Psychological Assessment
April 14, 2016
Yuval Hadash, Reut Plonsker, David R. Vago et al.
69 citations
The cognitive association of present-moment subjective experience with the self, termed Experiential Self-Referential Processing (ESRP), may underlie various forms of maladaptation, while mindfulness may promote mental health by fostering Experiential Selfless Processing (ESLP), which involves processing experience without self-referentiality. A new implicit behavioral measure, the Single Experience & Self Implicit Association Test (SES-IAT), was developed to assess ESRP and ESLP of fear. In a randomized experiment with 138 adults, preliminary evidence suggested the SES-IAT measures ESLP and two forms of ESRP: identification with fear and negative self-referential evaluation of fear. ESRP and ESLP were associated with meta-awareness and key psychobehavioral processes underlying adaptation and maladaptation.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
April 1, 2024
Yuval Hadash, Tatyana Veksler, Omer Dar et al.
8 citations
Intensive meditation retreats produce primarily pleasant peak experiences—such as deep peace or sudden insights—rather than unpleasant ones. In a preregistered study, 96 adults attending 6-day Vipassana retreats reported more pleasant peak experiences than 47 matched controls from the same meditation community. Unpleasant peak experiences did not differ significantly between groups. At two-week follow-up, both pleasant and most unpleasant peak experiences were rated as more beneficial than harmful, with a large average effect size (Cohen's d = 1.61). The findings contradict uncontrolled retrospective studies suggesting that intensive meditation training often leads to adverse experiences.
August 31, 2025
Amit Bernstein, Noga Aviad, Yuval Hadash et al.
preprint
Research on mindfulness meditation has largely relied on reductionist decomposition, which isolates discrete components and mechanisms but fails to capture how change emerges from continuous, nonlinear, and recursive interactions across multiple timescales. Dynamical Systems (DS) theory and methods offer a powerful framework to address this gap. A DS organizational framework structured around complex interaction dynamics, nonlinear causality, and multiscale temporal dynamics can inform theory-building, empirical research, and intervention science. Leading psychological and neuroscientific theories align with DS theory, unlike much empirical research. Future directions include developing formal DS models, collecting high-dimensional multiscale data, and using analytic tools for complex dynamical change.
July 31, 2023
Yuval Hadash, Omer Dar, Iftach Amir et al.
preprint
Decades of research on how mindfulness training affects attention have produced mixed results. To explain these findings, the Mindfulness Internal Attention (MIA) framework proposes that mindfulness primarily trains internal attention—processes focused on internally generated experiences like bodily sensations and thoughts. These internal attentional skills then generalize to late-stage external processes that handle abstracted information, such as inhibitory control and working memory updating. However, mindfulness training is unlikely to affect early-stage external processes that handle raw sensory input, like alerting or orienting to visual stimuli. Internal attention is proposed as essential for key mindfulness benefits like decentering and acceptance. A critical review of empirical findings supports this framework.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
April 29, 2026
Yuval Hadash, Omer Dar, Romi Oren-Schwartz et al.
A 6-day intensive mindfulness meditation retreat led to significant improvements in well-being, negative affect, perseverative thinking, brooding rumination, and depression symptoms at a 2-week follow-up compared to matched controls, with effect sizes comparable to longer 8-week mindfulness programs. Effects on positive affect, emotion regulation, and anxiety symptoms were not significant. Rates of reliable deterioration in mental health were equal or lower among retreat participants than controls, including among those with clinically elevated depression or anxiety. The findings suggest that such retreats are safe and effective, even for clinically vulnerable adults.
The American psychologist
January 1, 2026
Amit Bernstein, Noga Aviad, Yuval Hadash et al.
Mindfulness meditation research has largely used reductionist methods that isolate individual components and mechanisms, which is ill-suited for studying how change emerges from continuous, nonlinear, and recursive interactions across multiple timescales. Dynamical systems theory and methods offer a powerful alternative framework. The authors propose an organizational framework structured around complex interaction dynamics, nonlinear causality, and multiscale temporal dynamics. They examine how leading psychological and neuroscientific theories align with dynamical systems theory, unlike most empirical research. Future directions include developing formal dynamical systems theory and computational models, collecting high-dimensional multiscale data, and using analytic tools that model complex dynamical change.
Annual Review of Psychology
January 1, 2026
Yuval Hadash, Omer Dar, Iftach Amir et al.
A new framework, the Mindfulness Internal Attention (MIA) framework, proposes that mindfulness training primarily targets internal attention—processes operating on internally generated or stored information—rather than early-stage external attention. The framework reviews evidence suggesting that mindfulness training affects executive functions and working memory shared between internal and late-stage external attention, but does not affect early-stage external attention processes that do not share cognitive resources with internal attention. This account reconciles the paradoxical disparity between theoretical predictions and mixed empirical findings from over two decades of research on attention and mindfulness.