Mindfulness
September 30, 2026
Yoel A. Behar, Yuval Hadash, Omer Dar et al.
Abstract Objective We aimed to test whether mental health problems are associated with distressing experiences during intensive meditation training and with the impact of these experiences following intensive training. Method We conducted a preregistered prospective matched-control study comparing 6-day insight mindfulness meditation retreats ( n = 89) to daily living among matched controls ( n...
JMIR Mental Health
June 12, 2026
Polina Beloborodova, Lillian M. Smith, Kevin M. Riordan et al.
Background: Digital meditation-based interventions (MBIs) reach vast global audiences with millions of active users, yet concerns persist about the frequency and nature of adverse experiences (ie, AExs) occurring during meditation training. Some researchers have argued that AExs are substantially underdetected and reflect iatrogenic harm caused by meditation (ie, adverse effects [AEfs]). Others...
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
April 29, 2026
Yuval Hadash, Omer Dar, Romi Oren-Schwartz et al.
Despite increased public interest and research on intensive high-dose mental health interventions, much remains unknown about the mental health effects and safety of multi-day intensive high-dose mindfulness meditation training. Accordingly, we conducted a preregistered prospective intervention study among 89 adults who registered for 6-day insight mindfulness meditation retreats and 46 matched...
Annual Review of Psychology
2026
Yuval Hadash, Omer Dar, Iftach Amir et al.
Attention is theorized to have a definitive role in mindfulness and its salutary effects. Yet, findings from more than two decades of research testing this central theoretical premise have been surprisingly mixed. To account for this paradoxical disparity between theory and findings, we propose the Mindfulness Internal Attention (MIA) framework. We theorize and review initial findings...
American Psychologist
2026
Amit Bernstein, Noga Aviad, Yuval Hadash et al.
Mindfulness meditation is a robust and rapidly growing area of inquiry in the psychological sciences. However, core questions remain about how mindfulness develops, how it exerts its effects, and what conditions amplify or attenuate these effects. We argue that empirical research on mindfulness has predominantly relied on reductionist decomposition-a foundational scientific approach that...
Mindfulness
October 2, 2025
Shani Zohar Puris, Kim Yuval, Gebreyohans Gebremariam et al.
This study tested the feasibility of Mindfulness-SOS for Refugees, a novel lay- and minimally guided mobile health mindfulness- and compassion-based intervention, that is trauma-sensitive and socio-culturally adapted for diverse forcibly displaced people. A pre-registered, nonrandomized, single-arm, open-trial of Mindfulness-SOS as a selective preventive intervention was conducted during the...
Mindfulness
September 2, 2025
Kevin Berryman, Yanli Lin, Sara W. Lazar et al.
4 citations
Abstract Ethical principles and societal regulations are critical to scientific integrity, but individual human factors greatly influence adherence to them. Personal virtues may play a significant role in reinforcing adherence to communal ethical scientific practices but remain largely unexplored. This paper examines how cultivating mindful ethical virtues through meditation could support...
Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science
March 1, 2025
Noga Aviad, Oz Moskovich, Ophir Orenstein et al.
There has been rapid growth of neuroelectrophysiological studies that aspire to uncover the "black box" of mindfulness and meditation. Reliance on traditional data analysis methods hinders understanding of the complex, nonlinear, multidimensional, and systemic nature of the functional neuroelectrophysiology of meditation states. Thus, to reveal the complex systemic neuroelectrophysiology of...
Psychopharmacology
January 18, 2025
Sharon R. Sznitman, Yoel A. Behar, Sheila Daniela Dicker-Oren et al.
3 citations
Abstract Rationale To examine the acute effects of ayahuasca use and their relationship to sub-acute changes in affect and mindfulness in a non-clinical sample, addressing the need for a better understanding of ayahuasca’s immediate and short-term impacts as interest in its use grows. Objectives Using prospective ecological assessment, this study investigates how ayahuasca used at a 4-day...
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
April 1, 2024
Yuval Hadash, Tatyana Veksler, Omer Dar et al.
8 citations
We sought to address a growing debate regarding the adverse and salutary impact of unusual, extraordinary or intense subjective experiences during meditation-based interventions. To do so, we empirically characterized such peak experiences during an intensive meditation intervention and their impact postintervention. We conducted a preregistered prospective intervention study among 96 adults...
July 31, 2023
Yuval Hadash, Omer Dar, Iftach Amir et al.
preprint
Although attention is thought to have a definitive role in mindfulness and its salutary outcomes, extant empirical findings from more than two decades of research on the effects on mindfulness training on attention are mixed and provide only partial support for this central theoretical premise. To account for these findings, as well as to advance field-wide understanding of mindfulness...
PsyArXiv
March 8, 2023
Yuval Hadash, Tatyana Veksler, Omer Dar et al.
preprint
Objective: We sought to address a growing debate regarding the adverse and salutary impact of unusual, extraordinary, or intense subjective experiences during meditation-based interventions. To do so, we empirically characterized such peak experiences during an intensive meditation intervention and their impact post-intervention. Method: We conducted a preregistered prospective intervention...
Psychological Assessment
March 2023
Yuval Hadash, Liad Ruimi, Amit Bernstein
Training attention and awareness in mindfulness meditation is theorized to be essential for the cultivation of mindfulness and its salutary outcomes. Yet, the empirical foundation for this central premise in mindfulness science is surprisingly small due to a limited methodological capacity to measure attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation. Accordingly, we set out to measure and...
Psychological Assessment
July 23, 2020
Adam W. Hanley, Amit Bernstein, Yoshio Nakamura et al.
The ability to decenter from internal experiences is important for mental health. Consequently, improving decentering is a common therapeutic target, particularly for mindfulness-based interventions. However, extant decentering measures are limited as they fail to directly assess all 3 metacognitive processes recently theorized to subserve decentering. We thus conducted 4 studies to develop and...
Psychotherapy
April 30, 2020
Simon B. Goldberg, Adam W. Hanley, Scott A. Baldwin et al.
22 citations
Mindfulness-based interventions are commonly used to reduce psychological symptoms and enhance positive qualities of human functioning. However, the influence of mindfulness practice dosage remains poorly understood, limiting dissemination and implementation efforts. The current study examined the association between practice dosage and several constructs related to psychological functioning...
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
February 2017
Adi Shoham, Pavel Goldstein, Ravit Oren et al.
Through intensive experience sampling, we studied the practice and development of mindfulness as a dynamic process in time and context. We focused on role(s) and salutary function(s) of mindfulness and decentering for emotional experience over the course of mindfulness practice and development. Eighty-two meditation-naive adults from the general community, 52% women, Mage (SD) = 25.05 (3.26)...
Psychological Assessment
April 14, 2016
Yuval Hadash, Reut Plonsker, David R. Vago et al.
69 citations
We propose that Experiential Self-Referential Processing (ESRP)-the cognitive association of present moment subjective experience (e.g., sensations, emotions, thoughts) with the self-underlies various forms of maladaptation. We theorize that mindfulness contributes to mental health by engendering Experiential Selfless Processing (ESLP)-processing present moment subjective experience without...
Behavior Therapy
September 2012
Galia Tanay, Gili Lotan, Amit Bernstein
The present study evaluated the effect of a brief mindfulness-based preventive intervention on (a) dispositional (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003) and state (SMS; Tanay & Bernstein, 2010) mindfulness; (b) putative proximal factors/processes engendered through the development of mindfulness, including increased decentering (EQ-D; Fresco et al., 2007) and reduced experiential avoidance (AAQ; Hayes et...
Depression and Anxiety
2008
Marcel O Bonn-Miller, Michael J Zvolensky, Amit Bernstein et al.
29 citations
The present investigation evaluated whether coping motives for marijuana use interacted with past 30-day frequency of marijuana use in relation to anxiety-relevant variables among community-recruited young adult marijuana users (n=149). As expected, after covarying cigarettes per day, alcohol use, and total years of marijuana use, the interaction between frequency of past 30-day marijuana use...