About

Amit Bernstein is a Professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a Core Faculty member at the Center for Healthy Minds, and the Director of the Observing Minds Lab group. His research explores how individuals process, relate to, and respond to their internal states, such as thoughts, sensations, and emotions, with a focus on mindfulness mental training. Through his Observing Minds Lab, he has developed novel theories, measurement methods, and therapeutic tools aimed at advancing the psychological science of internally-directed cognition in wellbeing and mental health. His work includes the Looking In Project, which investigates adaptive and maladaptive internal processing, and the Moments of Refuge Project, which applies these insights to help buffer social adversity and facilitate healing among forcibly displaced communities and survivors of conflict and trauma. Bernstein's clinical expertise encompasses behavioral process-focused case conceptualization, acceptance- and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral interventions, and their adaptation to socio-culturally diverse and marginalized populations, including refugees. He has authored over 170 articles and book chapters, and his work has been recognized with various honors, including appointments to the Israel Young Academy of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Mind and Life Institute Fellows program. Bernstein is committed to engaging with students and early career scientists, fostering a research environment grounded in humility, curiosity, and social impact.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Computer Science
• Cognitive science
• Medicine
• Neuroscience
• Cognitive psychology
• Psychiatry
• Psychoanalysis

Selected publications

• The effects of intensive mindfulness meditation training on mental health: evidence of effectiveness and safety from a matched-controlled intervention study

  Cognitive Behaviour Therapy · 2026-04-29

  articleSenior author

  ClinicalTrials.gov registration ID NCT04749264.

  PublisherDOI

• Affective Mechanisms of Moral Injury in Trauma Recovery Among Asylum Seekers: Exploring the Protective Effects of Mindfulness and Compassion Training

  Clinical Psychological Science · 2025-07-15 · 13 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We aimed to investigate and then therapeutically mitigate the affective-risk mechanisms of moral injury (MI) on trauma recovery among asylum seekers. Study aims were tested in a single-site, randomized, waitlist-controlled trial of mindfulness-based trauma recovery for refugees (MBTR-R) among 158 Eritrean trauma-affected asylum seekers (46.2% female) residing in a high-risk, urban, postdisplacement setting in Israel. First, parallel mediation in PROCESS documented that shame and anger both independently mediated the effects of MI related to moral transgressions committed by the asylum seeker and moral transgressions committed by trusted others (MI-betrayal) on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Second, moderated parallel mediation in PROCESS documented that at 1-week postintervention, MBTR-R moderated the mediated pathways between MI-betrayal, anger, PTSD, and depression. Findings contribute to understanding MI-related affective mechanisms in trauma recovery and how mindfulness- and compassion-based training may therapeutically affect these pathways to recovery after displacement.

  PublisherDOI

• Correction: The Mindful Scientist: How Meditation Could Support Ethical Scientific Practice

  Mindfulness · 2025-10-14

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Mindfulness Internal Attention (MIA) Framework: Uncovering the Attentional Mechanisms of Mindfulness Training

  Annual Review of Psychology · 2025-08-04 · 7 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  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 suggesting that mindfulness training primarily targets internal attention processes, which operate on internally generated or stored information and experience. Additionally, we theorize and review findings suggesting that mindfulness training affects executive functions and working memory processes shared between internal attention and late-stage external attention. In contrast, we theorize and review findings suggesting that mindfulness training does not affect early-stage external attention processes, which do not share cognitive resources with internal attention. Finally, we propose methodological innovations and outstanding questions for future research to advance our understanding of the attentional mechanisms of mindfulness training.

  PublisherDOI

• State Mindfulness Scale (SMS)

  2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Nonrandomized Open Trial of a Mindfulness- and Compassion-Based Selective Preventive Mobile Health Intervention for Forcibly Displaced People

  Mindfulness · 2025-10-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Objectives: 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. Method: A pre-registered, nonrandomized, single-arm, open-trial of Mindfulness-SOS as a selective preventive intervention was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, among 60 Eritrean asylum-seekers living in an unstable urban post-displacement setting in the Middle East (Israel). Measures included digital usage metrics, and self-report measures of stress- and trauma-related mental health and socio-contextual stressors. Results: = 58) demonstrated high rates of adherence to the session modules and generally moderate rates of overall adherence. Elevated pre-intervention post-traumatic stress symptoms severity and post-migration living difficulties stressors prospectively predicted lower levels of engagement with meditation practice exercises. Finally, greater engagement with meditation practice exercises was associated with attenuated deterioration in depression and anxiety, but not with change in post-traumatic stress symptoms, from pre- to post-intervention. Conclusions: Mindfulness-SOS may be a feasible selective preventive intervention approach among asylum-seekers in stressful post-displacement settings. Preregistration: The study was pre-registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04761510; clinicaltrials.gov; 2021-02-17).

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Single Experience and Self-Implicit Association Test (SES-IAT)

  2025-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Effects of Intensive Mindfulness Meditation Training on Mental Health: Evidence of Effectiveness and Safety from a Matched-Controlled Retreat Intervention Study

  2025-03-11

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  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 aimed to study its salutary and adverse effects on mental health. We conducted a preregistered prospective intervention study among 89 adults who registered for 6-day insight mindfulness meditation retreats and 46 matched controls (Mage(SDage) = 33.75(9.50), 56.3% female). Controls were selected from a pool of 543 people recruited from the same community of meditators as retreat participants and matched to retreat participants on age and lifetime meditation experience. Retreat participants demonstrated significant improvements in well-being, negative affect, perseverative thinking, brooding rumination, and depression symptoms at 2-week follow-up compared to matched controls (η² range = .04–.08, ps < .05). Importantly, the % of participants exhibiting statistically reliable deterioration in mental health outcomes at 2-week follow-up were equal or lower among retreat participants than among matched controls in the entire sample, as well as in a sub-sample with clinically elevated depression and/or anxiety (ORs < 1). These findings suggest that a 6-day mindfulness meditation retreat can produce rapid improvements in mental health, comparable to effect sizes of much longer 8-week mindfulness-based programs. These findings also challenge concerns about adverse effects of intensive high-dose meditation training and suggest that it may be a safe and effective intervention modality, even for clinically vulnerable adults struggling with depression or anxiety.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Mindfulness Internal Attention (MIA) Framework: Uncovering the Attentional Mechanisms of Mindfulness Training

  2025-01-30

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Attention is theorized to have a definitive role in mindfulness and its salutary effects. Yet, extant 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 suggesting that mindfulness training primarily targets internal attention processes which operate on internally generated or stored representations and experiences. Additionally, we theorize and review findings suggesting that mindfulness training affects executive functions and working memory processes shared between internal attention and late-stage external attention. In contrast, we theorize and review findings suggesting that mindfulness training does not affect early-stage external attention processes, which do not share cognitive resources with internal attention. Finally, we propose methodological innovations and outstanding questions for future research to advance understanding of the attentional mechanisms of mindfulness training.

  PublisherDOI

• From simple mechanics to complex dynamics: A dynamical systems science of mindfulness and meditation.

  American Psychologist · 2025-10-16

  article1st authorCorresponding

  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 isolates and analyzes discrete components and mechanisms of a system, its mechanics. While valuable, this approach is poorly suited to capturing how change and development emerge from continuous, nonlinear, and recursive interactions unfolding across multiple timescales-its dynamics. To address this gap, we propose that dynamical systems (DS) theory and methods provide a powerful framework for advancing the science of mindfulness and meditation. We introduce a DS organizational framework for mindfulness and meditation science structured around three multifaceted dimensions: complex interaction dynamics, nonlinear causality, and multiscale temporal dynamics. We illustrate how this framework can inform theory building, empirical research, and intervention science in mindfulness and meditation. In turn, we examine how leading psychological and neuroscientific theories of mindfulness and meditation align with DS theory, in contrast to much of the empirical research, which remains rooted in reductionist component-based approaches. Finally, we outline actionable future directions, including the development of formal DS theory and computational models, study designs that collect high-dimensional multiscale data, as well as data analytic tools capable of modeling complex dynamical change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant F31MH073205

  NIH · $75k · 2006

Frequent coauthors

• Michael J. Zvolensky

  95 shared

• Anka A. Vujanovic

  Texas A&M University

  53 shared

• Yuval Hadash

  University of Haifa

  52 shared

• Marcel O. Bonn‐Miller

  Charlotte's Web (United States)

  37 shared

• Galia Tanay

  University of Haifa

  25 shared

• Ariel Zvielli

  University of Haifa

  22 shared

• Iftach Amir

  University of Haifa

  18 shared

• Kim Yuval

  University of Haifa

  17 shared

Labs

• Observing Minds LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Counseling Psychology

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  2005

• M.S., Counseling Psychology

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  2002

• B.A., Psychology

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  1999

Awards & honors

• Israel Young Academy of the Israel National Academy of Scien…
• Mind and Life Institute Fellows program