Greg Feldman is a clinical psychologist who studies interventions to treat stress, depression, and anxiety, including cognitive-behavioral therapy and mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches. He also researches basic processes underlying emotion regulation and psychological well-being. His current scholarly work is focused on understanding the psychological and physiological effects of music listening.
Education
- Clinical internship: Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital
- Post-doctoral fellowship: Massachusetts General Hospital
- PhD and MS, University of Miami
- BA, University of Connecticut
License/Certifications
- Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Area of Expertise
Professor Feldman’s clinically-oriented research has included studies examining strategies for enhancing the efficacy of psychotherapy for depression. He also co-authored a book examining the integration of self-management strategies with professionally-delivered treatments for depression. Most recently, he has collaborated on studies of brief music-based interventions for coping with test anxiety and medical conditions.
A major focus of his research has been on understanding effective strategies for regulating emotions in everyday life. In both clinical and non-clinical studies, Feldman and his collaborators have found that mindfulness training can help people become aware of negative emotions and thoughts without being overly distressed or consumed by them and can serve as a helpful alternative to unstructured mobile phone screen time as a method of promoting physiological and psychological relaxation. They also have found that people who are more mindful tend to persist with challenging situations, demonstrate adaptive responses to stress, and avoid risky behavior such as texting while driving.
They also have examined how personality traits and emotion regulation strategies influence how people persist with personal goals and maintain psychological well-being in challenging circumstances including college students balancing academic demands, climbers scaling Mount Everest, and parents raising preschoolers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
His research uses laboratory experiments, psychophysiological assessment, and intensive longitudinal designs. Feldman and his collaborators have developed questionnaires assessing mindfulness, mental anticipatory coping, and response to positive emotions. Please email to request a copy of any of these questionnaires.
Courses
- PSYC 230 Theories of Personality
- PSYC 231 Psychopathology and Mental Health
- PSYC 251 Neuroscience of Music
- PSYC 304 Research in Personality (with lab)
- PSYC 331 Seminar in Clinical Psychology
Research/Special Projects
Professor Feldman regularly collaborates with Simmons student researchers including an on-going series of studies examining the emotional, cognitive, and physiological effects of various self-care and leisure activities including music listening, mobile phone use, and mindfulness meditation.
Publications/Presentations
* indicates Simmons undergraduate student / alumna co-author
Donovan, E., Feldman, G., Turner, G., & *O’Donnell, K. (in press). Under pressure: Listening to music reduces test anxiety and mitigates its effect on exam performance more than writing about worries among female college students. The Journal of Experimental Education.
Martin, S. E., Donovan, E., *Curry, C., *Rice, C., Feldman, G., & Wargo Aikins, J. (2026). Pandemic parenting: Parental emotions and preschoolers adjustment during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Family Relations.
Feldman, G., *Westine, M., *Edelman, A., *Higgs, M., *Renna, M., Greeson, J. (2025). Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R). In: Medvedev, O.N., Krägeloh, C.U., Siegert, R.J., Singh, N.N. (eds) Handbook of Assessment in Mindfulness Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47219-0_19
Donovan, E., Green Assuied, V., Feldman, G., Tachdjian, R., *Curry, C., *Rice, C., & Zeltzer, L. (2024). The acceptability of Songs of Love for youth living with chronic pain. International Journal of Adolescent Health, 36(2), 161-168.
Feldman, G., *Westine, M., *Edelman, A., & *Higgs, M. (2023). A mindful alternative to screen time: The short-term effects of a breath-focused mindfulness exercise vs. unstructured smartphone screen time on heart rate variability and relaxation. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 42(6), 581-607.
Feldman, G., Martin, S., & Donovan, E. (2023). Psychological flexibility as a predictor of mental health outcomes in parents of pre-school children during the COVID-19 pandemic: A two-year longitudinal study. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 116–119.
For a complete list of Professor Feldman’s publications, please visit my Google Scholar Page
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