The Benefits of Self-Compassion

Considerable research emphasizes the psychological benefits of self-compassion. According to Yamaguchi, Kim, and Akutsu (2014), people who are compassionate to themselves tend to be more psychologically healthy than those who are not compassionate to themselves. Self-compassion is negatively correlated with self-criticism (Yamaguchi, Kim, & Akutsu, 2014), rumination (Krieger, Altenstein, Baettig, Doerig, & Holtforth, 2013; Raes, 2010), worry (Raes, 2010), shame (Johnson & O’Brien, 2013), and irrational beliefs (Podina, Jucan, & David,  2015). The inverse link between self-compassion and depression is firmly established in the psychological literature (Podina, Jucan, & David, 2015; Raes, 2010). A meta-analysis by MacBeth and Gumley (2012) found that across 20 different studies, there was a large effect size when looking at the correlation between low self-compassion and higher rates of psychopathology.

Numerous other potential benefits of self-compassion have been explored. For example, the presence or absence of self-compassion may be able to predict PTSD symptom severity in trauma-exposed war veterans (Hiraoka et al., 2015). Self-compassionate people are described by their partners as more emotionally connected and accepting, while being less detached, controlling, and verbally or physically aggressive (Neff & Beretvas, 2012). Self-compassion has been shown to support health behaviors including sticking to your diet (Adams & Leary, 2007), decreasing smoking (Kelly, Zuroff, Foa, & Gilbert, 2009), seeking medical treatment when needed (Terry & Leary, 2011) and exercising (Magnus, Kowalski, & McHugh, 2010). Self-compassion has been found to be a key factor in helping people adjust after divorce (Sbarra, Smith, & Mehl, 2012). Costa and Pinto-Gouveia (2011) found that self-compassion helped people cope with chronic physical pain.

The following research studies demonstrating the benefits of self-compassion warrant emphasis:

Johnson and O’Brien (2013) took a group of students who were prone to shame and asked them to remember an experience of shame. Then they were assigned to one of three groups: write about the experience self-compassionately, write about their feelings about the event, or do neither. They did this three times over the span of a week. The participants in the self-compassion group reported feeling less shame and negative emotion immediately after writing. Two weeks after completing the experiment, people in the self-compassion group showed less shame-proneness and depressive symptoms, while those in the other groups did not. 

Albertson, Neff, and Dill-Shackleford (2014) randomly assigned a group of multigenerational women to a meditation group or a waitlist group (the control). The meditation group completed a 3-week self-compassion meditation training, after which, compared to the control group, they had significantly lower levels of body dissatisfaction, body shame, and contingent self-worth based on appearance and significantly higher levels of self-compassion and body appreciation. All of these improvements still held true 3 months later!

 Hiraoka, Meyer, Kimbrel, DeBeer, Gulliver, and Morissette (2015) found self-compassion to be correlated with reduced PTSD symptoms even after accounting for differences in combat exposure in a group of US Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans. Self-compassion also predicted PTSD symptom severity a year later even after accounting for combat exposure and baseline PTSD severity.