Amit Bernstein

Amit Bernstein is a Professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology, a Core Faculty at the Center for Healthy Minds, and the Director of the Observing Minds Lab group. Prior to his appointment at UW-Madison, Amit was a Professor of Clinical Psychology in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Haifa, in Israel. Amit is also the proud father of Yonatan and twins Mia and Noga. Outside of the office, Amit is a CrossFit devotee and NPR podcast fan!

The way we look in and interact with our inner mental life can both fuel suffering and unlock our innate capacity to heal and thrive. Accordingly, through the Looking In Project, Amit’s Observing Minds Lab group has explored the adaptive and maladaptive ways that we process, relate to, and respond to our internal states, such as our thoughts, physical sensations, and emotions. Amit’s group has developed novel theory, measurement methods, and therapeutic tools – centered on mindfulness mental training – in order to advance the psychological science of internally-directed cognition in wellbeing and mental health. Through the more applied Moments of Refuge Project, Amit’s group has therapeutically translated these insights and tools to help buffer the toxicity of social adversity and facilitate healing among forcibly displaced communities and survivors of conflict and collective trauma. To do this work, his group has pioneered trauma-sensitive mindfulness- and compassion-based therapeutics through an inter-disciplinary, inter-cultural and community-based mobile lab embedded in post-displacement communities.

Amit enjoys engaging with students, trainees, and early career scientists – hoping to inspire young scholars to pursue rigorous science, innovation, interdisciplinarity, and intercultural connection. He strives to help cultivate a research and learning environment grounded in intellectual humility, curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking—while also fostering kindness and shared joy in the pursuit of science with a social impact mission. Clinically, Amit’s expertise includes behavioral process-focused case conceptualization, acceptance- and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral interventions, and the adaptation of these approaches to socio-culturally diverse and marginalized populations (e.g., refugees).

With students and colleagues, Amit has authored over 170 articles and book chapters (h-index = 66), and edited a book and multiple journal special issues (see Select Publications below). Amit’s work has been recognized with a variety of honors and awards, including appointments to the Israel Young Academy of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Mind and Life Institute Fellows program. Likewise, all of Amit’s PhD mentees and postdoctoral fellows have successfully competed for intramural, national or international fellowships or grants to support their training and research. Among his most recent PhD mentee graduates, one is on a Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University, another on a Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellowship and Israel Science Foundation Fellowship at the Washington University in St. Louis, and a third is leading intervention research innovation in industry.

Amit is recruiting postdoctoral, doctoral, MA and BA trainees interested in a research career to join the new Observing Minds Lab at the Center for Healthy Minds at UW-Madison.