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Self-Compassion, Mindfulness, and Emotion Regulation: Understanding the Relationship Between Childhood Maltreatment and Wellbeing
Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma
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Background
High levels of childhood trauma (CT) have been observed in adults with mental health problems. Herein, we investigated whether self-esteem (SE) and emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES)) affect the association between CT and mental health in adulthood, including depression and anxiety symptoms.
Methods
We performed a cross-sectional study of 6057 individuals (39.99% women, median age = 34 y), recruited across China via the internet, who completed the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), Self-esteem Scale (SES), and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Multivariate linear regression analysis and bias-corrected percentile bootstrap methodologies were used to assess the mediating effect of SE, and hierarchical regression analysis and subgroup approach were performed to examine the moderating effects of emotion regulation strategies.
Results
After controlling for age and sex, we found that (1) SE mediated the associations between CT and depression symptoms in adulthood (indirect effect = 0.05, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.04–0.05, 36.2% mediated), and CT and anxiety symptoms in adulthood (indirect effect = 0.03, 95% CI: 0.03–0.04, 32.0% mediated); (2) CR moderated the association between CT and SE; and (3) ES moderated the association between of CT and mental health in adulthood via SE, and such that both the CT-SE and SE-mental health pathways were stronger when ES is high rather than low, resulting the indirect effect was stronger for high ES than for low ES.
Conclusions
These findings suggested that SE plays a partially mediating role in the association between CT and mental health in adulthood. Furthermore, ES aggravated the negative effect of CT on mental health in adulthood via SE. Interventions such as emotional expression training may help reduce the detrimental effects of CT on mental health.
Trial registration
The study was registered on http://www.chictr.org.cn/index.aspx and the registration number was ChiCTR2200059155.
Adequately addressing missing data is a pervasive issue in the social sciences. Failure to correctly address missing data can lead to biased or inefficient estimation of parameters, confidence intervals, and significance tests. Multiple imputation is a statistical technique for handling missing data that involves using existing data to generate multiple datasets of plausible values for missing data that each incorporate random components to reflect their uncertainty. Each dataset is analyzed individually and identically, and parameter estimates are pooled into one set of estimates, variances, and confidence intervals. Although this technique is widely used, there is little consensus on what constitutes best practices in multiple imputation, including with regard to assessing the extent of missing data bias and reporting multiple imputation procedures in publications. This decision tree was crowdsourced at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) and revised thereafter. This document is intended to provide practical guidelines for researchers to follow when examining their data for missingness and making decisions about how to handle that missingness. We primarily offer recommendations for multiple imputation, but also indicate where the same decisional guidelines are appropriate for other types of missing data procedures such as full imputation maximum likelihood (FIML).
In the present study, the mediating and moderating role of self-compassion in the relationship between mindfulness and happiness was examined through Structural Equation Modeling in student-athletes. Three hundred sixty-three individual and team-sport athletes (63.9% male; 35.8% female; 0.3% non-binary, M age = 21.51 SD = 3.33) participating in the study were asked to fill out the Mindfulness Inventory for Sport, the Self-Compassion Scale, and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. There were significant positive correlations between mindfulness, self-compassion, and happiness. Structural equation modeling revealed that self-compassion did not have a moderator role in the relationship between mindfulness and happiness. On the other hand, self-compassion played a fully mediating role in the relationship between mindfulness and happiness in student-athletes. While these are correla-tional data that do not permit causal inferences, these findings raise the possibility, in this population, that advances a better understanding of the impact mechanism of mindfulness on happiness.
Objective:
The Five Facet of Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) is widely used to assess mindfulness. The present study provides a psychometric evaluation of the FFMQ that includes item response theory (IRT) analyses and evaluation of item characteristic curves.
Method:
We administered the FFMQ, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Ruminative Response Scale, and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire to a heterogenous sample of 240 community-based adults. We estimated internal consistency reliability, item-scale correlations, categorical confirmatory factor analysis, and IRT graded response models for the FFMQ. We also estimated correlations among the FFMQ scales and correlations with the other measures included in the study.
Results:
Internal consistency reliabilities for the five FFMQ scales were 0.82 or higher. A five-factor categorical model fit the data well. IRT-estimated item characteristic curves indicated that the five response options were monotonically ordered for most of the items. Product-moment correlations between simple-summated scoring and IRT scoring of the scales were 0.97 or higher.
Conclusions:
The FFMQ accurately identifies varying levels of trait mindfulness. IRT-derived estimates will inform future adaptations to the FFMQ (e.g., briefer versions) and the development of future mindfulness instruments.
Objectives
Self-compassion and mindfulness are related but distinct constructs that are thought to influence a variety of mental health outcomes. However, few studies have evaluated these constructs concurrently in the context of mental health. This study examined associations between trait mindfulness, self-compassion, and baseline clinical variables in individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD).
Methods
The study used a cross-sectional design and included 136 men and women with SAD. The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and short form of the Self-Compassion Scale were used to assess mindfulness and self-compassion, respectively. Clinical variables included ratings of social anxiety severity, depression, self-esteem, social adjustment, and satisfaction with life.
Results
Bivariate correlations revealed that higher ratings of self-compassion and facets of mindfulness were associated with less severe social anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as better functioning, self-esteem, and satisfaction with life. Self-compassion was more strongly associated with clinical variables than mindfulness in the regression models. Mediation analysis found that the mindfulness facet Describe mediated the relationship between self-compassion and social anxiety severity. An alternative model showed that self-compassion mediated the relationship between multiple facets of mindfulness and social anxiety severity.
Conclusions
Although causality cannot be discerned from this cross-sectional study, these preliminary findings suggest that individual differences in facets of mindfulness and self-compassion may be associated with social anxiety severity. Mediation analysis highlights the interplay between mindfulness, self-compassion, and severity of social anxiety. Implications for further research are discussed.
Background
Individuals who were maltreated during childhood are faced with increased risks for developing various psychological symptoms that are particularly resistant to traditional treatments. This pilot study investigated the effects of a mindfulness based behavioral intervention for young adults with a childhood maltreatment history.
Methods
This study looked at self-report psychological questionnaires from 20 subjects (5 males) before and after a mindfulness-based behavioral intervention, compared to 18 subjects (6 males) in the waiting list control group (age range 22–29); all subjects experienced mild-to-moderate childhood maltreatment. We analyzed changes in stress, anxiety, depression, mindfulness and self-compassion related to the intervention with linear mixed effects models; we also analyzed the relationships among questionnaire score changes with partial correlation analyses and mediation analysis.
Results
Linear mixed effects model analyses revealed significant group by time interaction on stress (p < 0.01), anxiety (p < 0.05), and self-compassion (p < 0.01), with the mindfulness group having significant reduction in stress and anxiety (p < 0.01), and significant increase in mindfulness (p < 0.05) and self-compassion (p < 0.001). Partial correlation analyses showed that among all subjects from both groups, changes in mindfulness positively correlated with changes in self-compassion (r = 0.578, p = 0.001), which negatively correlated with changes in depression (r = −0.374, p = 0.05) and anxiety (r = −0.395, p < 0.05). Changes in self-compassion mediated, in part, the relationship between changes in mindfulness and changes in anxiety (average causal mediation effect = −4.721, p < 0.05). We observed a dose-dependent effect of the treatment, i.e., the number of intervention sessions attended were negatively correlated with changes in stress (r = −0.674, p < 0.01), anxiety (r = −0.580, p < 0.01), and depression (r = −0.544, p < 0.05), after controlling for the individual differences in childhood maltreatment severity.
Conclusion
Our results suggest that, to some extent, the mindfulness-based intervention can be helpful for improving self-compassion and psychological health among young adults with a childhood maltreatment history.
Clinical Trial Registration
www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT02447744.
The purpose of this observational longitudinal study was to investigate the role of childhood maltreatment in explaining individual differences in daily stress processes. College students (N = 253) completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and a measure of neuroticism at baseline before completing 14 nightly surveys assessing exposure to daily stressors (particularly interpersonal stressors), perceived stressor severity, and negative affect. Given mixed findings in past research, no specific hypotheses were proffered. Generalized linear mixed modeling showed that students with a history of maltreatment experienced roughly one more stressor every 1-to-2 days compared with those without a history of maltreatment, and experienced an interpersonal stressor on approximately half of the 14 study days compared to about one quarter of the study days for those without a history of maltreatment. In contrast, childhood maltreatment (except for physical abuse) was unrelated to perceived stressor severity and stress reactivity, controlling for gender and neuroticism. This suggests that college students reporting childhood maltreatment have more daily stressors, but they neither perceive them as more stressful nor react to them more strongly. In exploratory analyses assessing exposure to specific stressors, childhood maltreatment was associated with reporting more financial, work-related, career, and grade-related stressors in addition to interpersonal stressors. These findings underscore the importance of assessing stressor exposure separately from stress reactions. They also suggest that both individualized skill-based interventions to reduce stressor exposure and campus-wide programs to reduce financial and other burdens on students may be warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Importance
Childhood maltreatment is associated with mental illness. Researchers, clinicians, and public health professionals use prospective or retrospective measures interchangeably to assess childhood maltreatment, assuming that the 2 measures identify the same individuals. However, this assumption has not been comprehensively tested.
Objective
To meta-analyze the agreement between prospective and retrospective measures of childhood maltreatment.
Data Sources
MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Embase, and Sociological Abstracts were searched for peer-reviewed, English-language articles from inception through January 1, 2018. Search terms included child* maltreatment, child* abuse, child* neglect, child bull*, child* trauma, child* advers*, and early life stress combined with prospective* and cohort.
Study Selection
Studies with prospective measures of childhood maltreatment were first selected. Among the selected studies, those with corresponding retrospective measures of maltreatment were identified. Of 450 studies with prospective measures of childhood maltreatment, 16 had paired retrospective data to compute the Cohen κ coefficient.
Data Extraction and Synthesis
Multiple investigators independently extracted data according to PRISMA and MOOSE guidelines. Random-effects meta-analyses were used to pool the results and test predictors of heterogeneity.
Main Outcomes and Measures
The primary outcome was the agreement between prospective and retrospective measures of childhood maltreatment, expressed as a κ coefficient. Moderators of agreement were selected a priori and included the measure used for prospective or retrospective assessment of childhood maltreatment, age at retrospective report, sample size, sex distribution, and study quality.
Results
Sixteen unique studies including 25 471 unique participants (52.4% female [SD, 10.6%]; mean [SD] age, 30.6 [11.6] years) contained data on the agreement between prospective and retrospective measures of childhood maltreatment. The agreement between prospective and retrospective measures of childhood maltreatment was poor, with κ = 0.19 (95% CI, 0.14-0.24; P < .001). Agreement was higher when retrospective measures of childhood maltreatment were based on interviews rather than questionnaires (Q = 4.1521; df = 1; P = .04) and in studies with smaller samples (Q = 4.2251; df = 1; P = .04). Agreement was not affected by the type of prospective measure used, age at retrospective report, sex distribution of the sample, or study quality.
Conclusions and Relevance
Prospective and retrospective measures of childhood maltreatment identify different groups of individuals. Therefore, children identified prospectively as having experienced maltreatment may have different risk pathways to mental illness than adults retrospectively reporting childhood maltreatment. Researchers, clinicians, and public health care professionals should recognize these critical measurement differences when conducting research into childhood maltreatment and developing interventions.
Mindfulness is considered a multifaceted construct consisting of non-judging, non-reactivity, describing, observing, and acting with awareness. Mindfulness has received increased attention for its use in the treatment of psychological disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), though little is known about how mindfulness facets relate to PTSD symptom clusters. The current study performed a path analysis to examine these relationships while controlling for emotion dysregulation in a sample of 298 college undergraduates with endorsed trauma histories. Hypotheses about the specific proposed relationships were partially supported. Above and beyond emotion dysregulation, non-judging was negatively related to the re-experiencing and negative alternations in cognitions and mood symptom clusters and was marginally related to hyperarousal. Additionally, acting with awareness was negatively related to hyperarousal, whereas non-reactivity was unexpectedly positively associated with hyperarousal. Overall, findings suggest the mindfulness facet most relevant to PTSD may be non-judging of inner experience.
E-print available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1XcNjheKdcaBr
Childhood maltreatment has well-documented relationships with emotional dysregulation. Emotional dysregulation confers heightened risk for psychopathology and therefore represents an important therapeutic target for survivors of childhood maltreatment. Emerging research suggests that deficits in self-compassion may be one pathway by which childhood maltreatment adversely impacts emotional regulation processes. The current study sought to replicate previous research by investigating the mitigating effects of self-compassion on emotional dysregulation in a non-clinical sample of women with varying degrees of childhood maltreatment (N = 245). Hierarchical regression analyses showed that self-compassion predicted emotional dysregulation above and beyond childhood maltreatment and current substance use (including current alcohol use). Additionally, mediation analyses revealed that self-compassion exerted an indirect effect on the relationship between childhood maltreatment and emotional dysregulation. Overall, these results replicate previous findings and further support self-compassion as an explanatory mechanism connecting childhood maltreatment with later emotional dysregulation. Clinical and research implications are discussed.
Eprint available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EfbbKPirBgMVtzGBuskz/full
Individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment are particularly vulnerable to a longer course of depression. Immunisation theories of resilience suggest that resilience and related factors may buffer against the deleterious effects of early childhood adversity. Trait mindfulness is linked to resilience and may be a pathway to cultivating this dynamic process. In this study, we investigated whether trait mindfulness can buffer against the effects of early childhood maltreatment in predicting lifetime number of months depressed.
Objective: The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a widely used self-report measure of subjective emotion ability, as defined by a prominent clinically derived model of emotion regulation (Gratz and Roemer, 2004). Although the DERS is often used in treatment and research settings for adults with emotional (i.e., anxiety, mood, obsessive-compulsive, or trauma-related) disorders, its psychometric properties are not well-characterized in this population.
Method: We examined the psychometric properties of the DERS and three popular short forms (DERS-16; DERS-18; and DERS-SF) in a large (N = 427) sample of treatment-seeking adults with one or more DSM-5 emotional disorders.
Results: For the original DERS, internal consistency was strong for all subscales except Awareness. A bifactor structure consisting of one general emotion dysregulation factor and five uncorrelated specific factors corresponding to the original DERS subscales (excluding Awareness) provided the best fit. A series of structural equation models (SEMs) demonstrated unique incremental contributions of the general factor and several specific factors to explaining concurrent clinical severity. The general factor and one specific factor (Goals) also prospectively predicted treatment outcome following a naturalistic course of outpatient cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in a subset of participants (n = 202) for whom discharge data were available. Specifically, more severe emotion dysregulation at intake predicted better CBT response, while more severe impairment in goal-directed activity when distressed predicted worse CBT response. All three short forms showed a robust bifactor structure and good internal consistency and convergent validity vis-à-vis the original measure, albeit with a slight decrement in incremental utility (1–3% less variance explained in clinical severity).
Conclusion: With the Awareness items excluded, the DERS showed good internal consistency and a robust bifactor latent structure. The general factor and several specific factors incrementally and prospectively predicted clinical severity and treatment outcome, which suggests that the DERS may have clinical and predictive utility in treatment-seeking adults with emotional disorders. Additional research is needed to establish convergent and discriminant validity in this population. The use of a short form in lieu of the full DERS may be sufficient for many general clinical and research purposes, particularly when participant burden is a concern.
Emotion Regulation and Well-Being Ivan Nyklicek, Ad Vinderhoets, and Marcel Zellenberg, editors Intimately involved in our behavior, cognitions, and interpersonal communications, emotions are basic building blocks of our existence. And it is increasingly understood that their regulation, whether adaptive or dysfunctional, is also intricately linked to the gamut of somatic and mental health issues. Emotion Regulation and Well-Being gathers experts from various branches of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience to review emerging and ongoing areas of interest for a lifespan approach to this complex topic. Its cutting-edge coverage is balanced between theoretical constructs and clinical concerns, to be as helpful to the reader interested in a deeper understanding of emotion expression in depression or new issues in repressive coping as to the one looking to add emotion regulation strategies to his or her clinical toolbox. Included among the book’s features: • A biobehavioral perspective on coping styles and aggression. • Critical discussion of emotional intelligence in relation to children’s health. • A personality-based classification model for alexithymia. • An attachment approach to crying in psychotherapy. • New findings on emotion inhibition in eating disorders. • A case study of in-patient treatment for trauma-related emotion regulation dysfunction. • Somatic insights into writing interventions. Emotion Regulation and Well-Being is a state-of-the-art reference for health and clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, and psychiatrists. It is also comprehensive enough to be a useful postgraduate text in health psychology, psychosomatics, clinical psychology, and social psychology.
Emotional flexibility can be defined as the ability to respond in a context-appropriate emotional manner and recover from one’s initial emotional responses when the context changes. Emotional flexibility has been associated with psychological health. Mindfulness and self-compassion have both been associated with various aspects of well-being and are considered buffers against psychopathology; however, few studies have examined the relationships of mindfulness and self-compassion with emotional flexibility. A total of 417 participants were recruited through an online crowdsourcing website and completed study questionnaires as well as negative and positive mood induction procedures. Results indicated that both mindfulness and self-compassion were significantly and positively associated with mood drops and mood increases in response to negative and positive mood induction procedures, respectively. We also found that depressive symptoms and depression-related negative cognitions were negatively correlated with emotional flexibility. Further, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that self-compassion may explain variance in emotional flexibility beyond what is accounted for by trait mindfulness. Findings of this study underscore the importance of mindfulness and, specifically, self-compassion as likely key factors in emotional flexibility. Further, it appears that self-compassion may explain some aspects of emotional flexibility beyond variance contributed for by trait mindfulness alone, suggesting that both these constructs may need to be cultivated directly in psychological interventions for optimal psychological health. Future work should replicate and extend our findings and examine directionality among the examined factors.
College students who report a history of childhood maltreatment may be at risk for poor outcomes. In the current study, we conducted an exploratory analysis to examine potential models that statistically mediate associations between aspects of maltreatment and aspects of academic outcome, with a particular focus on executive functions (EF). Consistent with contemporary EF research, we distinguished between relatively “cool” EF tasks (i.e., performed in a context relatively free of emotional or motivational valence) and “hot” EF tasks that emphasize performance under more emotionally arousing conditions. Sixty-one male and female college undergraduates self-reported childhood maltreatment history (emotional abuse and neglect, physical abuse and neglect, and sexual abuse) on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and were given two EF measures: (1) Go-No-Go (GNG) test that included a Color Condition (cool); Neutral Face Condition (warm); and Emotion Face condition (hot), and (2) Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), a measure of risky decision making that reflects hot EF. Academic outcomes were: (1) grade point average (GPA: first-semester, cumulative, and semester concurrent with testing), and (2) Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ). Correlational patterns suggested two EF scores as potential mediators: GNG reaction time (RT) in the Neutral Face condition, and IGT Block 2 adaptive responding. Indirect effects analyses indicated that IGT Block 2 adaptive responding has an indirect effect on the relationship between CTQ Total score and 1st semester GPA, and between CTQ Emotional Abuse and concurrent GPA. Regarding college adaptation, we identified a consistent indirect effect of GNG Neutral Face RT on the relationship between CTQ Emotional Neglect and SACQ total, academic, social, and personal–emotional adaption scores. Our results demonstrate that higher scores on a child maltreatment history self-report negatively predict college academic outcomes as assessed by GPA and by self-reported adaptation. Further, relatively “hot” EF task performance on the IGT and GNG tasks serves as a link between child maltreatment experiences and college achievement and adaptation, suggesting that hot EF skills may be a fruitful direction for future intervention efforts to improve academic outcomes for this population.
Maltreatment-related childhood adversity is the leading preventable risk factor for mental illness and substance abuse. Although the association between maltreatment and psychopathology is compelling, there is a pressing need to understand how maltreatment increases the risk of psychiatric disorders. Emerging evidence suggests that maltreatment alters trajectories of brain development to affect sensory systems, network architecture and circuits involved in threat detection, emotional regulation and reward anticipation. This Review explores whether these alterations reflect toxic effects of early-life stress or potentially adaptive modifications, the relationship between psychopathology and brain changes, and the distinction between resilience, susceptibility and compensation. © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
In contrast to the increased research interest in the benefits of mindfulness and self-compassion, relatively few studies have examined their unique and combined effects in predicting affect. This cross-sectional study examined the predictive value of mindfulness and self-compassion for depressive symptoms, negative affect, and positive affect in a large representative sample of community adults (N = 1736). The Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) was used as a measure of mindfulness and the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) as a measure of self-compassion. Five FFMQ facets were explored: observe, describe, act with awareness, non-judgment, and non-reactivity. Two SCS facets were explored: its positive items (SCS Pos) and its negative items (SCS Neg). When simultaneously examining all seven facets of mindfulness and self-compassion, three of the five FFMQ facets and SCS Neg significantly predicted both depressive symptoms and negative affect, with SCS Neg and act with awareness being the strongest predictors. These findings suggest that a harsh attitude towards oneself and a lack of attention when acting have the greatest value in predicting the presence of psychological symptoms. With respect to positive affect, four of the five FFMQ facets (except non-judgment) were significant predictors, with no unique predictive value of the two SCS’s facets, suggesting that mindfulness is a more important predictor of positive affect than self-compassion, as measured by the FFMQ and SCS.
Adolescents today are confronted with the
compounded stressors of life in our high-pressured society
and the cognitive, physiological, and emotional changes
characteristic of this stage of development. To explore ways
to promote well-being in this population, mindfulness,
defined as paying attention in the moment in an intentional
and purposeful way, was examined in terms of its associations
with aspects of emotional well being. It has been
reported to have positive effects on emotional well-being in
adults, and shows promise for similar results in research
with youth. Moreover, the mechanisms through which
being mindful may influence positive outcomes have only
recently been explored, and have not been investigated with
adolescents. Self-compassion, defined by the three components
of self-kindness, sensing oneself as part of a common
humanity, and maintaining perspective in challenging circumstances,
was examined as a potential mediator of the
relationship of mindfulness to various outcome measures.
Measures assessing mindfulness, self-compassion, and
aspects of emotional well-being comprised an online survey
that was administered to 67 adolescents in an urban high
school. Path analysis was utilized to explore relationships
among the variables. An alternate model with self-compassion
as the predictor and mindfulness as the mediator
was also investigated. Results suggested that both mindfulness
and self-compassion functioned as mediators in the
pathway to emotional well-being. A theorized model is
presented which depicts a reciprocal relationship between
mindfulness and self-compassion and describes an iterative
process that takes place between these two constructs,
promoting emotional well-being. Implications for research
and practice include conducting longitudinal studies, which
assess constructs at three time points to definitively establish
mediation, and developing a self-compassion program
tailored for adolescents to facilitate improvements in
emotional well-being.
Background:
Emotion regulation has been identified as a robust predictor of adaptive functioning across a variety of domains (Aldao et al. ). Furthermore, research examining early predictors of competence and deficits in ER suggests that factors internal to the individual (e.g. neuroregulatory reactivity, behavioural traits and cognitive ability) and external to the individual (e.g. caregiving styles and explicit ER training) contribute to the development of ER (Calkins ). Many studies have focused on internal sources or external sources; however, few have studied them simultaneously within one model, especially in studies examining children with developmental delays (DD). Here, we addressed this specific research gap and examined the contributions of one internal factor and one external factor on emotion dysregulation outcomes in middle childhood. Specifically, our current study used structural equation modelling (SEM) to examine prospective, predictive relationships between DD status, positive parenting at age 4 years and child emotion dysregulation at age 7 years.
Method:
Participants were 151 families in the Collaborative Family Study, a longitudinal study of young children with and without DD. A positive parenting factor was composed of sensitivity and scaffolding scores from mother-child interactions at home and in the research centre at child age 4 years. A child dysregulation factor was composed of a dysregulation code from mother-child interactions and a parent-report measure of ER and lability/negativity at age 7 years. Finally, we tested the hypothesis that positive parenting would mediate the relationship between DD and child dysregulation.
Results:
Mothers of children with DD exhibited fewer sensitive and scaffolding behaviours compared with mothers of typically developing children, and children with DD were more dysregulated on all measures of ER. SEM revealed that both DD status and early positive parenting predicted emotion dysregulation in middle childhood. Furthermore, findings provided support for our hypothesis that early positive parenting mediated the relationship between DD and dysregulation.
Conclusions:
This work enhances our understanding of the development of ER across childhood and how endogenous child factors (DD status) and exogenous family factors (positive parenting) affect this process. Our findings provide clear implications for early intervention programmes for children with DD. Because of the predictive relationships between (a) developmental status and ER and (b) parenting and ER, the results imply that sensitive parenting behaviours should be specifically targeted in parent interventions for children with DD.
Growing evidence suggests that positive mental health or wellbeing protects against psychopathology. How and why those who flourish derive these resilient outcomes is, however, unknown. This exploratory study investigated if self-compassion, as it continuously provides a friendly, accepting and situational context for negative experiences, functions as a resilience mechanism and adaptive emotion regulation strategy that protects against psychopathology for those with high levels of positive mental health. Participants from the general population (n = 349) provided measures at one time-point on positive mental health (MHC-SF), self-compassion (SCS-SF), psychopathology (HADS) and negative affect (mDES). Self-compassion significantly mediated the negative relationship between positive mental health and psychopathology. Furthermore, higher levels of self-compassion attenuated the relationship between state negative affect and psychopathology. Findings suggest that especially individuals with high levels of positive mental health possess self-compassion skills that promote resilience against psychopathology. These might function as an adaptive emotion regulation strategy and protect against the activation of schema related to psychopathology following state negative affective experiences. Enhancing self-compassion is a promising positive intervention for clinical practice. It will not only impact psychopathology through reducing factors like rumination and self-criticism, but also improve positive mental health by enhancing factors such as kindness and positive emotions. This may reduce the future risk of psychopathology.
Although theory suggests the relevance of mindfulness and mindfulness-based therapies for understanding relationships between trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and dissociative experiences, little research has directly compared associations between mindfulness and trauma-related distress versus dissociation, including dissociative trauma-related altered states of consciousness (TRASC). We therefore examined whether mindfulness traits (Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire [FFMQ]) partially mediated the relationship between self-reported trauma exposure, whether occurring during childhood or anytime in life, and outcomes of PTSD, dissociative subtype PTSD, and TRASC in 952 trauma-exposed participants surveyed online. The relationships between increased traumatic experiences and PTSD, dissociative PTSD, and TRASC were partially mediated by the decreased capacity for mindful describing, acting with awareness, and non-judging traits, although decreased mindful non-reactivity partially mediated only the association between increased childhood trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms, while increased mindful observing partially mediated the association between increased lifetime trauma exposure and increased PTSD and dissociative symptoms. Our findings suggest that altered or decreased capacity for different facets of trait mindfulness may be one mechanism by which trauma exposure leads to the development of trauma-related distress and dissociation.
Child maltreatment is a robust risk factor for internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in children and adolescents. We examined the role of disruptions in emotion regulation processes as a developmental mechanism linking child maltreatment to the onset of multiple forms of psychopathology in adolescents. Specifically, we examined whether child maltreatment was associated with emotional reactivity and maladaptive cognitive and behavioral responses to distress, including rumination and impulsive behaviors, in two separate samples. We additionally investigated whether each of these components of emotion regulation were associated with internalizing and externalizing psychopathology and mediated the association between child maltreatment and psychopathology. Study 1 included a sample of 167 adolescents recruited based on exposure to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Study 2 included a sample of 439 adolescents in a community-based cohort study followed prospectively for 5 years. In both samples, child maltreatment was associated with higher levels of internalizing psychopathology, elevated emotional reactivity, and greater habitual engagement in rumination and impulsive responses to distress. In Study 2, emotional reactivity and maladaptive responses to distress mediated the association between child maltreatment and both internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. These findings provide converging evidence for the role of emotion regulation deficits as a transdiagnostic developmental pathway linking child maltreatment with multiple forms of psychopathology.
Introduction
Childhood maltreatment, a well-known risk factor for the development of substance abuse disorders, is associated with functional and structural abnormalities in the adult brain, particularly in the limbic system. However, almost no research has examined the relationship between childhood maltreatment and brain function in individuals with drug abuse disorders.
Methods
We conducted a pilot study of the relationship between childhood maltreatment (evaluated with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire; Bernstein and Fink 1998) and resting-state functional connectivity of the amygdala (bilateral region of interest) with functional magnetic resonance imaging in 15 abstinent, methamphetamine-dependent research participants. Within regions that showed connectivity with the amygdala as a function of maltreatment, we also evaluated whether amygdala connectivity was associated positively with negative affect and negatively with healthy emotional processing.
Results
The results indicated that childhood maltreatment was positively associated with resting-state connectivity between the amygdala and right hippocampus, right parahippocampal gyrus, right inferior temporal gyrus, right orbitofrontal cortex, cerebellum, and brainstem. Furthermore, connectivity between the amygdala and hippocampus was positively related to measures of depression, trait anxiety, and emotion dysregulation, and negatively related to self-compassion and dispositional mindfulness.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that childhood maltreatment may contribute to increased limbic connectivity and maladaptive emotional processing in methamphetamine-dependent adults, and that healthy emotion regulation strategies may serve as a therapeutic target to ameliorate the associated behavioral phenotype. Childhood maltreatment warrants further investigation as a potentially important etiological factor in the neurobiology and treatment of substance use disorders.
Self-compassion refers to being supportive toward oneself when experiencing suffering or pain—be it caused by personal mistakes and inadequacies or external life challenges. This review presents my theoretical model of self-compassion as comprised of six different elements: increased self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness as well as reduced self-judgment, isolation, and overidentification. It discusses the methodology of self-compassion research and reviews the increasingly large number of empirical studies that indicate self-compassion is a productive way of approaching distressing thoughts and emotions that engenders mental and physical well-being. It also reviews research that dispels common myths about self-compassion (e.g., that it is weak, selfish, self-indulgent or undermines motivation). Interventions designed to increase self-compassion, such as compassion-focused therapy and mindful self-compassion, are discussed. Finally, the review considers problematic issues in the field, such as the differential effects fallacy, and considers limitations and future research directions in the field of self-compassion research.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 74 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Background
This systematic review aims to estimate the extent to which childhood maltreatment influences self-compassion in later life.
Method
Four English databases (Web of Science, PsycINFO, PubMed, and PsycARTICLES) and three Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and Weipu) were systematically searched. We extracted data related to the associations between child maltreatment and self-compassion and pooled them using random effect models.
Findings
A total of 20 eligible studies were included involving 6,877 participants in the analyses. Overall child maltreatment was negatively related to self-compassion ( r = −.28, p < .001); emotional abuse and neglect were negatively related to self-compassion ( r = −.28, p < .01; r = −.31, p < .01, respectively) at a moderate level; and physical abuse, sexual abuse, and physical neglect were negatively related to self-compassion ( r = −.12, p < .01; r = −.10, p < .01; and r = −.22, p < .001, respectively) at a small level.
Conclusion
The results indicate that overall and subtypes of maltreatment are associated with decreased self-compassion, and child intervention programs focused on self-compassion should be designed to protect the well-being of individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment.
Background: Depression is the leading cause of suicide. Childhood maltreatment is an important influencing factor for depression in adulthood. However, the mediating effect of self-compassion between childhood maltreatment and depression has not yet been explored.
Methods: A cluster random sampling of 4189 students was selected from a university in Hebei Province, China. They completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form, the Self-Compassion Scale, and the Self-Rating Depression Scale.
Results: Depression is significantly positively correlated with childhood maltreatment and its subscales, including emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect. Childhood maltreatment can affect depression not only directly, but also indirectly through self-compassion and its components of self-kindness, the sense of common humanity, and mindfulness.
Limitations: Potential sampling bias, subjective measures, and the cross-sectional design are the main limitations.
Conclusion: Self-compassion partly plays a mediating role between childhood maltreatment and depression. College educators and clinicians should actively help college students who experienced abuse during childhood to increase their level of self-compassion to reduce their depression.
Research suggests that mindfulness is associated with psychological health including a healthier response to stressors.
Objective:
This research tested associations between trait mindfulness and mental health factors related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Methods:
Two studies (Study 1 N = 248 college students; Study 2 N = 300 U.S adults) assessed trait mindfulness, perceived stress and anxiety, worry about the coronavirus, and anticipated negative affect of a coronavirus diagnosis. Additionally, Study 2 assessed depressive symptoms and coping with the coronavirus.
Results:
In both studies, findings indicated that individuals higher in trait mindfulness reported less stress and anxiety. Higher mindfulness in both studies was also associated with less worry about the virus and anticipating less negative affect if one gets the virus. In Study 2, trait mindfulness was negatively related to depression, and numerous associations between mindfulness and coping emerged, showing higher trait mindfulness was associated with healthier strategies in coping with coronavirus.
Conclusions:
These data are consistent with research that has revealed that those who think and act more mindfully are less stressed and anxious. By revealing these associations with mindfulness in the context of a real-world, novel stressor, this research makes an important contribution to the literature.
Research has shown that growing up in an environment in which emotions are invalidated (i.e., ignored or responded to negatively) by parents is associated with later difficulties regulating emotions. Meanwhile, dispositional mindfulness has been shown to engender a greater capacity for emotion regulation, through use of adaptive strategies like cognitive reframing and minimizing use of maladaptive strategies like expressive suppression. The current study aimed to explore the role of invalidating childhood environments on use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression as emotion regulation skills and to investigate the role of mindfulness in this relationship. Participants were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk ( n = 1094, M age = 58.3% women) and completed self-report measures assessing perceptions of maternal invalidation, mindfulness, and emotion regulation. Results demonstrated that the mindfulness facets of describing, non-judging, and non-reactivity partially mediated the relationship between perception of maternal invalidation and expressive suppression. Awareness and non-reactivity were found to mediate the relationship between perception of maternal invalidation and cognitive reappraisal. Clinical implications are discussed.
Self-compassion is a healthy way of relating to the self, and helps to mitigate negative emotions during difficult experiences. Through four studies, we explored the influence of induced self-compassion on affect-biased attention (measured using a dot-probe task) among undergraduates after negative aspects of the self were made salient. We manipulated self-compassion through a writing task and compared its effects on the dot-probe task against a control (studies 1 and 2), self-esteem and emotion disclosure (study 3), and happiness condition (study 4). Prior to the self-compassion induction, feelings of inadequacies (studies 1, 3 and 4), or shame (study 2) were first elicited among participants. The self-compassion condition yielded faster negative disengaging relative to all comparison conditions across all studies. Our studies provide strong evidence that self-compassion does have an effect on automatic, antecedental emotional regulation processes, especially negative disengaging, following the experience of inadequacy, and even a more intense feeling of shame.
This study examined the relationship between trait mindfulness, loneliness, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, subjective well-being, and the influence of trait mindfulness on loneliness. The participants were 600 college students who completed several scales; the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, The Scale of Regulatory Emotional Self-efficacy, the General Well-Being Schedule, and the Loneliness Scale. It was found that trait mindfulness could significantly but negatively predict college student loneliness.
Trait mindfulness appears to be related to lower levels of negative affective symptoms, but it remains uncertain which facets of mindfulness are most important in this relationship. Accordingly, the present meta-analysis examined studies reporting correlations between affective symptoms and trait mindfulness as assessed by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire. A comprehensive search yielded 148 eligible studies, comprising 157 distinct samples and 44,075 participants. The weighted mean correlation for affective symptoms and overall trait mindfulness was r = -0.53. Among mindfulness facets, Nonjudge (r = -0.48) and Act with Awareness (r = -0.47) demonstrated the largest correlations, followed by Nonreact (r = -0.33) and Describe (r = -0.29). Observe was not significantly correlated with affective symptoms. No significant differences in the strength of correlations were found between anxiety, depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, though symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder exhibited a weaker negative relationship with the Describe facet compared to PTSD symptoms. Describe also showed a stronger relationship with affective symptoms in Eastern samples compared to Western samples, whereas Western samples had a stronger relationship with Nonjudge. These results provide insight into the nature of the association between trait mindfulness and negative affect.
Background:
African Americans are at increased risk for stress-related disparities. Mindfulness-based interventions are effective in reducing adverse outcomes; yet, racial/ethnic minorities are underrepresented in these interventions. Also, the development of culturally-responsive interventions has been mostly non-existent.
Materials and methods:
Focus group and interview data were acquired following a four-week mindfulness intervention with African American women.
Results:
Using Brigg's (2011) mental health utilization model to guide analysis, several recommended culturally-responsive modifications emerged. Recommended modifications internal to the intervention included using African American facilitators, incorporating cultural values, using culturally-familiar terminology, and providing cultural resources. Suggested modifications to the intervention's external factors included offering the intervention within culturally-familiar settings. Individual-level factors to address were religious concerns, perceived benefits, and holistic health goals.
Conclusions:
Themes were used to propose a model toward the creation of a culturally-responsive mindfulness-based interventions to guide culturally-relevant treatment modifications and improve underserved communities' engagement in these interventions.
Mindfulness, derived from Buddhist psychology and philosophy, has gained broad popularity in the last decades, due importantly to scientific interest and findings. Yet Buddhist mindfulness developed in Asian pre-scientific culture and religion, and is predicated upon long-term cultivation of introspective awareness of lived experience, not highly accessible to empirical study. Further complicating the ‘science’ of mindfulness, mindfulness's very definition is multifaceted, resistant to dismantling and requires substantial amounts of personal practice to gain expertise. Most scientists investigating mindfulness have not achieved a high level of this expertise. Here I address how mindfulness is currently being invented as a scientific fact or object of inquiry. The intrinsic porosity of subjective and objective factors influencing the investigation of mindfulness is highlighted: the evolving body of ‘scientific’ experts, instruments used to measure mindfulness, the alliances of funders and other supporters of mindfulness research, and the public representation of the related findings.
Given recent attention to emotion regulation as a potentially unifying function of diverse symptom presentations, there is a need for comprehensive measures that adequately assess difficulties in emotion regulation among adults. This paper (a) proposes an integrative conceptualization of emotion regulation as involving not just the modulation of emotional arousal, but also the awareness, understanding, and acceptance of emotions, and the ability to act in desired ways regardless of emotional state; and (b) begins to explore the factor structure and psychometric properties of a new measure, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Two samples of undergraduate students completed questionnaire packets. Preliminary findings suggest that the DERS has high internal consistency, good test–retest reliability, and adequate construct and predictive validity.
Lifestyle choices play a major role in health outcomes. Hence, examination of factors associated with a healthy lifestyle is important for health promotion. Self-compassion is related to health behaviors but research on the role of self-compassion facets (self-kindness vs. self-judgment, common humanity vs. isolation, mindfulness vs. over-identification) on health behaviors is scarce. A total of 423 Turkish undergraduates completed Self-Compassion Scale and Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II. Health behaviors positively correlated with self-kindness, common humanity, mindfulness, and total self-compassion but not with self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that mindfulness, self-kindness, and self-judgment were significant predictors of health behaviors. Results may guide clinicians about which components to focus on in self-compassion interventions designed for health promotion.
Previous research has shown that the habit of suppressing emotional expressions is associated with long-term, general reductions in social cognitive abilities and interpersonal adjustment. This may be because theoretically, habitual suppression requires the fixation of attention to the self instead of to others. The present research explored the association between the habitual tendency to suppress one’s own emotions and accuracy in recognizing the emotions of others. Emotion recognition accuracy was tested across two tasks, a limited-channel task that presents limited emotional information and a multimodal full-channel task. We further explored cultural differences in this association given that expressive suppression may be normative for individuals of Asian descent due to cultural motivations toward social harmony and interdependence. Our findings revealed few cultural group differences. U.S.-born Asian Americans outperformed foreign-born Asian Americans and European Americans in limited-channel emotion recognition. However, the three groups did not differ in terms of interdependent self-construal, habitual emotion suppression, and full-channel emotion recognition ability. Interdependent self-construal was related to greater habitual suppression and emotion recognition accuracy in the full-channel task. Habitual emotion suppression was negatively related to limited-channel but not full-channel emotion recognition. There was no evidence of cultural differences in the link between habitual suppression and emotion recognition.
The aim of the current study was to examine whether early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) mediate the association between different kinds of childhood maltreatment and later psychopathology and the effect of different kinds of childhood maltreatment on psychological distress in later life. A total of 1102 college students from two local universities participated in the study; their average age was 20.46 ± 1.13 years. The participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the Early Maladaptive Schemas Scale (EMSs), the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), and the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS). Later psychological distress had a significant positive correlation with childhood EMSs, and almost all of the variables measuring childhood maltreatment had a significant positive correlation with EMSs. Structural equation modeling and mediation analyses were conducted based on Bootstrap estimations; the mediation analyses demonstrated the utility of EMSs as the mechanism through which childhood maltreatment has an indirect effect on later psychological distress. Moreover, the study found that emotional abuse had the strongest overall effect of all five types of child maltreatment on later psychological distress, followed in order of magnitude by emotional neglect, physical neglect, sexual abuse, and physical abuse.
Background
Adults who were victims of childhood maltreatment tend to have poorer health compared with adults who did not experience abuse. However, many are in good health. We tested whether safe, supportive, and nurturing relationships buffer women with a history of childhood maltreatment from poor health outcomes in later life.
Methods
Participants included women from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study who were involved in an intimate relationship at some point by the time their twin children were 10 years old. Women were initially interviewed in 1999–2000 (mean age = 33 years) and 2, 5, and 7 years later. They reported on their physical and mental health, and their health-risk behaviours.
Results
Compared with women who did not experience abuse in childhood, women with histories of maltreatment were at elevated risk for mental, physical, and health-risk behaviours, including major depressive disorder, sleep, and substance use problems. Cumulatively, safe, supportive, and nurturing relationships characterized by a lack of violence, emotional intimacy, and social support buffered women with a history of maltreatment from poor health outcomes.
Conclusions
Our findings emphasize that negative social determinants of health – such as a childhood history of maltreatment – confer risk for psychopathology and other physical health problems. If, however, a woman's current social circumstances are sufficiently positive, they can promote good health, particularly in the face of past adversity.
Regulating emotions well is critical for promoting social and emotional health among children and adolescents. Parents play a prominent role in how children develop emotion regulation. In 2007, Morris et al. proposed a tripartite model suggesting that parents influence children's emotion regulation through three mechanisms: children's observation of parents' emotion regulation, emotion-related parenting practices, and the emotional climate of the family. Over the past decade, we have conducted many studies that support this model, which we summarize here along with other research related to parenting and emotion regulation. We also discuss recent research on the effects of parenting on the neural circuitry involved in emotion regulation and highlight potential directions for research. Finally, we suggest how this research can aid prevention and intervention efforts to help families.
Childhood maltreatment is known to be associated with a broad variety of psychopathology and deteriorated well-being in adolescent populations. In the present nationwide study, we aimed to explore global self-esteem, attachment difficulties and substance use as possible mediators of these associations in a high-risk adolescent population. We included 400 adolescents (aged 12–20 years) living in residential youth care in Norway (response rate 67%). The participants completed a semistructured psychiatric interview (Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment (CAPA)), a study-specific questionnaire, a revised version of the Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA) and the Questionnaire for Measuring Health-related Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents (KINDL-R). Information was also provided by the adolescent’s primary contact at the institution. Two models were tested using structural equation modelling; one assessed the association between childhood maltreatment and psychopathology, and one assessed the association between childhood maltreatment and well-being. Childhood maltreatment, psychopathology, well-being, global self-esteem and attachment difficulties were treated as latent variables, and substance use was added as an observed variable. The results of this study showed that global self-esteem was a mediator of paths in both models, whereas attachment difficulties and substance use were not. Preventing decline in health and well-being in high-risk adolescents is a main goal, and this study suggests that improving self-esteem, in addition to providing psychiatric health services, could be an important tool for achieving this goal.
Experiencing traumatic events and abuse is unfortunately common in general, non-clinical samples. Recent research indicates that the ways in which individuals interpret traumatic experiences, as well as the ways that they manage challenging emotions in general, may statistically predict post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms to a greater extent than does trauma itself. Negative trauma appraisals, generalized emotion regulation (ER) difficulties, and low levels of self-compassion have each been shown to influence the connection between trauma exposure and subsequent PTSD symptoms. However, little is known regarding how these processes interact, or their relative contributions to mental health after trauma. The current study analyzed data from 466 university students who completed self-report measures of childhood abuse, PTSD symptoms, trauma appraisals,ER difficulties, and self-compassion. Childhood abuse exposure and PTSD symptoms were positively associated with negative trauma appraisals and ER difficulties, and negatively associated with self-compassion. Self-compassion was inversely associated with negative trauma appraisals and ER difficulties. Multiple mediation analyses demonstrated that negative trauma appraisals, ER difficulties, and levels of self-compassion fully explained the link between abuse exposure and PTSD symptoms via several specific pathways. These findings suggest that researchers, clinicians, and abuse survivors can benefit from addressing these interconnected domains during treatment and recovery processes.
In this chapter, we consider the development of emotion regulation (ER) and its role in child adaptation broadly construed, with the goals of (1) elucidating some of the complex mechanisms and pathways that are operating in development; (2) citing challenges and controversies that have emerged through the study of ER; and (3) advocating for an integrated biopsychosocial approach to the study of ER in the next generation of theory and research in this area. We organize the chapter in five sections: (1) definitional and theoretical considerations; (2) developmental and contextual issues; (3) empirical approaches and challenges; (4) relations to child outcomes (including psychopathology, social competence, and academic achievement); and finally (5) implications and challenges for future research. Our overarching aim is to go beyond a summary of research findings to highlight the many conceptual and empirical issues that ought to be considered in studies examining the relation between ER and child outcomes related to developmental psychopathology.
Keywords:
emotion regulation;
psychopathology;
internalizing behaviors;
externalizing behaviors;
development;
biopsychosocial perspective
Over the past decade self-compassion has gained popularity as a related and complementary construct to mindfulness, and research on self-compassion is growing at an exponential rate. Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness, concern and support you would show to a good friend. When faced with difficult life struggles, or confronting personal mistakes, failures, and inadequacies, self-compassion responds with kindness rather than harsh self-judgment, recognizing that imperfection is part of the shared human experience. In order to give oneself compassion, one must be able to turn toward, acknowledge, and accept that one is suffering, meaning that mindfulness is a core component of self-compassion. This chapter provides a comprehensive description of self-compassion and a review of the empirical literature supporting its psychological benefits. Similarities and distinctions between mindfulness and self-compassion are also explored, as these have important implications for research and intervention. This chapter hopes to provide a compelling argument for the use of both self-compassion and mindfulness as important means to help individuals develop emotional resilience and wellbeing.
This study investigated the interactive effects of self-compassion, self-esteem, and age on mental health. Numerous previous studies have found that self-compassion has a significant positive association with well-being but most of these studies were conducted with young adults represented by college students. This study extended the previous findings by comparing its distinctive functions in different age groups. A total of 1,813 adults whose age ranged from twenties to fifties (M=39.28 years, SD=11.27) completed a questionnaire measuring self-compassion, self-esteem, subjective well-being, and depression. The results of hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the positive relationship between self-compassion and subjective well-being was rendered stronger with older adults. In addition, self-compassion moderated the relationship between self-esteem and depression regardless of age. These results imply that self-compassion may be complimentary to self-esteem in improving mental health, especially for older adults.
Background:
Literature supports a strong relationship between childhood maltreatment and mental illness but most studies reviewed are cross-sectional and/or use recall to assess maltreatment and are thus prone to temporality and recall bias. Research on the potential prospective impact of maltreatment reduction on the incidence of psychiatric disorders is scarce.
Method:
Electronic databases and grey literature from 1990 to 2014 were searched for English-language cohort studies with criteria for depression and/or anxiety and non-recall measurement of childhood maltreatment. Systematic review with meta-analysis synthesized the results. Study quality, heterogeneity, and publication bias were examined. Initial screening of titles and abstracts resulted in 199 papers being reviewed. Eight high-quality articles met eligibility criteria. Population attributable fractions (PAFs) estimated potential preventive impact.
Results:
The pooled odds ratio (OR) between any type of maltreatment and depression was 2.03 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.37-3.01] and 2.70 (95% CI 2.10-3.47) for anxiety. For specific types of maltreatment and depression or anxiety disorders, the ORs were: physical abuse (OR 2.00, 95% CI 1.25-3.19), sexual abuse (OR 2.66, 95% CI 1.88-3.75), and neglect (OR 1.74, 95% CI 1.35-2.23). PAFs suggest that over one-half of global depression and anxiety cases are potentially attributable to self-reported childhood maltreatment. A 10-25% reduction in maltreatment could potentially prevent 31.4-80.3 million depression and anxiety cases worldwide.
Conclusion:
This review provides robust evidence of childhood maltreatment increasing the risk for depression and anxiety, and reinforces the need for effective programs and policies to reduce its occurrence.
This article defines the construct of self-compassion and describes the development of the Self-Compassion Scale. Self-compassion entails being kind and understanding toward oneself in instances of pain or failure rather than being harshly self-critical; perceiving one's experiences as part of the larger human experience rather than seeing them as isolating; and holding painful thoughts and feelings in mindful awareness rather than over-identifying with them. Evidence for the validity and reliability of the scale is presented in a series of studies. Results indicate that self-compassion is significantly correlated with positive mental health outcomes such as less depression and anxiety and greater life satisfaction. Evidence is also provided for the discriminant validity of the scale, including with regard to self-esteem measures.
Children (0-18 years) with maltreatment histories are vulnerable to experiencing difficulties across multiple domains of functioning, including educational outcomes that encompass not only academic achievement but also mental well-being. The current literature review adopted Slade and Wissow's model to examine (1) the link between childhood maltreatment and academic achievement, (2) the link between childhood maltreatment and mental health outcomes (i.e., emotional and behavioral difficulties), and (3) the bidirectional relationship between childhood academic achievement and mental health. In addition, we reviewed variables that might influence or help explain the link between childhood maltreatment and educational outcomes, drawing on developmental perspectives and Bronfenbrenner's ecological model. Finally, whenever possible, we presented findings specific to maltreated children in out-of-home care to highlight the unique challenges experienced by this population. Results indicated that children with maltreatment histories often experience impairments in both their academic performance (e.g., special education, grade retention, lower grades) and mental well-being (e.g., anxiety, low mood, aggression, social skills deficits, poor interpersonal relationships). These impairments appeared to be particularly pronounced among maltreated children in out-of-home care. Findings, albeit sparse, also indicated that mental health difficulties are negatively associated with children's academic achievement and, similarly, that academic achievement deficits are linked with mental health problems. The link between childhood maltreatment and educational outcomes may be partly explained through the disruption of key developmental processes in children, such as attachment, emotion regulation, and sense of agency. As well, maltreatment characteristics and the functioning of various systems in which children are embedded (e.g., family, school, child welfare) can serve to positively or negatively influence the educational outcomes of maltreated children. The theoretical, research, and applied implications stemming from the findings are considered.