Barriers to self-compassion for female survivors of childhood maltreatment: The roles of fear of self-compassion and psychological inflexibility

Self‐compassion, trauma, and posttraumatic stress disorder: A systematic review

“…Tarber, Cohn, Casazza, Hastings, and Steele () identified that self‐compassion was significantly lower for the childhood maltreatment group compared with the no childhood maltreatment in an all‐male sample (Tarber et al, ). Boykin et al () identified that participants reporting moderate to severe childhood maltreatment endorsed significantly higher levels of fear of self‐compassion as compared with participants with minimal to no childhood maltreatment in an all‐female sample (Boykin et al, ).…”

“…One study also found that self‐compassion partially mediated the relationship between distress and well‐being for a sample of men who had experienced maltreatment in childhood and controls. Two studies explored the mediating effect of fear of self‐compassion finding that it partially mediated relationships between childhood maltreatment and PTSD (Boykin et al, ) and childhood sexual abuse and PTSD (Miron, Seligowski, Boykin, & Orcutt, ), with the latter study finding that, in contrast, self‐compassion did not have any effect on the relationship.…”

“…First, the investigation that self‐compassion differs among trauma‐exposed adults and non‐trauma‐exposed adults was sparse in the reviewed papers, with only two studies comparing these groups (Boykin et al, ; Tarber et al, ); consequently, conclusions drawn about the comparisons are limited; however, findings indicated that decreased self‐compassion and increased fear of self‐compassion were associated with trauma. Similarly, only three studies compared self‐compassion by trauma type (Hamrick & Owens, ; Maheux & Price, ; Miron et al, ).…”

“…It is worth considering that much of the existing research used the DSM‐IV criteria, so tells us something about the relationship between that conceptualization of PTSD and self‐compassion. Ten of the reviewed studies used DSM‐5 criteria (Au et al, ; Boykin et al, ; Hamrick & Owens, ; Held et al, ; Lang et al, ; Lenferink et al, ; Maheux & Price, , ; McLean, Fiorillo, & Follette, ). With the reformulation of the PTSD symptom clusters, it is likely that the expanded clusters, which now include persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs about oneself, distorted cognitions that leads to self‐blame, and persistent negative emotional state such as guilt or shame, will be strongly negatively related to self‐compassion, as demonstrated by Maheux and Price ().…”

Abuse, invalidation, and lack of early warmth show distinct relationships with self‐criticism, self‐compassion, and fear of self‐compassion in personality disorder

“…Matos, Duarte, and Pinto‐Gouveia () found FSC to correlate with low warmth, which may reflect that engaging in self‐compassion following a history of low warmth may trigger grief or anger about past experiences, or difficulties cultivating compassion due to a lack of relational templates (Gilbert, ). Boykin et al () found that FSC significantly correlated with childhood maltreatment, but did not distinguish abuse and neglect.…”