A pilot randomized controlled trial comparing a novel compassion and metacognition approach for schizotypal personality disorder with a combination of cognitive therapy and psychopharmacological treatment.

Background: Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive pattern of maladaptive behavior that has been associated with the liability for schizophrenia. Little is known about effective psychosocial interventions. This pilot non-inferiority randomized controlled trial aimed to compare a novel form of psychotherapy tailored for this disorder and a combination of cognitive therapy and psychopharmacological treatment.

Improvements in Compassion and Fears of Compassion throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multinational Study.

During large-scale disasters, social support, caring behaviours, and compassion are shown to protect against poor mental health outcomes. This multi-national study aimed to assess the fluctuations in compassion over time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondents (Time 1 = 4156, Time 2 = 980, Time 3 = 825) from 23 countries completed online self-report questionnaires measuring the flows of compassion (i.

Physiological response to self-compassion versus relaxation in a clinical population.

Background: Compassion-focused imagery (CFI) can be an effective emotion-regulation technique but can create threat-focused responses in some individuals. However, these findings have been based on tasks involving receiving compassion from others.

Aims: This study sought to compare responses CFI involving self-compassion to relaxation and a control task, and to see whether any threat-responses to self-compassion and relaxation decrease with practice.

At the heart of change: Differences in young offenders' HRV patterns after the delivery of the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program.

Introduction: Literature has pointed the need for intervention programs specifically tailored to target the treatment needs of young offenders, as well as the need to test the efficacy of such programs through physiological indexes of emotion regulation (e.g., heart rate variability; HRV), complementing self-reports typically used as outcome measures.

Modulatory effects of transcranial direct current stimulation of right insula on compassion motivation.

Background: Compassion motivation is associated with increased heart rate variability (HRV), reflecting a calm and self-soothing physiological state. Recent work, however, suggests that this association is dynamic for the specific components of compassion.

Objectives: The present study adopted anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targeting the right insula to see whether this would modulate the sensitivity to suffering and the commitment to engage in helpful actions (i.

Never underestimate fears, blocks, and resistances: The interplay between experiential practices, self-conscious emotions, and the therapeutic relationship in compassion focused therapy.

Experiential practices are a core component of compassion focused therapy (CFT). Throughout the treatment process, the client's engagement with these practices may become blocked, resulting in a rupture in the therapeutic relationship. In these instances, the interplay between these experiential practices and the therapeutic relationship becomes an essential focus of therapy to repair the rupture, re-engage the client in the therapeutic process, and proceed with the CFT treatment plan.

Shame-Based Experiences of Homophobic Bullying and Mental Health: The Mediating Role of Self-Compassionate Actions.

Homophobic experiences with traumatic characteristics related to shame are more frequent among sexual minority (SM) than heterosexual individuals. Concurrently, SM individuals present higher levels of psychopathology and transdiagnostic processes (e.g.

Compassion Focused Group Therapy for People With a Diagnosis of Bipolar Affective Disorder: A Feasibility Study.

Background: Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is an evolutionary informed, biopsychosocial approach to mental health problems and therapy. It suggests that evolved motives (e.g.

Nurturing compassion in schools: A randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of a Compassionate Mind Training program for teachers.

Objectives: Schools are experiencing an unprecedented mental health crisis, with teachers reporting high levels of stress and burnout, which has adverse consequences to their mental and physical health. Addressing mental and physical health problems and promoting wellbeing in educational settings is thus a global priority. This study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of an 8-week Compassionate Mind Training program for Teachers (CMT-T) on indicators of psychological and physiological wellbeing.

Compassion Protects Mental Health and Social Safeness During the COVID-19 Pandemic Across 21 Countries.

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented detrimental impact on mental health in people around the world. It is important therefore to explore factors that may buffer or accentuate the risk of mental health problems in this context. Given that compassion has numerous benefits for mental health, emotion regulation, and social relationships, this study examines the buffering effects of different flows of compassion (for self, for others, from others) against the impact of perceived threat of COVID-19 on depression, anxiety, and stress, and social safeness.

The role of social connection on the experience of COVID-19 related post-traumatic growth and stress.

Background: Historically social connection has been an important way through which humans have coped with large-scale threatening events. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns have deprived people of major sources of social support and coping, with others representing threats. Hence, a major stressor during the pandemic has been a sense of social disconnection and loneliness.

Safe in my heart: resting heart rate variability longitudinally predicts emotion regulation, worry, and sense of safeness during COVID-19 lockdown.

Resting heart rate variability (HRV), a surrogate index of cardiac vagal modulation, is considered a putative biomarker of stress resilience as it reflects the ability to effectively regulate emotions in a changing environment. However, most studies are cross-sectional, precluding longitudinal inferences. The high degree of uncertainty and fear at a global level that characterizes the COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to explore the utility of HRV measures as longitudinal predictors of stress resilience.

HRV patterns associated with different affect regulation systems: Sex differences in adolescents.

Evolutionary perspectives of human behavior propose the existence of three emotion regulation systems (i.e., threat, drive and soothing systems).

Fears of compassion magnify the harmful effects of threat of COVID-19 on mental health and social safeness across 21 countries.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is a massive global health crisis with damaging consequences to mental health and social relationships. Exploring factors that may heighten or buffer the risk of mental health problems in this context is thus critical. Whilst compassion may be a protective factor, in contrast fears of compassion increase vulnerability to psychosocial distress and may amplify the impact of the pandemic on mental health.

Compassion Is Not a Benzo: Distinctive Associations of Heart Rate Variability With Its Empathic and Action Components.

Recent studies have linked compassion with higher vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), a measure of parasympathetic activity, and meta-analytic evidence confirmed significant and positive associations. Compassion, however, is not to be confused with soothing positive emotions: in order to engage in actions aimed to alleviate (self or others) suffering, the pain should resonate, and empathic sensitivity should be experienced first. The present study examined the association between vmHRV and the empathic sensitivity and action components of trait and state compassion.

Compassion-Focused Group Therapy for Treatment-Resistant OCD: Initial Evaluation Using a Multiple Baseline Design.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a debilitating mental health disorder that can easily become a treatment-resistant condition. Although effective therapies exist, only about half of the patients seem to benefit from them when we consider treatment refusal, dropout rates, and residual symptoms. Thus, providing effective augmentation to standard therapies could improve existing treatments.

The compassionate vagus: A meta-analysis on the connection between compassion and heart rate variability.

In recent years, increasing interest has been devoted to the physiological basis of self and other-oriented compassion. Heart rate variability (HRV) represents a promising candidate for such a role, given its association with soothing emotions and context appropriate prefrontal inhibitory control over threat-defensive responses. The aim of this study was to meta-analyze available studies on the association between compassion and HRV.

The social brain and heart rate variability: Implications for psychotherapy.

Purpose: Humans evolved within the mammalian line as a highly social species. Indeed, sociality has been a major driver of human social intelligence. From birth, social relationships have emotional and self-regulating properties and operate through different body systems.

The Factor Structure of the Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale in Thirteen Distinct Populations.

There is considerable evidence that self-criticism plays a major role in the vulnerability to and recovery from psychopathology. Methods to measure this process, and its change over time, are therefore important for research in psychopathology and well-being. This study examined the factor structure of a widely used measure, the Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale in thirteen nonclinical samples ( = 7510) from twelve different countries: Australia ( = 319), Canada ( = 383), Switzerland ( = 230), Israel ( = 476), Italy ( = 389), Japan ( = 264), the Netherlands ( = 360), Portugal ( = 764), Slovakia ( = 1326), Taiwan ( = 417), the United Kingdom 1 ( = 1570), the United Kingdom 2 ( = 883), and USA ( = 331).

Self-reassurance, not self-esteem, serves as a buffer between self-criticism and depressive symptoms.

Objectives: Several studies suggest that self-criticism and self-reassurance operate through different mechanisms and might interact with each other. This study examined the hypothesis that self-reassurance serves as a buffer between self-criticism and depressive symptoms in a way that self-esteem, which is rooted in a different motivational system, may not.

Design: We hypothesized that self-criticism would be correlated with high levels of depressive symptoms, but that this association would be weaker at higher levels of self-reassurance abilities.

Factorial structure and construct validity of an Italian version of the Fears of Compassion Scales: A study on non-clinical subjects.

Objectives: This study was aimed at investigating the factorial structure and the construct validity of the Italian translation of the Fears of Compassion (FC) Scales in a non-clinical sample (i.e., Fear of Compassion From Others [FCFO], Fear of Compassion Towards Others [FCTO] and Fear of Self-Compassion [FSC]).

The Current and Future Role of Heart Rate Variability for Assessing and Training Compassion.

The evolution of mammalian caregiving involving hormones, such as oxytocin, vasopressin, and the myelinated vagal nerve as part of the ventral parasympathetic system, enables humans to connect, co-regulate each other's emotions and create prosociality. Compassion-based interventions draw upon a number of specific exercises and strategies to stimulate these physiological processes and create conditions of "interpersonal safeness," thereby helping people engage with, alleviate, and prevent suffering. Hence, compassion-based approaches are connected with our evolved caring motivation and attachment and our general affiliative systems that help regulate distress.

Compassion-Based Therapy for Trauma-Related Shame and Posttraumatic Stress: Initial Evaluation Using a Multiple Baseline Design.

Accumulating research suggests that shame can strongly contribute to the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Interventions that promote self-compassion have shown promise for reducing shame related to various clinical problems, but this approach has not been systematically evaluated for traumatized individuals. The aim of this study was to develop a brief compassion-based therapy and assess its efficacy for reducing trauma-related shame and PTSD symptoms.

A tailored compassion-focused therapy program for sexual minority young adults with depressive symotomatology: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) men and women represent one of the highest-risk populations for depressive symptomatology and disorders, with young LGB adults being at greatest risk. To date, there have been no randomized controlled trials (RCT) to specifically target depressive symptoms in young LGB adults. This is despite research highlighting unique predictors of depressive symptomatology in this population.

Transcranial direct current stimulation enhances soothing positive affect and vagal tone.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a promising tool for the treatment of depression and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is often targeted when exploring tDCS effects on mood. However, the basic effects of tDCS on momentary emotions are inconsistent. We tested whether a single-session of anodal tDCS over the left temporal lobe (T3), topographically closer to the insular cortex than dlPFC, had effects on both vagally-mediated heart rate variability (HRV) and momentary affect in healthy participants.