Welcome to AIBL!

The Anxiety and Illness Behaviour Laboratory (AIBL) is part of the Department of Psychology at the University of Regina. It is run under the direction of Gordon J. G. Asmundson, OC, SOM, Ph.D., FRSC, FCAHS, R.D. Psych. with co-direction from R. Nicholas Carleton, Ph.D., R.D. Psych. The lab is situated on the main campus within the Centre for Kinesiology and Health Studies and has close working relationships with other local, national, and international research groups. Students working in the AIBL come from the Clinical Psychology program in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Regina.

AIBL researchers and our colleagues are currently conducting investigations designed to better understand fear of pain and movement (i.e., kinesiophobia), health anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, and the associations between each of these and chronic pain and disability. This research is supported by a variety of grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as well as other external funding agencies.

Current research developed and conducted by the AIBL focuses on the study of COVID Stress through the Psychology of Pandemics Network, an international research collaboration co-directed by Dr. Gordon Asmundson and Dr. Steven Taylor (University of British Columbia).

Recent attention has turned to better understanding climate anxiety, its mechanisms, its assessment, and its impact on well-being and functional ability.

Click here to learn more about our work with the PsyPan Network!

Click here to view a list of our current ongoing studies, along with pertinent information for prospective students!

Operating Mission and Philosophy

  • The mission of the AIBL is to increase our understanding of the nature of anxiety and related disorders and to contribute to the development and empirical evaluation of methods for their treatment.
  • The AIBL is a teaching laboratory, with an explicit focus on training advanced undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral trainees in the development of scientific values and skills that will allow them to pursue careers as productive and influential Canadian clinical scientists. This approach is based on the assumption that the critical examination of subject matter and utilization of empirical methods to answer questions about mental and physical health will be the most fruitful in making strides toward alleviating human suffering.
  • An overarching instructional aim is to help trainees at all levels become versatile and complete clinical scientists and health practitioners.

Emergency Contact Numbers

In the event of an emergency or if you are experiencing significant suicidal concerns please call 911.

If you live in or near Regina you can also contact Mobile Crisis Services at (306) 757-0127. If you live in or near Saskatoon you can contact (306) 933-6200.