Sexual minorities, or those who do not identify as straight, experience stigma that has been associated with a number of health issues and decreased quality of life. The current study expands on previous explanations of the relationship between stigma experienced by sexual minorities and quality of life by examining self-compassion and authenticity as potential mediators. We proposed and examined a mediation model in which self-compassion and authenticity would explain the relationship between stigma and quality of life, using data from a sample of 213 sexual minorities. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that there was no direct relationship between public stigma and quality of life but that public stigma and quality of life were indirectly related through internalized stigma, authenticity, and self-compassion. These findings have implications for the understanding of sexual minority experience of stigma and highlight potential points of intervention for increasing quality of life among sexual minority individuals.

Based on the assumption by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993), educational scholars need insight on the “particulars” of what works for classroom teachers within the context of their own classrooms. This dissertation is a self-study that addresses my work as a high school Multicultural Literature teacher and the impact of how my own philosophical/theoretical belief system resulted in significant transformative learning experiences for students as demonstrated in their feedback. Using intercultural competence, value-creation pedagogy, and compassion as theoretical frameworks that encourage greater social cohesion and collective participation, I used autoethnography as my primary method of investigation to treat data through an analytical, self-reflective, and interpretive lens within the cultural context of my classes. Types of data included personal memory, self-observational, self-reflective, and external data, such as end of the year anonymous student evaluations, personal memoirs, journal entries, notes, course documents, past student assignments, personal communications, and a blog, collected from my 13 years of teaching. By sharing and examining my ethical/moral-motivation in relation to the positive feedback from students, I demonstrate how my pedagogical interactions and relationships with students manifest through value creation/culturally responsive pedagogy, the empowered voice, intercultural dialogue, transformative learning, and the development and nurturing of empathy and compassion. The study shares personal insights into the elements and processes that contributed to the overwhelmingly positive feedback of students throughout the study. Recommendations suggest greater research and discourse in developing a pedagogy of compassion.

Individuals with fibromyalgia report lower levels of health-related quality of life (HRQL) compared to other chronically ill populations and interpersonal factors (i.e., social support) may influence risk. What is less understood is how intrapersonal factors (i.e., self-compassion) may impact the social support-HRQL linkage. We examined the association between social support and HRQL in a sample of persons with fibromyalgia and tested the potential mediating role of self-compassion. Self-identified adults in the United States with fibromyalgia (N = 508) were recruited from state, regional, and national organizations and support groups and completed an online battery of self-report questionnaires including: Multidimensional Health Profile-Psychosocial Functioning Index, Short-Form 36 Health Survey, and Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form. Individuals with greater subjective social support reported higher levels of self-compassion and, in turn, higher mental HRQL. These findings provide greater information about psychosocial constructs and HRQL and extend our understanding of self-compassion among individuals living with fibromyalgia.

This mixed-methods study sought to examine the impact of learning the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model on novice therapists' self-of-the-therapist work. Criterion sampling was used to recruit participants enrolled in an IFS graduate course in Virginia Tech's Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) Program. Participants completed three sets of questionnaires (Self-Compassion Scale, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, and Professional Quality of Life Scale V. 5) both before and after completing the course. Twelve of the 23 participants volunteered to contribute to the qualitative portion of this study in semi-structured focus groups or individual interviews. The qualitative data were analyzed using grounded theory to assist in building theory for whether and how IFS can build awareness of internal process and increased self-compassion in novice therapists, therefore contributing to their self-of-the-therapist work. The quantitative data reported an increase in Self-Kindness, Common Humanity, Mindfulness, ability to Describe one's experience, ability to Act with Awareness, and the ability to be Nonjudgmental and Nonreactive of one's experience after participants completed the IFS course. The quantitative data reported a decrease in participants' Self-Judgment, Over-identification, and Secondary Traumatic Stress after completing the IFS course. The qualitative data supported these findings. The themes that emerged for the qualitative data were an increase in Self-Leadership, Improved Relationships, and an increase in Self-Compassion. Overall, participants reported gaining greater awareness of their internal process and increasing their ability to be self-compassionate, which they report impacted and contributed to their self-of-the-therapist work. Limitations, clinical and training implications, and future directions for research are discussed. / Master of Science

L’empathie désigne la capacité de partager et de se mettre à la place d’autrui afin d’appréhender son expérience affective. Cette faculté complexe favorise la communication et l’ajustement des comportements sociaux. Les recherches en neurosciences observent une activation partielle des circuits neuronaux reliés aux dimensions sensorielles et affectives de la douleur somatique lorsque les individus partagent et apprécient l’expérience douloureuse d’autrui. Les processus contrôlés de l’empathie, principalement les habiletés de prise de perspective, permettent d’adopter le point de vue d’une autre personne afin de mieux évaluer sa douleur. Les paradigmes d’observation de la douleur représentent une nouvelle avenue pour étudier le fonctionnement de l’empathie dans la schizophrénie. L’étude des troubles psychotiques à début récent favorise l’identification des facteurs qui prédisposent à l'apparition de la psychose. L'objectif de cette thèse consiste à examiner le fonctionnement de la prise de perspective durant l’évaluation de la douleur d’autrui. Dans une première étude, nous démontrons que les adultes en bonne santé évaluent plus intensément des images représentant des scènes douloureuses lorsqu’elles sont présentées selon leur perspective visuelle en comparaison à celle d’une autre personne. En utilisant un EEG, une modulation somatosensorielle plus importante est aussi observée lorsque de la douleur d’autrui est évaluée selon une perspective visuelle à la première personne. Dans une deuxième étude, aucune différence n’est observée entre un groupe de personnes atteintes d’un trouble psychotique d’évolution récente et un groupe témoin quant à l’évaluation de la douleur. Cependant, chez ces derniers, une relation existe entre une faible disposition à la prise de perspective et une évaluation plus intense de la douleur observée selon une perspective visuelle à la première personne. De façon générale, cette thèse souligne le rôle modulateur de la prise de perspective lorsque les gens évaluent l’expérience douloureuse d’un tiers. De plus, nos travaux permettent de considérer de manière nouvelle le fonctionnement de l’empathie dans la schizophrénie en faisant ressortir certaines difficultés d’empathie dans les premières années suivant le déclenchement de la psychose. La discussion met en lien les modèles théoriques sur l’empathie et sur la communication de la douleur. / Empathy refers to the capacity to share and understand other people’s emotional states. This faculty can promote communication and social behaviours adjustment. By investigating how people experienced someone else’s suffering, neuroscience research has shown that vicarious pain partially activates the neuronal networks underlying the sensory and affective dimensions of somatic pain. Controlled empathic processes, such as perspective taking abilities, can also be used to deliberately put oneself into another person’s perspective in order to evaluate the painful experience from that person’s perspective. Pain observation paradigms could offer a new insight on the examination of empathy in schizophrenia. Emphasis on the characterization of these abilities during recent onset evolution of psychosis could provide indicators of individuals’ vulnerability to develop schizophrenia. The main objective of this thesis was to examine perspective taking processes when evaluating pain in others. In a first study, we demonstrate that healthy adults evaluate pictures of hands in pain more intensely when they are presented in their own visual perspective in comparison with another person’s viewpoint. Using EEG, we showed that evaluating these painful pictures in one’s own perspective is also associated with a stronger somatosensory modulation. In a second study, we found no difference in the evaluation of painful pictures between adults with recent onset of psychosis and healthy controls. However, a reduction of dispositional perspective taking traits and illness duration in adults with recent onset of psychosis had been found to be related their evaluation of pain observed. Thus, these findings expose possible links between the development of controlled empathy processes and recent of psychosis. In sum, this thesis highlights the modulating influence of perspective taking when people appreciate someone else’s painful experience. Also, this work further characterizes the limited empathy impairment observed in recent onset of psychosis. The discussion proposes an integration of theoretical knowledge from models of empathy and communication of pain.

In the current study, I examined the efficacy of mindful self-compassion, imagery, and goal-setting (i.e., treatment as usual) interventions on athletic identity, knee self-efficacy, subjective knee functioning, and perceived injustice, following ACL surgery. Twenty-nine adolescent and young adult athletes participated in the interventions and completed self-report measures assessing each of these constructs prior to their surgery and over seven weeks post-ACL surgery. HLM analyses demonstrated significant decreases in athletic identity and increases in subjective knee functioning from pre-surgery through seven weeks post-surgery. Intervention group further explained these decreases, though no one intervention clearly emerged as more or less beneficial. No significant changes were observed for athletes' ratings of knee self-efficacy or perceived injustice. Limitations and areas for future research are discussed.

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An under-explored dimension of college instruction is the role of instructors' compassion and caring and its impact on student success. In this conversation, participants will consider the importance of caring and compassion in instruction, the limits of and challenges to instructor use of compassion, ways to cultivate compassion, and best practices (as defined by the conversation community) for demonstrating compassion or caring to students.