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Mindful self-compassion intervention among young adults with a history of childhood maltreatment: Reducing psychopathological symptoms, shame, and self-criticism

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Abstract

Child maltreatment has long-term destructive effects on a person’s psychological health. Therefore, it seems necessary to take interventions to reduce psychological symptoms and regulate the emotion of these people. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program on reducing psychopathological symptoms, shame, and self-criticism in young adults with a history of childhood maltreatment. The research plan was a semi-experimental design with a control group. Forty-four eligible young adults in Isfahan (Iran) enrolled in an MSC course. The participants consisted of 19 males (43%) and 25 females (57%) from 18 to 25 years old. They were randomly assigned to the experimental (N = 24) and control (N = 23) groups. The experimental group participated in eight 2-h sessions of the MSC program. The results indicated that the experimental group showed a significant decrease in anxiety (p < .001), depression (p < .01), internal shame (p < .05), self-criticism (p < .000), and a significant increase in self-compassion (p < .01) compared to the control group in both post-test and follow-up. Also, a significant reduction was observed in external shame (p < .001) and stress (p < .01) in the experimental group immediately after the end of the intervention but there were no long-term effects at the two-month follow-up (P > .05). Based on the findings, it can be concluded that MCS can improve depression, anxiety, self-criticism, internal shame, and self-compassion in young adults with childhood maltreatment. Further studies with longer follow-up periods and larger sample groups with different demographics need to be conducted to confirm these findings.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Mozhdeh Sajjadi, Azam Noferesti & Maryam Abbasi

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  1. Mozhdeh Sajjadi
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Correspondence to Mozhdeh Sajjadi.

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The study received ethical approval from the Ethic Committee of the Tehran University Faculty of Psychology and Education. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Sajjadi, M., Noferesti, A. & Abbasi, M. Mindful self-compassion intervention among young adults with a history of childhood maltreatment: Reducing psychopathological symptoms, shame, and self-criticism. Curr Psychol 42, 26227–26237 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03761-0

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