Frequently asked
Considered answers to considered questions.
The work
A structured, repeatable method for examining the assumptions that organise your experience — taught as a procedure, not as a philosophy. The work develops four capacities: attentional stability, meta-awareness, cognitive defusion and flexibility under load. Each corresponds to a construct with a research literature and a validated instrument. See Methodology.
Parts of it look like meditation. We avoid the word because it carries associations — relaxation, wellness, stress reduction — that describe neither the work nor its purpose. What we teach is analytic: attention placed deliberately, and then used to examine what attention is doing.
No. Our programmes are education in a method. They are not medical care, psychotherapy, counselling or psychiatric treatment, and they are not a substitute for any of them. We treat no conditions and make no health claims. If you are seeking treatment, please see a clinician. If you are currently in treatment, discuss participation with your clinician first and tell us during screening.
We do not promise that, we do not sell on that basis, and we will not make a health claim. Our subject is the quality of attention and judgment, not stress. The published evidence for stress reduction against an active comparison is considerably weaker than this industry suggests — we set that out in full on Evidence and limits. If stress reduction is what you are looking for, this is probably not the right programme, and we would rather say so now than take your money.
We do not treat any condition and make no therapeutic claims of any kind. If you are seeking help with anxiety, depression or any other condition, please consult a clinician. Certain psychiatric histories are grounds for us to decline an application, which is one of the reasons screening exists.
None is assumed. the Six-Week Cohort is written for people starting from nothing. Prior contemplative experience is neither required nor an advantage — occasionally it is a mild obstacle, because the work asks you to examine assumptions rather than to accumulate practice.
None. There is no doctrine, no membership, nothing to join, and no metaphysical commitment implied or requested. The origin of the method is contemplative and we say so openly. The method itself is analytic and secular.
It draws on published research in attention and metacognition — research conducted by other people, on their own interventions and populations. We have run no trials of our own programmes and do not claim to have. The wider evidence base is genuinely mixed, and we publish its limits in full rather than selecting the flattering half. See Evidence and limits.
Admission
Because intensive work with attention is not appropriate for everyone, and the published literature on adverse effects is clear enough that screening is a safety requirement rather than a sales step. Every applicant completes a health and history questionnaire and speaks with a member of our teaching team before a decision.
Applicants with certain psychiatric histories, applicants currently in acute crisis, applicants seeking treatment for a condition, and applicants looking for a spiritual community — which we are not. Exclusion criteria are written down and set with clinical input, not decided case by case at commercial discretion. If we decline you, we tell you why, and you pay nothing.
Five working days from the conversation, with a reason given either way. Nothing is charged at application.
A limited number may be offered on the Six-Week Cohort. There is no published scheme and no guarantee; if cost is the obstacle, say so in your application and we will tell you honestly whether anything is available.
Practicalities
Structured practice periods, direct instruction, individual sessions with a teacher, and substantial unstructured time that is part of the design rather than a gap in it. No phones during practice periods. No performance, no sharing circles, no group processing of personal history.
Small numbers, teaching time per participant, and a screening process that costs us admissions rather than earning them. We publish prices because at this level opacity reads as negotiability.
the Six-Week Cohort may be paid by card. Corporate and Individual engagements are invoiced and settled by bank transfer. A deposit secures a place and the balance falls due before the programme begins — we never take the full fee up front. Full terms are provided before any payment is taken.
Every participant has an unconditional 14-day cancellation right from enrolment, with a full refund of everything paid, including the deposit. Separately, consumers in the EU and the UK have a statutory right of withdrawal which we honour where it applies. After that window, refundability reduces as the programme date approaches, because places are held and commitments made. The full schedule is in the Refund Policy and is shown in full before you pay.
Yes. We publish no participant names, use no client logos, and ask the same discretion of participants regarding one another. Private and corporate engagements are covered by mutual non-disclosure as standard. Confidentiality runs one way only: nothing we ask you to sign restricts your ability to review, criticise or publicly describe this Institute, including negatively.
The Institute
No, to both. Atma Clarity LLC is a private commercial training provider. It is not an accredited educational institution, is not authorised to grant academic degrees, and awards no academic credit. It is not affiliated with any university. “Institute” appears in our mark descriptively and denotes no accredited or degree-granting status.
No. We are an applied institute. We cite published work by others and we measure our own participants with validated instruments so that they receive an honest account of what changed. We will not publish aggregate before-and-after results as evidence that our programmes work, because uncontrolled data of that kind cannot support a causal claim.
We take enquiries from public-sector and institutional clients and assess them individually. Requirements around procurement, data handling and reporting are agreed in writing before any engagement begins.
Atma Clarity LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company. Its founder and Director of Practice is Salvador Atma, who separately runs Atma Retreats Ltd in the United Kingdom — a distinct company with separate operations, contracts and records.
Write to corrections@atmaclarity.com. We hold ourselves to a written rule — we describe what we teach and what we measure, and we do not describe what will happen to you. If you find copy anywhere on this site that breaks it, we will correct it.
Still deciding?
Read what the evidence does and does not support before you do anything else. It is the page we would want to read.