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Roles of Positive Psychology for Mental Health in UK Social Work Students:
Self-Compassion as a Predictor of Better Mental Health
Citation
Kotera, Y., Green, P. & Sheffield, D. (2019). Roles of positive psychology for mental health
in UK social work students: Self-compassion as a predictor of better mental health. British
Journal of Social Work.
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Abstract
Despite high shame about mental health symptoms among UK social work students, positive
psychological approaches to their mental health have not been investigated in depth.
Emotional resilience has been a core skill in social work practice, however its relationship
with mental health is still unclear. Therefore, the primary purposes of this cross-sectional
study were to (i) examine the relationships between mental health and positive psychological
constructs, namely resilience, self-compassion, motivation, and engagement, and (ii)
determine predictors of mental health in UK social work students. An opportunity sampling
of 116 UK social work students (102 females, 14 males; 96 undergraduates, 20
postgraduates) completed five measures about these constructs. Correlation and regression
analyses were conducted. Mental health was associated with resilience, self-compassion, and
engagement. Self-compassion was a negative predictor, and intrinsic motivation was a
positive predictor of mental health symptoms. Resilience did not predict mental health
symptoms. The findings highlight the importance of self-compassion to the challenging
mental health of UK social work students; they caution against the overuse and
misunderstanding of resilience in the social work field.
Keywords: social work education, mental health, resilience, self-compassion, positive
psychology
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Introduction
Mental Health of Social Work Students
While social work is a popular degree subject receiving more than 12,000 applications
annually (Holmström, 2010), social work students suffer from high rates of mental health
problems. Approximately, 25% of UK university students suffer from some level of mental
health problems (Aronin and Smith, 2016). More social work students have high levels of
depressive symptoms (34%), indicating high risk of clinical depression, 40% reported having
suicidal thoughts in their lives and 4% reported recent suicidal thoughts (Horton et al., 2009).
Unsurprisingly, poor mental health is related to limited academic achievement and higher
dropout (Poh-Keong et al., 2015). Poor mental health is problematic as social work graduates
enter an emotionally challenging profession with the highest rate of work-related stress in the
UK (Health and Safety Executive, 2017). The majority of students progress towards
employment in the social work field (International Federation of Social Workers, 2014). In
the UK, 70% of graduates were employed as a social worker within six months of graduation,
creating nearly 2,900 qualified social workers in employment in 2015, and the number has
been increasing (Skills for Care, 2016). However, 80% of social workers feel emotional
distress and 40% are verbally abused at work (Community Care & UNISON, 2016).
Considering that much of the political attention recently has been placed on Brexit, duties of
social workers are likely to be heavier ensuring that the nation’s mental health initiatives are
not overlooked (Golightley and Holloway, 2019). Social workers negotiate a wide range of
conflicting roles and duties in their daily practice, which can be mentally challenging –
suggesting a need to review their education (Cartney, 2018).
Mentally distressed workers struggle to utilise their creativity (Dunnagan et al., 2001),
and tend to limit their work activities (Gilmour and Patten, 2007). For example, depression
compromises productivity, and can lead to disability, absenteeism, and premature early
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retirement (Blackmore et al., 2007). Under-performance in social work can cause detrimental
consequences in both practitioners and service users, as risk management is essential in social
work (Hardy, 2017). These findings highlight the seriousness of poor mental health in social
work students and practitioners. However, health of social workers and students in the UK
has been under-recognised (McCusker and Jackson, 2016). Canadian social work students,
who undertook text-based online counselling, reported that experiences of improving their
mental health gave them confidence that they would be better able to cope with future mental
distress (Fang et al., 2017): improvement of mental health can have positive long-lasting
effects for social work students, suggesting great value of exploring their mental health. Due
to the advancement of technologies (e.g., the fourth industry revolution) and the
commercialisation of education (e.g., mega-universities), agile anticipative education
curricula are being sought after (Neden et al., 2019): the mental health and self-care of social
work students should be a focus of today’s social work education.
Resilience in Social Work Practice
While the definition of emotional resilience (hereafter ‘resilience’) has been diverse
(e.g., Pooley and Cohen, 2010; Ungar, 2008), resilience in social work can be defined as the
ability to practice professionally utilising empathy, optimism, stability, honesty, and self-
awareness (Green, 2016). It can be considered as an umbrella term encompassing internal
resources and behaviours, helping people cope with adversity, and develop themselves from
such experiences (Grant and Kinman, 2014). Originating from Werner’s Hawaiian study in
1951, which found that many children in high-risk environments grew up to be caring and
competent adults (Werner et al., 1971), resilience has increasingly been a focus in social
work (Collins, 2017). Resilience was identified as a core skill (Crampton, 2015), highlighted
in the Professional Capabilities Framework (British Association of Social Workers [BASW],
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2018a), and essential for successful social work practice (Social Work Task Force, 2018).
Resilience helps individuals focus on positives including strengths and agency, instead of
negatives such as weaknesses and vulnerability, reframing views that adversity can be a
growth opportunity (Harrison, 2013). Resilience also helps social workers cope with difficult
situations such as bereavement and post-traumatic stress (Bonanno, 2004), as well as levels
of daily life stress (Collins, 2007). This does not mean that resilient people are not affected by
negative events: they may be affected by those events, but they are not overwhelmed by them
chronically (Tugade and Fredrickson, 2004). Resilient people learn new knowledge and skills
to cope with present and future incidents (Carver, 1998). A recent review (Robertson et al.,
2015) reported that enhanced resilience was related to better mental health, strengthening
other psychological outcomes including self-efficacy, mindfulness and compassion.
Moreover, Bryan et al.’s review (2017) revealed that resilience was developed and
maintained with psychological resources such as motivation, self-regulation, optimism and a
positive mindset. These resources, relating to coping with stress and reframing adversities to
learning and development (Bryan et al., 2017), are especially important to emotionally
challenging professions such as social work; therefore, it would be valuable to examine
relationships between mental health and resilience. Unsurprisingly, studies have reported
important effects of resilience in social work. A UK study of 240 social work students
revealed that resilience was negatively related to psychological distress, and that emotional
and social skills (key skills in social work) predicted 47% of the variance in resilience
(Kinman and Grant, 2011). An American study of 314 social work students reported that
resilience was negatively related to academic stress, and positively related to social support
(Wilks, 2008). Further, resilience and coping skills were significantly related with each other
among 73 female social work students in India (Stanley and Bhuvaneswari, 2016). These
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findings suggest that resilience is crucial in social work: however, its relationship with
positive psychological constructs has not been explored in-depth.
Self-compassion, Motivation, and Engagement
UK social work students are often hesitant to ask for help for mental health problems,
because of shame and negative attitudes towards them (Author’s own, 2018b). Instead of
approaching mental health problems directly, strengthening positive psychological constructs
may be an effective helping approach. Positive psychology emphasises happiness, well-
being, and positivity (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Although moderately
interrelated to mental health (Weich et al., 2011), some positive psychology constructs have
been the focus of researchers and practitioners. In particular, self-compassion, an
understanding and kindness to the self during difficult times (Gilbert, 2010), has been found
to contribute to mental health by augmenting resilience (Trompetter et al., 2017). Self-
compassion is related to good mental health, and higher levels of self-compassion may reduce
mental health problems (Muris et al., 2016). Self-compassion is positively related to
resilience, and negatively related to mental health problems (Hayter and Dorstyn, 2014).
Intrinsic motivation, a key component of self-determination theory (SDT), is also a
determinant of mental health (Baard et al., 2004; Bailey and Phillips, 2016; Locke and
Latham, 2004). SDT is an established motivation theory presuming that human beings have a
natural proclivity to concentrate their psychological energy into a sense of self and larger
social structures (Deci and Ryan, 1985). SDT discerns intrinsic from extrinsic forms of
motivation: intrinsic motivation relates to activities undertaken as they are inherently
interesting and satisfying, while extrinsic motivation relates to activities undertaken for
instrumental reasons such as money or status. Intrinsic motivation is associated with better
goal achievement (Sheldon and Elliot, 1998), performance (Baard et al., 2004), well-being
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(Bailey and Phillips, 2016), job and life satisfaction (Locke and Latham, 2004), and prosocial
behaviour (Gagne, 2003). Conversely, extrinsic motivation is related to negative outcomes
(Vallerand and Ratelle, 2002) such as emotional exhaustion (Houkes et al., 2003), depression
(Blais et al., 1993), and reduced performance (Vallerand, 1997). Although caring profession
students’ intrinsic motivation was related to academic performance (Khalaila, 2015) and
meaningfulness (Utvær, 2014), no study to date has explored the relationship between these
types of motivation, mental health, and resilience in UK social work students.
Finally, academic engagement is also related to mental health in students (Rogers et
al., 2017). Academic engagement can be defined as learners' efforts towards academic goals,
including their determination in acquiring knowledge and mastering tasks (Newman et al.,
1992). Academic engagement is related to numerous positive outcomes, including
achievement (Casuso-Holgado et al., 2013), autonomous learning (Armbruster et al., 2009),
and mental health (Rogers et al., 2017). For example, an Australian study of 410 students
reported that resilience was related to their academic engagement and mental health: more
resilient students were more engaged in their academic activities, and had less mental health
problems (Turner et al., 2017). Despite the strong relationships between resilience, self-
compassion, motivation, engagement, and mental health, to date these relationships have not
been determined in social work students.
Aim and Hypotheses
Based on these findings, therefore, this study aimed to explore the relationships
between mental health, resilience, self-compassion, motivation, and engagement in UK social
work students. We hypothesised that:
H1: Resilience, self-compassion, motivation, and engagement would be related to
mental health symptoms; and
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H2: Those same variables would serve as negative independent predictors of mental
health symptoms.
Methods
Participants
Participants, aged 18 years or older, were social work students at a UK university in
the Midlands of England. Of 120 full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students who
were asked to participate in the study, 116 (102 females, 14 males; 96 undergraduates, 20
postgraduates; Mage=30.88, SDage=9.39, RNGage=18-58 years) completed the five measures:
resilience, self-compassion, motivation, engagement, and mental health. One hundred and
two students were from the UK, three were from other European countries, nine were
African, and two did not answer.
Instruments
Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS21) is a short form of the DASS42
(Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995) measuring mental health. This 21-item self-report scale
comprises three subscales to measure levels of depression (e.g. ‘I couldn’t seem to experience
any positive feeling at all’), anxiety (e.g. ‘I was aware of dryness of my mouth) and stress
(e.g. ‘I found it hard to wind down’). Students score how much each statement applied to
them over the past week, on a four-point Likert scale (0=‘Did not apply to me at all’ to
3=‘Applied to me very much, or most of the time’). In this study, the total score was used to
capture the levels of students’ mental health as the subscales were strongly related to each
other (r=.62-.78). The total score of DASS21 has high internal consistency (α=.93) (Henry
and Crawford, 2005).
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Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) is a six-item measure, evaluating the ability to bounce
back from difficulties (Smith et al., 2008). The six items include ‘I have a hard time making
it through stressful events' on five-point Likert scale (1=‘Strongly Disagree’ to 5=‘Strongly
Agree’) for the items 1, 3, and 5, and the rest of the items are responded reversely
(5=‘Strongly Disagree’ to 1=‘Strongly Agree’). BRS has high internal consistency
(α=.80-.91; Smith et al., 2008).
Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form (SCS-SF) is a shortened version of the Self-
Compassion Scale, comprising 12 five-point Likert items (Raes et al., 2011) including ‘I try
to be understanding and patient towards those aspects of my personality I don’t like’. The
five-point response indicates ‘1’ being ‘Almost never’ to ‘5’ being ‘Almost always’. SCS-
SF’s internal consistency was high (α=.86; Raes et al., 2011).
The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), a 28-item measure, evaluates the levels of
seven different types of motivation: amotivation, three types of extrinsic motivation (external,
introjected, and identified regulation), and three types of intrinsic motivation (to know, to
accomplish, and to experience stimulation). Amotivation refers to no motivation; an
amotivated student is not interested in his/her academic work at all (Deci and Ryan, 1985).
Extrinsic motivation relates to behaviours employed, as a means to an end, thus not for their
own fulfilment; an extrinsically motivated student may study because his/her parents tell
them to do so (Deci and Ryan, 1985). Intrinsic motivation pertains to inherently satisfying
behaviours: an intrinsically motivated student may read books for the sheer pleasure of
learning something new (Deci and Ryan, 1985). Each type of motivation is evaluated using
four items on a seven-point Likert scale (1='Does not correspond at all' to 7='Corresponds
exactly'). All subscales have adequate Cronbach’s α (=.62-.91) (Vallerand et al., 1992). For
the purposes of this study, the three levels of extrinsic motivation were combined and so were
intrinsic motivation.
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Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students (UWES-S) consists of 17 items,
considering to what degree students feel active and adequate toward their academic activities
(Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). There are three subscales in UWES-S: vigour (six items; e.g.,
‘When I'm doing my work as a student, I feel bursting with energy’), dedication (five items;
e.g., ‘I am enthusiastic about my studies’), and absorption (six items; e.g., ‘When I am
studying, I forget everything else around me’). Vigour relates to high levels of energy and the
willingness to make an effort in one's academic work persistently; dedication refers to high
involvement in one's academic work; and absorption is described as full concentration and
positive engrossment in one's academic work (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Items are rated on a
seven-point Likert scale, from ‘0’ being ‘Never’ to ‘6’ being ‘Always (everyday)’. All of the
subscales demonstrated high internal consistency (α=.63-.81) (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004).
For the purposes of this study, the average of the total score for the engagement measure was
used (α=.91; Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004).
The University Research Ethics Committee granted ethics of this study. Students were
informed about arbitrary participation and withdrawal prior to consent. Should, Information
about available mental health support inside and outside the university was provided in case
students were distressed from participating in the study.
Data Analysis
A cross-sectional design was employed, addressing the needs for quantitative research
in social work (Scourfield et al., 2018). Data were screened for parametric assumptions and
descriptive statistics were calculated. Pearson’s correlations were calculated to explore
relationships among mental health, resilience, self-compassion, motivation, and engagement
(H1), followed by multiple regression analyses to identify independent predictors of mental
health (H2), using IBM SPSS version 24.0.
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Results
Descriptive Statistics
One score in stress and extrinsic motivation were identified as outliers using the
outlier labelling rule (Hoaglin and Iglewicz, 1987) and so were winsorised (Tukey, 1962).
Internal consistencies for all the sub/scales of our sample were high (α≥.80).
Relationships Among Positive Psychological Constructs and Mental Health
Scores in six subscales were not normally distributed (Shapiro-Wilk's test p<.05), so
all variables were square-root-transformed. For gender, point-biserial coefficients were
reported (1=female, 0=male; Field, 2018). Mental health symptoms were negatively related to
age, resilience, self-compassion, and engagement; however they were not related to any type
of motivation (Table 1); H1 was only partially supported.
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Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations among demographics, mental health
symptoms, resilience, self-compassion, motivation, engagement in 116 UK social work
students
M
SD
α
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1. Gender
(1=female, 0=male)
-
-
-
-
2. Age
30.8
8
9.39
-
-.14
-
3. Mental Health
Symptoms (0-63)
37.5
0
20.1
8
.93
.05
-.20*
-
4. Resilience (1-5)
3.36
.68
.81
.07
.24**
-.33**
-
5. Self-Compassion (1-
5)
2.74
.65
.84
-.04
.36**
-.47**
.53**
-
6. Intrinsic Motivation
(4-28)
18.1
3
4.72
.89
.14
.16
-.01
.25**
.39**
-
7. Extrinsic Motivation
(4-28)
20.9
4
3.92
.80
.16
-.17
.05
.05
.01
.62**
-
8. Amotivation (4-28)
7.17
3.70
.87
-.06
-.02
.17
-.21*
-.24**
-.21*
-.08
-
9. Engagement (0-6)
3.77
.09
.93
.10
.28**
-.27**
.34**
.49**
.59**
.20*
-.45**
-
*p<.05; **p<.01 (2-tailed)
Predictors of Mental Health
Multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify independent predictors of
mental health symptoms. At step one, age was entered to adjust for its effects (Table 1), and at
step two, the scores for resilience, self-compassion, motivation, and engagement were entered.
Though uncorrelated, motivation variables were entered, to determine more accurate
regression coefficients (Pandey and Elliott, 2010). Because of the many predictor variables,
adjusted coefficients of determination (Adj. R2) were reported. Multicollinearity was not a
concern (all VIFs<10).
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Table 2. Multiple regression: Resilience, self-compassion, motivation, and engagement to
mental health symptoms in 116 UK social work students
Mental Health Symptoms
B
SEB
Β
Step 1
Age
-.07
.03
-.20*
Adj. R2
.03
Step 2
Age
-.02
.03
-.05
Resilience
-.67
.69
-.09
Self-Compassion
-2.38
.56
-.46**
Intrinsic Motivation
2.36
.75
.42**
Extrinsic Motivation
-1.23
.84
-.17
Amotivation
.18
.48
.03
Engagement
-2.34
1.41
-.20
Δ Adj.R2
.23
B=unstandardised regression coefficient; SEB=standard error of the coefficient; β=standardised
coefficient; *p<.05; **p<.01.
Resilience, self-compassion, motivation, and engagement predicted 23% of the variance for
mental health symptoms (Table 2). Self-compassion was a positive predictor, and intrinsic
motivation was a negative predictor of mental health. Resilience, extrinsic motivation,
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amotivation, and engagement were not identified as independent predictors. H2 was not
supported.
Discussion
This study investigated the relationships between mental health, resilience, self-
compassion, motivation, and engagement in UK social work students. H1 was partially
supported: mental health symptoms were negatively related to resilience, self-compassion,
and engagement; however they were not related to any type of motivation. H2 was not
supported: only self-compassion was identified as a negative independent predictor of mental
health symptoms. Contrary to H2, intrinsic motivation was identified as a positive
independent predictor of mental health symptoms: resilience, extrinsic motivation,
amotivation and engagement did not predict mental health symptoms. We will discuss each
finding in turn, considering education for social work students.
Our correlational analyses largely concurred with previous findings, revealing that
resilience, self-compassion, and engagement were strongly, negatively related to mental
health symptoms: the more resilient, self-compassionate, and engaged a student was, the less
mental health difficulties they had, indicating their robust relationships. Contrary to previous
findings, intrinsic motivation was not related to mental health. The correlation coefficient
between self-compassion and mental health symptoms (-.47) was larger than the one between
resilience and mental health symptoms (-.33), albeit not significantly. This may highlight the
characteristics of social work students: for example, the majority of students will become a
social worker. Social work students have clearer, yet more limited choices of future
professions than students of other subjects, such as business studies where students have
relatively broader choices of employment (Author’s own, 2018a). This may cause them to
compare themselves against an ideal image of a social worker, because social work students
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need to meet the values and principles of social workers, requiring high levels of work in a
wide range of demands: challenging injustice and discrimination, while maintaining trusted
relationships with other professionals and service users (BASW, 2012). This may relate to
high levels of self-criticism and shame about not meeting the standards (Author’s own,
2018b). On the other hand, for example, business students have less clearly-defined pathways
to, and more choices of employment, giving them psychological leeway, which allows them
to interpret that not meeting one set of criteria can be a matter of ‘fit’, rather than a lack of
competency (Author’s own, 2018a). Self-compassion may be more effective in reducing
mental health symptoms derived from negative comparisons against the standards to be a
social worker, than resilience. Alternatively, self-compassion has been related to health-
related behaviours (Dunne et al., 2016) and it may be that self-compassion improves self-care
in social work students.
Social work students’ strong focus on meeting the standards to become a social
worker may also be inferred from their higher extrinsic motivation than intrinsic motivation,
and a strong relation between them (r=.62; Table 1). This may imply social work students’
unclear distinction between extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation: while they enjoy
studying the subject (intrinsic motivation), they are also driven by external instruments
(extrinsic motivation) such as a clear career pathway to social work. Although intrinsic
motivation and extrinsic motivation are not mutually exclusive (Lepper et al., 2005), it may
be worthwhile to explore changes in the levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
throughout their programme, because many students have chosen to study social work for
internal satisfaction, e.g., helping people in need (BASW, 2018b).
Consistent with previous findings from other populations, engagement in UK social
work students was also negatively related to mental health symptoms, and positively related
to resilience (Turner et al., 2017) and other positive psychological constructs (Montero-Marin
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et al., 2016). This is important because burnout, a contrasting construct to engagement, is
common in caring professionals, and could have diverse negative consequences, such as
ineffective coping skills (Schaufeli et al., 2009). In addition to UK social workers’ relatively
high level of engagement (Table 1; 3.77 of 6), these strong correlations between engagement
and other constructs are useful to better appraise previous findings about burnout, while
noting the ongoing debate about distinction between lack of engagement and burnout (e.g.,
Leon et al., 2015). For example, McFadden (2015) investigated the subcategories of burnout
- emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and personal accomplishment. Emotional
exhaustion and depersonalisation scores were higher in 1359 UK social workers than those of
other caring professionals, whereas they had higher personal accomplishment, suggesting that
while they were aware of their achievements, they still felt exhausted and detached.
Contrarily, our sample of UK social work students’ engagement was relatively high, and the
subscales (vigour, dedication, and absorption) were strongly interrelated (r>.60; p<.01).
Additionally, Biggart et al. (2016) recommended that policy makers explicitly recognise and
acknowledge the values of social work practice to help reduce burnout in social work. In
contrast, Montero-Marin et al.’s (2016) study using the three clinical subtypes of burnout
(frenetic, underchallenged, worn-out) suggested that the frenetic subtype, driven by their
greater need to achieve goals, may be related to extrinsic motivation. Though their
approaches were different, the importance of extrinsic motivation was highlighted in relation
to burnout in these studies. In our sample, engagement was associated with extrinsic
motivation, but not as strongly as intrinsic motivation and amotivation (Table 1). Future
research should explore the mechanisms underpinning these relationships: for example, how
enhancement of each type of motivation impacts burnout and engagement of social workers
and students.
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Multiple regression analyses (Table 2) identified that self-compassion and intrinsic
motivation were independent predictors of mental health symptoms; self-compassion was a
negative predictor and intrinsic motivation was a positive predictor. Since intrinsic
motivation was a suppressor, it decreased outcome-irrelevant variation in the predictors
(Pandey and Elliott, 2010); accordingly, it enhanced the accuracy of the regression analyses
and improved the predictive power of the model (Cohen et al., 2003). Contrary to our
hypothesis (H2) and previous literature, resilience, extrinsic motivation, amotivation, and
engagement were not independent predictors of mental health symptoms. More surprisingly
and novel in motivation research is the finding that intrinsic motivation positively predicted
the variance in mental health symptoms. This suggests that the UK social work students’
strong passion for the subject may compromise their mental health. Social work students,
who have high levels of shame and self-criticism (Author’s own, 2018b), frequently compare
themselves with the high and diverse standards. Because they are highly passionate about the
subject, when they compare themselves with the standards of social work, they may
scrutinise their competencies harshly, thus deteriorate their mental health. Obsessive passion
– uncontrollable compulsion to initiate a passionate activity - may be present in social work
students, and this type of passion has been negatively related to well-being, while harmonious
passion - balanced and favourable engagement with a passionate activity – has been
positively related to well-being (Lalande et al., 2015). Future research needs to explore the
relationships between their mental health, self-criticism, and intrinsic motivation, along with
underlying passions, to understand the likely mechanisms of intrinsic motivation for mental
health. Additionally, evaluating the effects of compassion training on this dynamic may be
worthwhile, because this training was effective for reducing shame and self-criticism (Gilbert
and Procter, 2006).
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Self-compassion negatively and independently predicted mental health symptoms,
whereas resilience did not. While resilience has been noted as central to maintain a good level
of mental health in the social work field, our analyses revealed that self-compassion is likely
to have a greater impact on mental health than resilience in students. Currently, policies in
social work primarily focus on resilience, and thus endorse teaching targeting resilience in
social work students. However, an over-emphasis of resilience can misinform, and potentially
damage, students’ mental health (Gask, 2015). The word ‘resilience’ is widely used today,
and many students misunderstand it: some believe resilience means good mental health,
therefore when they have a mental health problem, they may perceive themselves as not
resilient, leading to a sense of shame and self-criticism (Gask, 2015). The over-use of the
resilience concept has been noted, and its usefulness has been questioned (Grünewald and
Warner, 2012; Piña López, 2015). Likewise, resilience research includes diverse outcomes
and has yielded mixed results (Masedo et al., 2014), thus the definition of resilience needs to
be refined (Belma and Page, 2015) along with its measurement (Cosco et al., 2017). For
example, the contextual nature of resilience is often forgotten; one’s resilience can be
acknowledged by recognising their personal and environmental contexts holistically (Belma
and Page, 2015; McAllister and Lowe, 2011). Indeed, resilience is more strongly related to
one’s social and physical environment than one’s individual characteristics (Ungar, 2011),
which Masten (1994) called ‘resiliency’ as opposed to the ecological process of ‘resilience’.
We can better understand one’s resilience by including family, community, culture and socio-
economic factors, rather than solely measuring one’s personal attributes (Ungar, 2011).
Educators, researchers, policy makers, and students may need to be more careful of the word
use of ‘resilience’. Equivalently, as recent studies noted the benefits of self-compassion in
caring professions (Iacono, 2017; Gregory, 2015) and the current study found it to be the best
predictor of mental health, future research and educational practice should explore the effects
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of self-compassion education and training on mental health of UK social work students. For
example, educating students about the concept of self-compassion may increase their self-
compassion: what it means, its components (self-kindness, common humanity, and
mindfulness), self-awareness, and a non-judgemental attitude (Rickers, 2012). Moreover,
some techniques can be practised in a classroom or placement setting: breathing, meditation
(such as mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation), compassionate imagery, and letter-
writing (Iacono, 2017). Additionally, irregular contexts including student induction, group
tutoring sessions, and inter-professional events would also be an appropriate context for
students to focus on self-compassion. Relatedly, due to the contagious nature of compassion,
this may have positive impacts on the institutions in which they study and work (Gilbert et
al., 2018), creating a safe workplace for educators (Killian, 2008). At a more macro-level, the
UK nation is undergoing a chaotic period: political attention focuses on Brexit, and social
workers face increased burden with less support. UK social workers play a key role to ensure
these items do not irremediably slip off the national agenda (Golightley and Holloway, 2019).
Positive psychological perspectives rather than victimised perspectives are useful in unstable
social contexts (Reza and Bromfield, 2019). Compassion may be one psychological resource
that social work students can focus on developing, to thrive in this uncertainty.
There are several limitations to this study. First, the sample size was relatively small
although satisfied the required sample size based on power calculations (84; Faul et al.,
2009). Second, the majority of our participants were female undergraduate students at only
one institution in the UK, which, although similar to the majority of social work programmes
in the UK, may limit the generalisability of our findings. Lastly, the causal direction of these
psychological constructs has not been investigated. In the future, longitudinal data would help
elucidate the temporal patterning of the observed relationships; for example, it may be that
resilience is more important in experienced social workers whereas self-compassion is more
20
Sensitivity: Internal
important in social work students (MacAlister 2011). This may help educators develop
appropriate curriculum or interventions to increase our understanding of causality.
Conclusion
Due to challenging mental health, resilience has been a focus in social work. Such a
positive psychological construct may provide an alternative solution to mental health, as
social work students often have high shame about mental health. This study evaluated the
relationships between mental health and resilience and other positive psychological
constructs – self-compassion, motivation, and engagement. The results highlighted that,
although resilience was associated with mental health symptoms, self-compassion was more
strongly associated with those symptoms. Further, while self-compassion independently
predicted fewer mental health symptoms, resilience did not. The findings in this study
suggest focusing on self-compassion and limiting the overuse and misunderstanding of
‘resilience’, particularly in relation to mental health in UK social work students. Future
research should evaluate the benefits of self-compassion training on the mental health of
social work students. UK social work policy makers, educators, researchers, and students
may need to re-focus the current emphasis on resilience to self-compassion and self-care in
the social work education, in order to protect students’ mental health.
21
Sensitivity: Internal
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