Observing Minds Lab مختبر مراقبة الدماغ המעבדה לתודעה מתבוננת
How We Support One Another in Tragedy: Five Principles, in Three Languages by Amit Bernstein, October 2023
Cover story in Haaretz featuring our Observing Minds Lab and Moments of Refuge Project, January 2022
The Global Refugee Crisis: How Can Mindfulness & Compassion Training Help, September 2023
A mental health crisis increasing in Ukrainian people amidst war - opinion by Amit Bernstein, November 2022
Hilik Magnus/ Passport Card
A New Mindfulness Intervention for Ukrainian Refugees Launches this Week, June 2022
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How Mindfulness Is Giving Moments of Peace to Refugees, March 2022
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Keynote Lecture, ICM, Denmark July 2021
Keynote Lecture on MBTR-R in Sydney, Australia
What is Mindfulness-Based Trauma Recovery for Refugees? The intervention involves 9 group sessions (2.5-hours/session) as well as weekly home practice supported by a YouTube channel with weekly guided meditation practices. Briefly, the intervention entails psychoeducation focused on the effects of stress and trauma, mindfulness meditation based closely on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), loving-kindness practices to cultivate compassion for oneself and others, and trauma-sensitive adaptations of meditation to help ensure the safety of meditation for traumatized refugees. The intervention is delivered in ways that are socio-culturally adapted. For example, we involve a cultural mediator/translator from the refugee community in all group sessions, we use socio-culturally relevant metaphors and idioms to communicate ideas throughout the intervention, we integrate cultural practices such as sharing a traditional meal mid-session, etc. Finally, the intervention is delivered within and by the community. For example, the intervention was delivered in a safe space inside the heart of the refugee community, 50% of our team are refugees, members of the community provide child care four group participants, and all shared meals are prepared by members of the community, etc.
We recently completed a randomized waitlist-control study of MBTR-R among traumatized E. African (Eritrean) refugees (N=158) who survived unimaginable traumatic stressors and face ongoing chronic stress post-migration. Findings were exciting and remarkably positive (read full paper here). Asylum seekers who received the mindfulness- and compassion-based training experienced significantly reduced levels of posttraumatic stress and depression symptoms and various destructive intra-personal processes (e.g., anger, shame, self-criticism). For example, whereas asylum seekers in the control condition showed the same levels of psychopathology at post-intervention (only 9% recovered from PTSD), the majority of asylum seekers in the MBTR-R recovered (52% recovered from PTSD).
Please see attached materials and ongoing updates here for summary of project findings, documenting the ways in which MBTR-R may help to provide asylum seekers and refugees with moments of refuge and safety in their lived experience, despite the harsh realities of their lives and immediate future; as well as the initial evidence of the transformative potential of MBTR-R to promote longer-term healing and recovery.
A mental health crisis increasing in Ukrainian people amidst war - opinion by Amit Bernstein, November 2022
Listen to Interview with Amit Bernstein, All in the Mind, National Australian Radio
Listen to interview with Amit Bernstein and leading experts in refugee global mental health crisis, National Elf Service
Read recent blog by Chief Editor of Insight Timer Blog about MBTR-R
A New Intervention: Mindfulness-Based Trauma Recovery For Refugees
“Thanks to Dr. Amit Bernstein and his team at the Observing Minds Lab, a powerful new intervention could be the secret to helping refugees with PTSD recover and heal after living through terror and distress at a time of the largest human migration since WW2”
Psychology Today Post by Dr. Ken Miller Highlighting Emerging Intervention Science for Refugee Mental Health including MBTR-R
American Society of the University of Haifa Q & A
MBTR-R & Mindfulness SOS-R Featured in the ISRAEL21c.org
MBTR-R & Mindfulness SOS-R Featured in the PATCH.com
Present Moment - Mindfulness Practice and Science
Listen to the podcast: Thorsten Barnhofer, Amit Bernstein, and Dave Vago join us to talk about “The science of mindfulness — What do we really know and where do we go?”
Special Issue on Mindfulness, Mind and Life Institute, October 2019
Reaching Thousands of Refugees: Our Next Step.
Before we work to bring MBTR-R to hundreds of thousands or even millions of refugees and asylum seekers who deserve the opportunity to recover and heal, our urgent and ethical responsibility is to first conduct ambitious, rigorous and compassionate scientific study of its efficacy and safety among diverse populations of refugees and asylum seekers around the world.
Moments of Refuge. Moments is a global multi-site, multi-arm study of the mental-, physical-, and inter-generational health effects of MBTR-R among refugees and asylum seekers in urban re-settlement communities and refugee camps in Europe, N. America, as well as low- and middle-income countries in Africa and the Middle East. Moments of Refuge will focus on 5 key aims: (i) We will bring MBTR-R to, and thereby seek to transform the lives of, tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers across the world. (ii) We will test the mental-, physical-, and inter-generational health effects of MBTR-R. (iii) We will test the safety of MBTR-R. (IV) We will optimize the transformative therapeutic delivery of MBTR-R by delineating when, where, and for whom MBTR-R is most effective and safe. (v) We will develop a novel technological platform to maximize the reach, access, and mobility of MBTR-R for even the most isolated and vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers. By orders of magnitude, Moments will be the largest and most ambitious project and study of any mental health intervention tailored to refugees and asylum seekers to-date. If successful, over the next decade, the social and human rights impact of Moments may be transformative for refugees and asylum seekers across the world.
Support Moment, Support Refugees. Due to its global scale and scope, the Moments of Refuge Project will ultimately cost between $4-5 million. We are now working to raise the first $1-2 million from foundations and philanthropists who want to partner with us to transform the lives and communities of refugees and asylum seekers across the world. If you like to discuss how you may join us, please contact Professor Amit Bernstein at: abernstein@psy.haifac.il