Self-compassion

Self-compassion is extending compassion to one's self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering. Kristin Neff has defined self-compassion as being composed of three main components – self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.Barring superficial semantic distinction, it is similar to self-acceptance notion in CBT or Morita therapy. Self-compassion is extending compassion to one's self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering. Kristin Neff has defined self-compassion as being composed of three main components – self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.Barring superficial semantic distinction, it is similar to self-acceptance notion in CBT or Morita therapy. Self-compassion has been considered to resemble Carl Rogers' notion of 'unconditional positive regard' applied both towards clients and oneself; Albert Ellis' 'unconditional self-acceptance'; Maryhelen Snyder's notion of an 'internal empathizer' that explored one's own experience with 'curiosity and compassion'; Ann Weiser Cornell's notion of a gentle, allowing relationship with all parts of one's being; and Judith Jordan's concept of self-empathy, which implies acceptance, care and empathy towards the self. Self-compassion is different from self-pity, a state of mind or emotional response of a person believing to be a victim and lacking the confidence and competence to cope with an adverse situation. Research indicates that self-compassionate individuals experience greater psychological health than those who lack self-compassion. For example, self-compassion is positively associated with life satisfaction, wisdom, happiness, optimism, curiosity, learning goals, social connectedness, personal responsibility, and emotional resilience. At the same time, it is associated with a lower tendency for self-criticism, depression, anxiety, rumination, thought suppression, perfectionism, and disordered eating attitudes. Self-compassion has different effects than self-esteem, a subjective emotional evaluation of the self. Although psychologists extolled the benefits of self-esteem for many years, recent research has exposed costs associated with the pursuit of high self-esteem, including narcissism, distorted self-perceptions, contingent and/or unstable self-worth, as well as anger and violence toward those who threaten the ego. It appears that self-compassion offers the same mental health benefits as self-esteem, but with fewer of its drawbacks such as narcissism, ego-defensive anger, inaccurate self-perceptions, self-worth contingency, or social comparison. Much of the research conducted on self-compassion so far has used the Self-Compassion Scale, created by Kristin Neff, which measures the degree to which individuals display self-kindness against self-judgment, common humanity versus isolation, and mindfulness versus over-identification. The Self-Compassion Scale has been translated into different languages. Some of these include a Czech, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Turkish and Greek version. The original sample for which the scale was developed consisted of 68 undergraduate students from a large university in the United States. In this experiment, the participants narrowed down the potential scale items to 71. The next stage of development involved testing the reliability and validity of the scale among a larger group of participants. During this research study, 391 undergraduate students were selected at random to complete the 71 previously narrowed down scale items. Based on their results, the number of items was reduced to 26. The self-compassion scales have good reliability and validity.