I am now Professor Emerita and no longer accepting new students or lab volunteers.  If you are a prospective grad student who is interested in mindfulness research, consider applying to work with Dr. Barry Wagner (wagnerb@cua.edu) and Dr. Marcie Goeke-Morey (goekemorey@cua.edu) in the Family Mindfulness Lab.

The Mindfulness and Sport research team has been investigating mindfulness-based interventions for athletes since 2005, when the initial version of Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement (MSPE®) was developed. For more information, visit http://www.mindfulsportperformance.org. Our research has included:

• The role of self-compassion and mindfulness in predicting college student-athletes' daily negative and positive emotions and emotion regulation/coping strategies after the abrupt end of their season due to COVID-19 

• An examination of the moderating role of age on the effects of mindfulness training for female college student-athletes (lacrosse, field hockey, track and field)

• A "best practice" study of MSPE for a club men's rugby team, exploring the role of scheduling mindfulness training either before or after sport practice

• The use of Consensual Qualitative Research methods to analyze interviews with 10 college rugby players who had received training in MSPE

• A randomized controlled trial of MSPE and psychological skills training (collegiate track and field team) 

• Outcome study comparing MSPE and an assessment control group, including state measures of mindfulness, flow, and sport anxiety (women’s collegiate field hockey teams)

• Mindfulness training for athletes: Feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness from within an athletic department (women’s collegiate lacrosse team)

• College athletes’ expectations and experiences with MSPE

• MSPE for college coaches

• A randomized controlled trial of MSPE for mixed-sport collegiate athletes

• MSPE for high school athletes

• Self- and team efficacy beliefs of rowers and their relation to mindfulness and flow

• MSPE for adult recreational athletes (golfers, archers, long-distance runners) and a long-term follow-up

Other studies in my former Anxiety, Mindfulness, and Psychotherapy Integration (AMPIR) Lab focused on several other major areas of interest:

Anxiety and Mindfulness: Research dealt with mindfulness and cognitive factors in anxiety, with greatest emphasis on relations between mindfulness-based interventions and emotions, cognition, personality, and psychological well-being. Some of the areas addressed in previous studies include: 

• Effects of iRest Yoga Nidra and acupuncture on psychological health in veterans

• Development of a measure of mindfulness-related cognitions

• Meta-analysis of the effects of mindfulness- and acceptance-based interventions and cognitive-behavioral interventions on positive and negative affect

• Outcome research on optimal ways to teach mindfulness interventions for stress in University students, including   long-term effects

• Relations between mindfulness, psychological inflexibility, and trait neuroticism

• The role of self-compassion, mindfulness, and psychological inflexibility as predictors of psychological health

• Mindfulness, acceptance, distress tolerance, and response to trauma memory activation 

 Psychotherapy Integration: Research primarily focused on understanding the ways in which different approaches to psychotherapy are combined and integrated in actual practice, including the integration of mindfulness into different psychotherapy orientations. Recent studies included: 

• Predictors and moderators of an internet program for post-traumatic stress in Veterans

• Integrating technology into the collaborative assessment of suicide risk

• Ways that therapists of different theoretical orientations trained in the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) apply it in clinical practice

• Outcome expectations as they relate to the outcome of psychotherapy

• How therapists of different theoretical orientations use DBT and EMDR

• Psychotherapy integration as practiced by experts

• Review of outcome studies on integrative psychotherapies

• Predictors of engagement and outcome in an integrated trauma treatment for women

• Outcome research on Trauma-Focused Integrative Play Therapy