About Be Mindful Fife

Be Mindful Fife seeks to address the growing mental health crisis for individuals, but also providing training for public, private and third sector organisation by offering group workshops on issues such as self-care, burnout, compassion fatigue and working with trauma.

What We Do

We offer two main services:

Individual Support: One-to-one counselling and psychotherapy for people experiencing dis-ease, such as stress, anxiety, grief, trauma etc.

Organizational Training: Health and wellbeing workshops and training courses for teams, staff, and managers who want to build resilience, self-care and prevent burnout before it happens. Over the years, I’ve worked with diverse organisations including NHS Fife and Social Care services, Scottish Ambulance Service, Police Scotland, universities (St. Andrews, Stirling and Edinburgh), Fife Educational Services, Fife Council, Fife CAMHS, DAPL, Circle, FIRST, Home Start, National Manufacturing Institute of Scotland, Realise, Stellar UK, Scottish Parliament, and Sadaya (military veterans) etc. 

Why This Matters Now

Even before the pandemic, experts had identified a “mental health crisis” in personal life, and a “global epidemic of burnout” in the workplace. Since COVID-19, the demand for mental health support has intensified dramatically. Many organisations are recognising that supporting their people’s wellbeing isn’t just compassionate—it’s essential for sustainable performance.

Our Approach to the Workplace

We provide practical education and resources that help both individuals and organisations:

  • Develop self-awareness (mindfulness)
  • Develop effective self-care strategies
  • Recognise early warning signs of burnout and compassion fatigue
  • Build resilience and maintain good mental health
  • Create healthier workplace cultures

Our Experience

Dr Bill Paterson is a relational, emotional and somatic trauma therapist, mindfulness & compassion teacher based in Fife, Scotland. He is a registered member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the British Association of Mindfulness Based Approaches (BAMBA), and holds a post-graduate qualification in Contact-Orientated Therapy in Natural Settings. Since 2016, Bill has worked on the front line of trauma — with first responders, paramedics, police, military veterans, people in addiction recovery, and traumatised young people (+18). His approach draws on body-centred methods including polyvagal theory, somatic practice, and compassion-based techniques, helping clients to feel safe enough in their bodies to begin working through their experiences.

In his private practice, Bill specialises in trauma, supporting clients to understand and regulate their own nervous system responses — including hypervigilance, dissociation, and shame — so they can move towards recovery. He offers both walk-and-talk therapy and indoor sessions, recognising that movement and the natural environment can be particularly powerful for trauma survivors. Bill has worked with NHS and Social Care staff, a secondment to CAMHS, addiction services with Drugs, Alcohol, Psychotherapies Ltd (DAPL), and with the homeless charity Trust in Fife, bringing specialist therapeutic skills to some of the most marginalised communities in Fife. A committed practitioner and lifelong learner, he is currently completing supervision training with Human Development Scotland, and is developing a nature-based therapeutic group for men in the woods of Fife.

Counsellor/Psychotherapist and Group Facilitator: A wee bit about Bill

Nearly 15 years ago, at my first mindfulness class a stranger said to me “All human beings seek to be held and heard, Bill. If these are denied, people will often find unhealthy ways of suppressing or meeting these needs”. I often hear these words echo in me.

So I made a commitment to learn how to ‘hold and hear’ those human beings that had been denied these basic needs. The result has been the creation of Be Mindful Fife. Mindfulness and Compassion are at the heart of everything I do.

My career path is not conventional but I think that is a good thing. It means I have met so many diverse people. All with different ways of seeing the world because of their unique life experiences. I did not go to university until I was twenty-seven, but this meant I could connect my life experience to many of my courses and PhD.

Since 2014, I have worked at the frontline of mental health and trauma in Fife.

This has required me to explore and to take a further journey of study . With the Mindfulness Association, I took one year courses studying Mindfulness (Level 1), Compassion (Level 2), Insight (Level 3), and Mindfulness for Life (Level 4). I also completed two one year teacher training course for the Mindfulness Based Living Course and the Compassion Based Living Course. Then I completed my Mindfulness Supervision training to supervise mindfulness teachers. As an intern at the MA, I have twice taught Compassion (Level 2) for the MA. In my private work I have taught Insight training three times to different groups.

After studying with NHS Education for Scotland (NES), I spent years delivering Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) to people experiencing anxiety and depression in Fife,  I was seconded to CAMHS Fife to create and deliver the mindfulness in schools for Fife Education’s 2017 Our Minds Matter. I left to explore and understand somatic/energy body based approaches to trauma, and to create Be Mindful Fife. From here I have provided Mindfulness & Compassion training to organisations in the public, private and third sector of Scotland (BAMBA). To date I have taught the MBLC to 60 different groups.

To ensure I could work safely and ethically 1-2-1 with individuals, I then studied and qualified as a Counsellor and Psychotherapist (BACP). All this training and experience is integrated to enable me to offer a unique approach to my clients and organisations. The journey continues as I am always learning.

I still live in Dunfermline with my family. I love walking and camping in the mountains, the woods, and the beaches. I have a passion for open water swimming in the seas and lochs.

I can often be found oot n aboot with the Fife Wild Swimmers near and far.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is about learning to develop a deep sense of self awareness, self-regulation and acting skilfully with this information.

It is about learning to bring your awareness to notice what’s happening in your mind and body or your environment right now, with curiosity and acceptance rather than judgment. Once you can accept what is actually happening, you can then make skilful choices about what to do.

Skilful choices are those that create less suffering for self and others, whilst unskilful choices create more suffering for self and other.

It is therefore about working with your mind rather than a relaxation strategy. 

Why Does This Matter?

Most of the time, our minds are stuck thinking about the past or worrying about the future. When this happens, we often react to emotions and thoughts from yesterday or tomorrow as if they’re happening right now. This leads us to make impulsive decisions that can create unnecessary suffering for ourselves and others. We might call this unskilful choices

The Cinema Analogy

Think of your mind like a cinema projector. The projector itself is your natural awareness—always present, always shining. Your thoughts, emotions, and sensations are like films passing through the light of your awareness, and they appear on the screen of the mind.

When we’re not mindful, we get completely absorbed in the “movie” of our thoughts, emotions and sensations. We forget that we’re just watching a story unfold in the mind. We react as if the film is reality itself—getting upset, excited, or overwhelmed by what we see on screen.

But when you practice mindfulness, you remember that thoughts are not facts—they’re just information passing through your awareness, like the film through the projector’s light. This recognition gives you freedom to not automatically become your thoughts and feeling, but rather to choose how to respond rather than simply reacting.

The Practical Benefit

Learning mindfulness from an experienced teacher can help you make more skilful choices. Instead of being carried away by every thought or emotion, you can pause, and notice what’s actually happening right now, and respond in ways that create less suffering for yourself and others.

Mindfulness is not about being happy or relaxed all the time or pushing away difficult feelings. It’s about accepting the full range of human experience—you are “the whole rainbow of emotions”—while learning to respond skilfully rather than react unskilfully.