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Gepubliceerd in: Cognitive Therapy and Research 5/2017

29-03-2017 | Brief Report

Self-Compassion, Self-Injury, and Pain

Auteurs: Wesley Ellen Gregory, Jillian V. Glazer, Kathy R. Berenson

Gepubliceerd in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Uitgave 5/2017

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Abstract

We conducted an experiment to examine self-compassion and responses to pain among undergraduate women with and without histories of self-injury. After a writing task that has been shown to increase self-compassion in a values-affirming condition relative to a neutral control condition, participants completed a self-report measure of state self-compassion and the cold pressor task. As predicted, participants with a history of self-injury reported lower trait self-compassion than those without such a history, and participants in the values-affirming condition reported significantly higher state self-compassion than those in the control condition. Moreover, participants with a history of self-injury demonstrated significantly less insensitivity to pain in the values-affirming condition than the control condition. Future research should investigate the possibility that interventions involving self-compassion and/or affirmation of values may help correct high-risk responses to pain among those who self-injure.
Voetnoten
1
In addition, we excluded four male participants who were accidently recruited for this study of women, and three other participants for whom the water temperature was outside the required 6°–8° temperature range due to a miscommunication of experimenter instructions.
 
2
After one participant spontaneously remarked that regular ice baths were a required part of her athletic training, we started asking all participants about their use of ice baths after they had completed the study.
 
3
Compassion is a complex but positive state, so it is not surprising that the words used to assess it overlap with positive feelings. Nevertheless, because one item in our state self-compassion scale (‘joyful’) stands out from the others for its connotations of pleasure, we conducted supplementary analyses to evaluate the role that this item played in the previous results. First, we repeated our analyses of state self-compassion while omitting the ‘joyful’ item, and found the same significant effect of condition, F(1, 60) = 6.33, p = .015, d = 0.63. Then, we added ‘joyful’ as a covariate, and found that the effect of condition was no longer significant, F(1, 59) = 0.19, p = .667, d = 0.11. These analyses suggest that the values-affirmation manipulation had a significant effect on state self-compassion even when no words reflecting simple positive affect were included in our state self-compassion scale. Nevertheless, state self-compassion after the manipulation was clearly associated with pleasurable feelings, and we are unable to demonstrate that effects on self-compassion occurred independent of effects on these feelings.
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
Self-Compassion, Self-Injury, and Pain
Auteurs
Wesley Ellen Gregory
Jillian V. Glazer
Kathy R. Berenson
Publicatiedatum
29-03-2017
Uitgeverij
Springer US
Gepubliceerd in
Cognitive Therapy and Research / Uitgave 5/2017
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-017-9846-9

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