological well-being and personal growth. See also Psychotherapy.

Her experience includes comprehensive psychological assessments. She has also given mindfulness-based coaching and supervision to professionals in health care and education, in Europe and Korea.

Mindfulness and meditation

Yowon has practiced meditation for more than three decades, in the Korean Seon (Zen) and Vipassana traditions. She has completed numerous intensive retreats of one month up to 100 days, in South Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, the United States and Europe, and still joins a month-long retreat every year. Her main teachers are Ven. Chungwha Sunim and Ven. Yongta Sunim in the Seon tradition, and Sayadaw U Pandita in the Vipassana tradition. She teaches with the recognition and blessing of her teachers in both traditions.

She trained as a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness, where MBSR began, studying personally with Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed MBSR, and Saki F. Santorelli, the Center’s longtime director. She is a certified MBSR teacher of the Swiss MBSR Association, has helped train new MBSR teachers at Radboud University Medical Center, and has taught meditation in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Korea since 2009.

Research

Alongside her clinical work, Yowon is a researcher dedicated to the science of emotional well-being. She was a senior researcher at Seoul National University (Center for Happiness Studies), a researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam (World Database of Happiness), and a researcher in the Mind-Brain-Mindfulness Group at Radboud University Nijmegen. Her PhD research was on happiness and mindfulness, and her studies suggest that mindfulness promotes mental health and happiness. As she puts it herself: “When we are mindful, the mind remains untainted and wholesome, and therefore a more sustainable happiness arises.”

Work with organizations

Yowon has been a corporate trainer in stress reduction and well-being for companies including LG, SK and ING, an Insight Dialogue facilitator for the Metta Program Foundation (USA), and a program researcher for the Dongsasup Foundation in Seoul. See the programs for organizations

Education and credentials

• PhD in Psychology, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
• MA and BA in Psychology, Yonsei University, South Korea
• Licensed Clinical Psychologist (level 1) and Youth Counselor (level 1), South Korea (national licenses)
• Certified Counselor of the Korean Psychological Association (No. 645)
• Federally certified psychologist, Switzerland
• Certified MBSR teacher, Swiss MBSR Association
• MBSR teacher training, University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness, USA