Background: The disappearance of a loved one is a unique type of loss, also termed 'ambiguous loss', which may heighten the risk for developing prolonged grief (PG), depression, and posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. Little is known about protective and risk factors for psychopathology among relatives of missing persons. A potential protective factor is self-compassion, referring to openness ...

Self-compassion has demonstrated many psychological benefits (Neff, 2009). In an effort to explore self-compassion as a potential resource for young women athletes, we explored relations among self-compassion, proneness to self-conscious emotions (i.e., shame, guilt-free shame, guilt, shame-free guilt, authentic pride, and hubristic pride), and potentially unhealthy self-evaluative thoughts and...

Compassion-focused therapy (CFT; Gilbert, 2005, 2009) is a transdiagnostic treatment approach focused on building self-compassion and reducing shame. It is based on the theory that feelings of shame contribute to the maintenance of psychopathology, whereas self-compassion contributes to the alleviation of shame and psychopathology. We sought to test this theory in a transdiagnostic sample of ea...

Research suggests that being self-compassionate can have myriad benefits, including life satisfaction, health-promoting behaviours and improved mental health. Given the possible advantages of being self-compassionate, it seems critical to explore how to promote this in the general population. This qualitative study aimed to understand responses to the idea of being compassionate to oneself with...

Recently, the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) has been criticized for problems with psychometric validity. Further, the use of an overall self-compassion score that includes items representing the lack of self-compassion has been called into question. I argue that the SCS is consistent with my definition of self-compassion, which I see as a dynamic balance between the compassionate versus uncompass...

Self-compassion is conceptualized as containing 3 core components: self-kindness versus self-judgment, common humanity versus isolation, and mindfulness versus overidentification, when relating to painful experiences. Research evidence demonstrates that self-compassion is related to psychological flourishing and reduced psychopathology. Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is an 8-week training progra...

Self-compassion is a self-regulation strategy for countering negative self-directed feelings and emotions. High self-compassionate people treat themselves with kindness, care, and concern when facing negative life experience. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of self-compassion on the use of two self-esteem protecting strategies, self-handicapping and sandbagging. Both stra...