Nicola Petrocchi

John Cabot University · Department of Political and Social Sciences

Perceived everyday discrimination is a transversal phenomenon with a negative impact on people’s health. This study aimed to explore the factor structure and psychometric properties of three versions of the Everyday Discrimination Scale, with three different samples: the European Portuguese validation (EDS-PT, considering any reason for discriminat...

Objectives The aim of the study was to develop a new self-report scale to explore the “fears, blocks and resistances of mindfulness”. Currently, there is no scale to identify individuals who may struggle with engaging in mindfulness. Method A total of 522 participants were invited to take part in the study from three countries: Australia ( n = 199...

Introduction: Stigma assessment is particularly important due to the strong relationship between stigma and mental health, including sexual minorities. There is no measure of stigma consciousness for the Portuguese sexual minority population. Methods: The present study aimed to explore the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Stigma...

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) was developed by Paul Gilbert to target self-criticism and shame which underpin many clinical disorders. At its core, CFT is an integrated and evolutionary-informed biopsychosocial and contextual model of therapy. It is a form of therapy that has been used with a range of different clinical populations, including ea...

Sexual Minority (SM) individuals who are victims of stigma have reported higher levels of traumatic shame experiences and psychopathology symptoms (depression and social anxiety) when compared to heterosexual individuals. Self-compassion and social support have been described as protective factors. This study aimed to explore the mediating role of...

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...

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 n = 4156, Time 2 n = 980, Time 3 n = 825) from 23 countries completed online se...

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 measure...

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., shame) than heterosexual individuals. Self-compassion has been identified as a protective mechan...

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...

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...

Purpose The tripartite model of affect regulation proposes the existence of three emotion regulation systems (i.e., Threat, Drive and Soothing). An unbalanced functioning of these systems associates with greater risk for psychopathology, specifically Conduct Disorder (CD). Youths with CD generally develop in hostile environments, present higher lev...

Background Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is an evolutionary informed, biopsychosocial approach to mental health problems and therapy. It suggests that evolved motives (e.g., for caring, cooperating, competing) are major sources for the organisation of psychophysiological processes which underpin mental health problems. Hence, evolved motives can...

Background Increased risky sexual behaviors (RSB) in sexual minority people relative to heterosexual individuals are well documented. However, the role of trans-diagnostic factors that are not sexual orientation-specific, such as self-criticism, in predicting RSB was understudied. The present study aimed to test participants’ gender and sexual orie...

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 rel...

The diagnosis of cancer often prompts people to reconsider their existential meaning and their life history. The multicultural and multifaith complexity of our societies often hinders this process and requires the development of interventions that are as sensitive and unbiased as possible. This chapter advocates the usefulness of compassion-focused...

Objectives Investigating protective and risk factors associated with depressive and anxious symptoms in youth is important. The current cross-sectional study aimed to explore the unique contributions of modifiable protective and risk factors associated with depressive and anxious tendencies and to identify the most important variables of this sympt...

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 th...

Objectives The current study aimed to examine the mechanisms of change that mediate the impact of a compassionate mind training (CMT) intervention, in particular, whether changes in compassion, fears of compassion and heart rate variability (HRV) would mediate the effects of a brief CMT intervention on psychological vulnerability factors, mental he...

Background: We explored the role of criticism of self and of others, and metacognitive abilities in hearing voices that may refer to god or a divine presence, and qualitatively compared differences and similarities between persons who were diagnosed with psychosis and those who were not. Methods: We recruited two samples of persons who heard divin...

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 levels of uncertainty and fear at...

INTRODUCTION: Experiences of homophobic discrimination can be experienced across different sexual orientations and may have adverse effects on mental health, particularly on depressive symptoms. Shame is associated with depressive symptoms whereas self-compassion emerges as a protective factor against psychological distress. This study explored, i...

Evolutionary perspectives of human behavior propose the existence of three emotion regulation systems (i.e., threat, drive and soothing systems). An unbalanced functioning of the systems represents greater risk for emotion dysregulation and psychopathology. In recent years, heart rate variability (HRV) has been reported as an accurate index of emot...

INTRODUCTION: The Minority Stress Model conceptualizes four stigma processes that explain increased levels of psychopathology in sexual minorities compared to heterosexual individuals. These processes range from distal to proximal: Discrimination is a distal process, and Perceived Stigma, Concealment and Internalized Homophobia are proximal process...

Due to its ability to reflect the capacity to engage in context-appropriate responses, tonic heart rate variability (HRV) is considered a putative biomarker of stress resilience. However, most studies are cross-sectional, precluding causal inferences. The high levels of uncertainty and fear at a global level that characterize the COVID-19 pandemic...

Background: Early shame experiences have traumatic characteristics and are related with mental health outcomes. Furthermore, gender-related sociodemographic characteristics (gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity) seem to be associated with mental health indicators. However, to the best of our knowledge, no research explored how traumatic...

Background: Early shame experiences have traumatic characteristics and are related with mental health outcomes (Matos & Pinto-Gouveia, 2010). Furthermore, gender-related sociodemographic characteristics (gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity) seem to be associated with mental health indicators (e.g. Ross et al., 2018). However, to the bes...

Objectives High self-criticism and a low self-reassurance and self-compassion have found to play a key role in the development of college students’ depressive symptoms. The current pilot study was conducted in Iran with the aim to evaluate the effectiveness of an 8-session outpatient compassionate mind training (CMT) on symptoms of depression, ange...

The purpose of this study was to examine the measurement invariance of the Self-Compassion Scale by IRT differential test functioning in ten distinct populations (n = 13623 participants) from ten different countries: Australia (n = 517), China (n = 321), Czech Republic (n = 5081), Germany (n = 2510), Italy (n = 384), Portugal (n = 512), Slovakia (n...

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 vulnerabi...

Recent studies have linked compassion with higher vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), a measure of parasympathetic activity, and metanalytic 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 othe...

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 standar...

The aim of this study was to test the multilevel multidimensional finite mixture item response model of the Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking and Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS) to cluster respondents and countries from 13 samples ( N = 7,714) and from 12 countries. The practical goal was to learn how many discrete classes there are on the level of...

Aim To pilot-test the effectiveness of a online compassion-focused crisis intervention for persons who were diagnosed with brief psychotic disorder and were still at high risk for a psychotic episode at the Italian announcement of lockdown on March 9th, 2020. Methods Six patients who, at the moment of the lockdown, were treated through different p...

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 stu...

In this study, different factor analysis models were employed to test the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) in 11 distinct populations (n = 15,266) in different countries. The results strongly suggest that the most appropriate use of the SCS is to measure levels of Self-Compassionate responding (positive items) and Self-Uncompassionate responding (negati...

We explored the differences among 327 lesbian, gay, and/or bisexual (LGB) individuals on the dimensions of the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Positive Identity Measure (LGB-PIM), a recently developed instrument to assess positive facets of LGB identity. We evaluated the relationship between the dimensions of LGB-PIM and self-relating processes (self-cr...

The purpose of this study was to examine the measurement invariance of the Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS) in terms of Item Response Theory differential test functioning in thirteen distinct samples (N = 7714) from twelve different countries. We assessed differential test functioning for the three FSCRS subscales...

Il libro che qui presentiamo al pubblico italiano rappresenta a nostro avviso uno strumento che coniuga due pregi assai rari: una coerenza espositiva e scientifica, nonché una fruibilità e trasferibilità pratica. "Mindful Compassion" (Gilbert e Choden 2013) si prefigge infatti l'ambizioso (e riteniamo raggiunto) obiettivo di integrare in maniera op...

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. This paper will explore how heart rate variability (HRV), an index of the vaga...

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-Criti...

Heart Rate Variability as a psychophysiological biomarker of affect regulation in adolescents

The full-text of the article is available here https://rdcu.be/WX1o 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 wellbeing. This study examined th...

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,...

The development of the compassionate self, associated with practices such as slow and deeper breathing, compassionate voice tones and facial expressions and compassionate focusing, is central to Compassion-Focused Therapy. This study explores the impact of a 2-week compassionate mind training (CMT) program on emotional, self-evaluative and psychopa...

The early identification of ruminative processes in children and early adolescents is particularly important to prevent the development of a stable ruminative style in later stages of development. The present study first aimed at validating a child-friendly tool, Kid Rumination Interview (KRI), to be used in a sample aged 7–12 years (n = 100; 50% f...

Objectives. The present 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)]. An exploratory factor analys...

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 hig...

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...

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 l...

Gianfranco Piccirillo,1 Cristina Ottaviani,2 Claudia Fiorucci,1 Nicola Petrocchi,2 Federica Moscucci,1 Claudia Di Iorio,1 Fabiola Mastropietri,1 Ilaria Parrotta,1 Matteo Pascucci,1 Damiano Magrì3 1Department of Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Nephrological, Anestesiological and Geriatric Sciences, “Sapienza” University, 2Neuroimaging Laboratory, IRCCS...

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...

We tested whether a mirror could enhance the efficacy of a self-compassion manipulation in increasing soothing positive affect and heart rate variability (HRV). Eighty-six participants generated four phrases they would use to soothe and encourage their best friend. Second, they described an episode where they criticized themselves and were assigned...