Soothing Your Heart and Feeling Connected: A New Experimental Paradigm to Study the Benefits of Self-Compassion. (May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kirschner, Hans; Kuyken, Willem; Wright, Kim; Roberts, Henrietta; Brejcha, Claire; Karl, Anke
• Is Part Of: Clinical psychological science. Volume 7:Number 3(2019)
• Page Start: 545
• Page End: 565
• Publication Date: 2019-05
• Subjects: self-compassion -- self-criticism -- psychophysiology -- positive affiliative affect; Clinical psychology -- Periodicals; 616.89
• DOI: 10.1177/2167702618812438
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2167-7026

Abstract

Self-compassion and its cultivation in psychological interventions are associated with improved mental health and well-being. However, the underlying processes for this are not well understood. We randomly assigned 135 participants to study the effect of two short-term self-compassion exercises on self-reported-state mood and psychophysiological responses compared to three control conditions of negative (rumination), neutral, and positive (excitement) valence. Increased self-reported-state self-compassion, affiliative affect, and decreased self-criticism were found after both self-compassion exercises and the positive-excitement condition. However, a psychophysiological response pattern of reduced arousal (reduced heart rate and skin conductance) and increased parasympathetic activation (increased heart rate variability) were unique to the self-compassion conditions. This pattern is associated with effective emotion regulation in times of adversity. As predicted, rumination triggered the opposite pattern across self-report and physiological responses. Furthermore, we found partial evidence that physiological arousal reduction and parasympathetic activation precede the experience of feeling safe and connected.