This study examined the role of hope in understanding the link between loneliness and negative affective conditions (viz., anxiety and depressive symptoms) in a sample of 318 adults. As expected, loneliness was found to be a significant predictor of both anxiety and depressive symptoms. Noteworthy, hope was found to significantly augment the prediction of depressive symptoms, even after accounting for loneliness. Furthermore, we found evidence for a significant Loneliness × Hope interaction effect in predicting anxiety. A plot of the interaction confirmed that the association between loneliness and anxiety was weaker among high, compared to low, hope adults. Some implications of the present findings are discussed.

A recent review suggested that self-compassion promotes use of adaptive rather than maladaptive coping. Less is known about how self-compassion is linked to stress and coping in the context of a chronic stressor. Across two primarily female chronic illness samples, inflammatory bowel disease (N = 155) and arthritis (N = 164), a model linking self-compassion to lower stress through coping styles and coping efficacy was tested. Path analyses revealed significant indirect effects for adaptive coping styles (active, positive reframing, and acceptance), and negatively for maladaptive coping styles (behavioral disengagement and self-blame) in both samples. Findings suggest that the relative balance of adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies used by self-compassionate people is associated with better coping outcomes in the context of chronic illness.

Objective: Emerging theory and research suggest that self-compassion promotes the practice of health behaviors, and implicates self-regulation as an explanatory factor. However, previous investigations focused only on behavior intentions or health risk behaviors, and did not investigate the role of emotions. This study expands on this research using a small-scale meta-analysis approach with our own data sets to examine the associations of self-compassion with a set of health-promoting behaviors, and test the roles of high positive affect and low negative affect as potential explanatory mechanisms. Method: Fifteen independent samples (N = 3,252) with correlations of self-compassion with the frequency of self-reported health-promoting behaviors (eating habits, exercise, sleep behaviors, and stress management) were meta-analyzed. Eight of these samples completed measures of positive and negative affect. Results: Self-compassion was positively associated with the practice of health-promoting behaviors across all 15 samples. The meta-analysis revealed a small effect size (average r = .25; p < .001) of self-compassion and health behaviors, with low variability. Tests of the indirect effects of self-compassion on health behaviors through positive and negative affect with multiple mediator analyses revealed small effects for each. Separate meta-analyses of the indirect effects (IE) were significant for positive (average IE = .08; p < .001) and negative affect (average IE = .06; p < .001), and their combined indirect effects (average IE = .15; p < .0001). Conclusion: Self-compassion may be an important quality to cultivate for promoting positive health behaviors, due in part to its association with adaptive emotions.

Forgiveness is argued, by scholars and lay persons alike, to play an important role in substance abuse recovery. However, little empirical research has been conducted to verify such assumptions. Cross-sectional naturalistic data from a sample of 126 Southern Appalachian college students identified as likely to be hazardous or harmful drinkers were analyzed through multiple-mediation statistical procedures. The general hypothesis of this study was that, while controlling for demographic characteristics, including lifetime religiousness, higher levels of forgiveness would be associated with both better mental health and higher levels of social support, which in turn would be associated with salutary alcohol-related outcomes. In the context of forgiveness of self, for four of the five alcohol-related outcomes, the relationships operated mainly through mental health and primarily in an indirect rather than mediating fashion. Feeling forgiven by God was directly associated with three outcomes. Forgiveness of others was not associated with any of the outcomes measured. While forgiveness appears to be important and beneficial in association with alcohol-related outcomes, it may be that forgiveness of self is most important. Limitations discussed include sample- and measurement-related issues.

Background: Although insomnia has been identified as a robust predictor of suicidal ideation and behaviors, little is known about the mechanisms by which sleep disturbances confer risk for suicide. We investigated thwarted belongingness as an explanatory link between insomnia symptoms and suicidal ideation across three military service member and veteran samples. Methods: Data were collected among United States military service members and veterans (N1=937, N2=3,386, N3=417) who completed self-report measures of insomnia symptoms, thwarted belongingness, suicidal ideation, and related psychiatric symptoms (e.g., anxiety, hopelessness). Bias-corrected bootstrap mediation analyses were utilized to examine the indirect effects of insomnia symptoms on suicidal ideation through thwarted belongingness, controlling for related psychiatric symptoms. Results: Consistent with study hypotheses, thwarted belongingness significantly accounted for the relationship between insomnia and suicidal ideation across all three samples; however, insomnia symptoms did not significantly account for the relationship between thwarted belongingness and suicidal ideation, highlighting the specificity of our findings. Limitations: This study utilized cross-sectional self-report data. Conclusions: Insomnia may confer suicide risk for military service members and veterans, in part, through the pathway of thwarted belongingness. Additional prospective studies are warranted to further delineate this model of risk. Our results offer a potential therapeutic target for the prevention of suicide, via the promotion of belongingness, among service members and veterans experiencing insomnia symptoms.

Excerpt: Tens of thousands of Americans die from suicide each year, and even more exhibit active suicidal behavior, such as thoughts of suicide or plans for a suicide attempt.

Book Summary: The present volume is a ground-breaking and agenda-setting investigation of the psychology of self-forgiveness. It brings together the work of expert clinicians and researchers working within the field, to address questions such as: Why is self-forgiveness so difficult? What contexts and psychological experiences give rise to the need for self-forgiveness? What approaches can therapists use to help people process difficult experiences that elicit guilt, shame and self-condemnation? How can people work through their own failures and transgressions? Assembling current theories and findings, this unique resource reviews and advances our understanding of self-forgiveness, and its potentially critical function in interpersonal relationships and individual emotional and physical health. The editors begin by exploring the nature of self-forgiveness. They consider its processes, causes, and effects, how it may be measured, and its potential benefits to theory and psychotherapy. Expert clinicians and researchers then examine self-forgiveness in its many facets; as a response to guilt and shame, a step toward processing transgressions, a means of reducing anxiety, and an essential component of, or, under some circumstances a barrier to, psychotherapeutic intervention. Contributors also address self-forgiveness as applied to diverse psychosocial contexts such as addiction and recovery, couples and families, healthy aging, the workplace, and the military. Among the topics in the Handbook: An evolutionary approach to shame-based self-criticism, self-forgiveness and compassion. Working through psychological needs following transgressions to arrive at self-forgiveness. Self-forgiveness and health: a stress-and-coping model. Self-forgiveness and personal and relational well-being. Self-directed intervention to promote self-forgiveness. Understanding the role of forgiving the self in the act of hurting oneself. The Handbook of the Psychology of Self-Forgiveness serves many healing professionals. It covers a wide range of problems for which individuals often seek help from counselors, clergy, social workers, psychologists and physicians. Research psychologists, philosophers, and sociologists studying self-forgiveness will also find it an essential handbook that draws together the advances made over the past several decades, and identifies important directions for the road ahead.

Fibromyalgia, a chronic illness characterized by widespread muscle pain, tenderness, joint stiffness, and fatigue, affects 3-6% of the world’s population. Symptoms of fibromyalgia impact the ability to complete daily activities, such as cooking, cleaning or employment, possibly leading to greater perceived stress and, in turn, to engagement in suicidal behavior. For persons with fibromyalgia, pressure to complete previous routines, and emergence of frustration at the inability to do so, may result in the experience of being overwhelmed by stressors. Further, persons with fibromyalgia are at greater risk for both mental health difficulties and suicidal behavior than persons in the general population; for example, depressive symptoms, including self-blame, are three times more common. However, not all individuals with fibromyalgia experience overwhelming distress or engage in suicidal behaviors, perhaps due to the presence of individual-level protective factors. One such factor is self-compassion, which is composed of self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. Positive emotions directed toward the self may buffer against illness-related stressors and feelings of inadequacy and loss associated with impact of disease and functional impairment, thereby decreasing suicide risk. At the bivariate level, we hypothesized that fibromyalgia impact would be positively related to stress and suicidal behaviors, and that self-compassion would be negatively related to all of these variables. At the multivariate level, we hypothesized that stress would mediate the relation between fibromyalgia impact and suicidal behaviors, and that self-compassion would moderate this mediation effect such that greater self-compassion would weaken the linkages between impairment and stress, impairment and suicidal behavior, and stress and suicidal behavior. Our sample of individuals with fibromyalgia (N=508) were primarily White (91.8%; n=383) and female (95.7%; n=401), and completed self-report measures including: Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire-Revised, Depression Anxiety Stress Scales, Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form, and Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised. Bivariate correlations and multivariate analyses, per Hayes (2013), were conducted covarying age, sex, and ethnicity. In bivariate correlations, fibromyalgia impact was positively related to stress and suicidal behaviors and negatively related to self-compassion (p Supporting hypotheses, our results suggest that self-compassion may protect against the development of stress related to fibromyalgia impact and subsequent risk for suicidal behaviors, and may have clinical implications. Therapeutic interventions focused on alleviating stress (e.g., meditation, stress inoculation therapy) and promoting self-compassion (e.g. mindful self-compassion training, positive self-talk) could ameliorate the perceived impact of fibromyalgia-related stressors and, thus, risk for engagement in suicidal behaviors.

No description available.

Background: Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US, and rates of suicide are higher in rural than urban areas. As proposed by the Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide, thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness are risk factors for suicidal behavior, although protective individual-level characteristics such as forgiveness, may indirectly affect suicidal behavior by decreasing the deleterious effect of thwarted interpersonal needs. Method: A sample of uninsured adults recruited from a rural primary clinic (N=101) completed the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness and Spirituality; Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised; Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire; and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Parallel and serial multivariable mediation analyses were conducted to test for direct and indirect effects of forgiveness on suicidal behavior. Results: In parallel mediation, covarying depressive symptoms, forgiveness of self had an indirect effect on suicidal behavior, through perceived burdensomeness. Inclusion of depressive symptoms as a mediator revealed an indirect effect of forgiveness of self and others on suicidal behavior via depression, thwarted belongingness, and perceived burdensomeness in a serial mediation model. Limitation: A longitudinal study, with an equal representation of males and diverse populations is needed to replicate our findings. Discussion: Our findings have implications for the role health providers can play in addressing suicide with rural patients. Promoting forgiveness, may, in turn affect interpersonal functioning and decrease risk for suicidal behavior.