The fundamental mission of the Mindful Behavior Therapy and Psychophysiology (MAPLab) is to develop knowledge and methods that can be used to alleviate human suffering and enhance well-being from a non-WEIRD (Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic cuntry) global perspective. We strive to advance this overarching goal by: (a) engaging in cross-cultural research designed to better understand the nature of biobehavioral disorders; (b) engaging in applied research focused on the development and evaluation of innovative clinical procedures; (c) sharing our learning through teaching, supervision, and scholarly writing; and (d) providing direct clinical services to persons in medical settings and outpatient mental health settings using a scientist-practitioner model of service delivery.
The MAPLab is a component of the Behavioral Medicine Concentration area in the APA-Approved Clinical Psychology Training Program at Bowling Green State University. William H. O'Brien, Ph.D., ABPP is the director of the lab and typically 6-10 USA doctoral students are engaged in MAPLab research along with graduate students from China, Thailand, and other parts of the world. Undergraduates from the USA, China, Thailand, and Europe, are also engaged in research. The MAPLab is intimately connected to researchers who study 3rd wave therapies from Eastern perspectives at the East-West Psychological Science and Research Center at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand; Chaing Mai University in Thailand; and Duke Kunshan University in China.
Current MAPLab projects include:
1. Developing and testing enhanced ACT interventions that are more completely connected to their historical, philosophical, and technical roots in Eastern Philosophy/Buddhism. Self- and other-compassion, loving-kindness, happiness, nonself attachment, impermanence, forgiveness, and equanimity are some of the key elements that appear to have been lost when 3rd wave WEIRD researchers acquired, secularizd, and disseminated interventions.
2. Developing sources of references so that 3rd wave researchers and students can more properly reference the origin of concepts such as acceptance, defusion, self-as-context, and present-moment focus.
3. A RCT evaluating the effectiveness of EPACT (Eastern Philosophy ACT) for nursing aides who experience injury, assault, and abuse in the USA and Thailand.
4. Acceptance, compassion, nonself-attachment, forgiveness, equanmity and heart rate variability reactions to stress.
5. Acceptance and medical outcomes among Latinos with HIV/AIDS
6. ACT and FAP for nursing home residents.
7. Predicting psychological reactions to the pandemc and long-covid in the USA, Thailand, and China.
Please see our webpage for additional information and updates on research findings:
(This webpage was updated on May 4, 2018)