Mental health providers (MHPs) in conflict zones are essential in supporting individuals, families, and communities traumatized by war and disruption of basic needs. Exposure to such suffering puts MHPs at high risk for compassion fatigue (CF), compromising their well-being and effectiveness, and leading to burnout and reduced care quality. This project aims to understand and …
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Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) for Educational Leaders: Exploring efficacy and change processes
Educational leaders are vital for promoting positive traits in their learning communities. They also are highly impactful on teacher, staff, and student wellbeing. However, if leaders are struggling, their work, and by extension the educational community, may suffer. Although a wealth of research existson how to support teachers using mindfulness-based approaches, much less is known …
How are mindfulness meditation teachers implementing social justice literacy in their classes?
Many mindfulness practitioners are trying to find ways to address the fast-emerging demands to end social injustice around the world. This interdisciplinary project aims to investigate, for the first time, how mindfulness meditation teachers and courses are incorporating social justice literacy training, and how such incorporation is perceived to intersect with fostering personal well-being. Focusing …
Skillful means and compassion in high school: Exploring a relational approach to compassion training with adolescents
Adolescence is an important time of life to teach the qualities and skills of compassion. While desires to form positive relationships and contribute to the world-at-large begin to grow, adolescence is also a time when relational challenges arise, including peer pressure to conform, social “othering,” and social exclusion. To support adolescents, current approaches to contemplative …
Engaging stakeholders to nurture emotional resilience among environmental experts and stewards
People working on the frontlines of environmental protection, natural systems stewardship, and climate action are experiencing high levels of distress and burnout. The goal of this project is to conduct research for and with people engaged in these environmental efforts to understand their emotional experiences and contemplative practices that may support their mental health. Our …
Eat Breathe Thrive with Baby & Beyond: Adapting and evaluating the feasibility & acceptability of an eating disorder prevention program among economically-diverse BIPOC birthing people in North Carolina integrated care settings
In the US, the risks to the mental and physical well-being of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) during the peripartum, further compounded by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and collective racial trauma have reached crisis levels. At the same time, the peripartum has been identified as a critical period for assessing and intervening to …
Fostering compassionate communities: Enhancing empathy for diverse others by intentional listening – Behavioral, physiological, and neural mechanisms
Escalating social polarization, occurring globally and characterized by increasingly divergent views on key issues, is straining societal bonds and communication. To counter this, it’s crucial to encourage practices that promote understanding and respectful discourse among those with differing views. This project aims to explore the potential of intentional listening – actively seeking discomfort when listening …
“healing attempt”: A digital music-based mindfulness intervention for Black Americans with elevated race-based anxiety
Race-based anxiety is a major health problem for Black Americans, yet there are few interventions to address this issue. Thus, we created “healing attempt,” a brief (~40 minute), digital music-based mindfulness intervention consisting of originally-composed meditations, songs, and poetry, all of which are set to music tracks rooted in Black music traditions (e.g., soul). The …
Recovering the relational roots of compassion training: Supporting sustainable and inclusive care
Many forms of meditation in the West have been incorporated into an individualistic understanding of people, in which a person attempts to cultivate love, compassion, and wisdom through their own effort. This project will examine the impact of recovering a traditional relational framework to compassion training. Within a relational framework, practitioners first learn to experience …
Testing an interpersonal model of mindfulness: A randomized controlled study
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2017), over 14% of the US population practice mindfulness meditation. The effects of mindfulness-training on physical and mental health have been consistently documented, but its effects on interpersonal relationships are not yet fully understood or investigated. Interpersonal relationships play a crucial role in the well-being of …
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