Clinical Associate Professor Department of Psychiatry University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor, Michigan
Elke Smeets, PhD
Lecturer Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience Maastricht University Maastricht, Netherlands
Kristin Neff, PhD
Associate Professor Department of Educational Psychology University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas
Disclosures
The authors report no financial relationships with any company whose products are mentioned in this article or with manufacturers of competing products.
Early positive relationships with caregivers are associated with self-compassion. Recollections of maternal support are correlated with self-compassion and secure attachment styles in adolescents and adults.61 Pepping et al62 found that retrospective reports of parental rejection, overprotection, and low parental warmth was associated with low self-compassion.
Benefits of self-compassion
A growing body of research suggests that self-compassion is strongly linked to mental health. Greater self-compassion consistently has been associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety,3 with a large effect size.4 Of course, central to self-compassion is the lack of self-criticism, but self-compassion still protects against anxiety and depression when controlling for self-criticism and negative affect.6,63 Self-compassion is a strong predictor of symptom severity and quality of life among individuals with anxious distress.64
The benefits of self-compassion stem partly from a greater ability to cope with negative emotions.6,63,65 Self-compassionate people are less likely to ruminate on their negative thoughts and emotions or suppress them,6,66 which helps to explain why self-compassion is a negative predictor of depression.67
Self-compassion also enhances positive mind states. A number of studies have found links between self-compassion and positive psychological qualities, such as happiness, optimism, wisdom, curiosity, and exploration, and personal initiative.63,65,68,69 By embracing one’s suffering with compassion, negative states are ameliorated when positive emotions of kindness, connectedness, and mindful presence are generated.
Misconceptions about self-compassion
A common misconception is that abandoning self-criticism in favor of self-compassion will undermine motivation70; however, research indicates the opposite. Although self-compassion is negatively associated with maladaptive perfectionism, it is not correlated with self-adopted performance standards.6 Self-compassionate people have less fear of failure54 and, when they do fail, they are more likely to try again.71 Breines and Chen72 found in a series of experimental studies that engendering feelings of self-compassion for personal weaknesses, failures, and past transgressions resulted in more motivation to change, to try harder to learn, and to avoid repeating past mistakes.
Another common misunderstanding is that self-compassion is a weakness. In fact, research suggests that self-compassion is a powerful way to cope with life challenges.73
Although some fear that self-compassion leads to self-indulgence, there is evidence that self-compassion promotes health-related behaviors. Self-compassionate individuals are more likely to seek medical treatment when needed,74 exercise for intrinsic reasons,75 and drink less alcohol.76 Inducing self-compassion has been found to help people stick to their diets77 and quit smoking.78
Self-compassion interventions
Individuals can develop self-compassion. Shapira and Mongrain79 found that adults who wrote a compassionate letter to themselves once a day for a week about the distressing events they were experiencing showed significant reductions in depression up to 3 months and significant increases in happiness up to 6 months compared with a control group who wrote about early memories. Albertson et al80 found that, compared with a wait-list control group, 3 weeks of self-compassion meditation training improved body dissatisfaction, body shame, and body appreciation among women with body image concerns. Similarly, Smeets et al81 found that 3 weeks of self-compassion training for female college students led to significantly greater increases in mindfulness, optimism, and self-efficacy, as well as greater decreases in rumination compared with a time management control group.
The Box6,70,82-86 describes rating scales that can measure self-compassion and self-criticism.
Mindful self-compassion (MSC), developed by Neff and Germer,87 is an 8-week group intervention designed to teach people how to be more self-compassionate through meditation and informal practices in daily life. Results of a randomized controlled trial found that, compared with a wait-list control group, participants using MSC reported significantly greater increases in self-compassion, compassion for others, mindfulness, and life satisfaction, and greater decreases in depression, anxiety, stress, and emotional avoidance, with large effect sizes indicated. These results were maintained up to 1 year.
Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) is designed to enhance self-compassion in clinical populations.88 The approach uses a number of imagery and experiential exercises to enhance patients’ abilities to extend feelings of reassurance, safeness, and understanding toward themselves. CFT has shown promise in treating a diverse group of clinical disorders such as depression and shame,8,89 social anxiety and shame,90 eating disorders,91 psychosis,92 and patients with acquired brain injury.93 A group-based CFT intervention with a heterogeneous group of community mental health patients led to significant reductions in depression, anxiety, stress, and self-criticism.94 See Leaviss and Utley95 for a review of the benefits of CFT.
Fears of developing self-compassion
It is important to note that some people can access self-compassion more easily than others. Highly self-critical patients could feel anxious when learning to be compassionate to themselves, a phenomenon known as “fear of compassion”96 or “backdraft.”97 Backdraft occurs when a firefighter opens a door with a hot fire behind it. Oxygen rushes in, causing a burst of flame. Similarly, when the door of the heart is opened with compassion, intense pain could be released. Unconditional love reveals the conditions under which we were unloved in the past. Some individuals, especially those with a history of childhood abuse or neglect, are fearful of compassion because it activates grief associated with feelings of wanting, but not receiving, affection and care from significant others in childhood.
