INTRODUCTION There is a growing body of evidence within the health care community suggesting that developing feelings of compassion can profoundly affect physical and psychological health. This is an important area of work, and initial research with nonprofessional groups has found that practicing compassion through a variety of experiential practices and meditations can lead to higher levels o...

Two studies assessed the role of self-compassion as a moderator of the relationship between physical health and subjective well-being in the elderly. In Study 1, 132 participants, ranging in age from 67-90 years, completed a questionnaire that assessed their perceptions of their physical health, self-compassion, and subjective well-being. Participants who were in good physical health had high s...

Self-compassion refers to a kind and nurturing attitude toward oneself during situations that threaten one’s adequacy, while recognizing that being imperfect is part of being human. Although growing evidence indicates that selfcompassion is related to a wide range of desirable psychological outcomes, little research has explored self-compassion in older adults. The present study investigated th...

Should intimates respond to their interpersonal mistakes with self-criticism or with self-compassion? Although it is reasonable to expect self-compassion to benefit relationships by promoting self-esteem, it is also reasonable to expect self-compassion to hurt relationships by removing intimates' motivation to correct their interpersonal mistakes. Two correlational studies, 1 experiment, and 1 ...

Psychologists tend to report high levels of occupational stress, with serious implications for themselves, their clients, and the discipline as a whole. Recent research suggests that self-compassion is a promising construct for psychologists in terms of its ability to promote psychological wellbeing and resilience to stress; however, the potential benefits of self-compassion are yet to be thoro...

OBJECTIVES To identify the mechanisms involved in the association between self-compassion and depression, we examined whether adaptive emotion regulation would mediate the relationship between self-compassion and depression in individuals with unipolar depression. Furthermore, we explored which specific emotion regulation skills would be most important in this relationship. DESIGN AND METHOD ...

Mindfulness and self-compassion are overlapping, but distinct constructs that characterize how people relate to emotional distress. Both are associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and may be related to functional disability. Although self-compassion includes mindful awareness of emotional distress, it is a broader construct that also includes being kind and supportive to oneself a...

Research on the effects of mindfulness- and compassion-based interventions is flourishing along with self-report scales to assess facets of these broad concepts. However, debates remain as to which mental practices are most appropriate to develop the attentional, cognitive, and socio-affective facets of mindfulness and compassion. One crucial question is whether present-moment, attention-focuse...

Self-compassion enhances psychological well-being, and compassion-focused therapy aims to alleviate psychological distress by fostering its development. The experience of becoming self-compassionate for people with complex mental health difficulties has not been analysed in the literature, despite clinical observations that this process is difficult. This study explored the process of becoming ...

The purpose of the present research was to examine the relationships between self-compassion and women's body image. In Study 1, female undergraduates (N=142) completed three measures of body image and measures of self-esteem and self-compassion. Results showed that high self-compassion predicted fewer body concerns independently of self-esteem. Moreover, when both self-compassion and self-este...