Psykisk ohälsa är vanligare hos personer med diabetes än befolkningen i stort. Forskning visar att det finns många olika anledningar till denna psykiska ohälsa och lyfter behov av differentiering av allmänna psykiatriska tillstånd och psykisk ohälsa kopplat till diabetesen. Ett begrepp som fångar hur personen förhåller sig till sin diabetes är diabetesrelaterad stress. Studier rapporterar att personer med diabetes upplever skam och självkritik kopplat till sin sjukdom. Självmedkänsla är ett fält inom psykologin som riktar sig specifikt mot skam och självkritik. I denna studie användes enkäter för att undersöka om det finns ett samband mellan grad av självmedkänsla och upplevd diabetesrelaterad stress samt om det finns skillnad i upplevd diabetesrelaterad stress mellan grupper med låg, medel och hög grad av självmedkänsla. Vidare undersöktes om självmedkänsla kunde förutsäga diabetesrelaterad stress, även när psykiskt välmående inkluderades. En enkät publicerades i Facebookgrupper kopplade till diabetes i Sverige och på den svarade 239 personer. Deltagarna var mellan 18 och 75 år, övervägande antalet deltagare var kvinnor. För att analysera data användes korrelationsanalys, ANOVA och Multipla linjära regressioner. Resultaten visade på ett starkt negativt samband mellan självmedkänsla och diabetesrelaterad stress. Gruppjämförelser visade att de grupper som hade högre självmedkänsla hade lägre diabetesrelaterad stress. Detta är i linje med tidigare forskning kring självmedkänsla och hantering av kroniska sjukdomar. Det starka sambandet och gruppjämförelsernas resultat motiverar att undersöka detta område ytterligare. Interventionsstudier i syfte att undersöka eventuell påverkan av självmedkänsla på diabetesrelaterad stress skulle vara relevant, för att i förlängningen utforma riktad behandlingsrekommendationer för just diabetesrelaterad stress. / Mental health problems are more common among people with diabetes than in the population in general. Research shows that there could be several reasons to this, and calls for more clarity regarding causes. Diabetes Distress is a concept that captures how a person handles the demands of living with diabetes. Studies reports that people living with diabetes experiences shame and self-blame regarding their disease. Self-Compassion is a concept which addresses shame and self-blame specifically. This study used questionnaires to investigate if there is a correlation between levels of Self-Compassion and Diabetes Distress, and if there is a difference regarding Diabetes Distress between groups with low, moderate, and high levels of Self-Compassion. The study also examined if Self-Compassion could predict Diabetes Distress, even when mental wellbeing was accounted for. Participants were recruited via Facebook groups connected to diabetes in Sweden and 239 people replied. The participants were between 18 and 75 years old, the majority were female. Correlation, ANOVA and multiple linear regression was used to analyze the collected data. The result showed a strong negative correlation between Self-Compassion and Diabetes Distress. Group comparisons showed that those with higher Self-Compassion had lower Diabetes Distress. This confirms previous research regarding Self-Compassion and coping with chronic illness. The strong correlation and the group comparisons results suggest that further research within this field should be performed. To investigate if Self-Compassion training could affect levels of Diabetes Distress studies including Self-Compassion interventions would be of interest. More research could lead to development of recommendations and care adjusted for those who are experiencing Diabetes Distress.

Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-04T19:14:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2016-11-03 / Introdução: A flexibilidade psicológica tem sido considerada um preditor importante de qualidade de vida. A esquiva de experiência, por sua vez, está relacionada à diversas doenças. Indicadores de saúde sobre trabalhadores dos serviços de Atenção Primária (APS) apontam elevados índices de esgotamento profissional e de transtornos mentais na categoria. Objetivos: O presente estudo avalia a precisão e validade de construto dos fatores da versão brasileira da escala AAQ-2 (Escala de Aceitação e Ação II), investigando possíveis relações com medidas de ansiedade, mindfulness e autocompaixão nesta população. Métodos: O estudo, do tipo transversal correlacional, com medidas obtidas com a técnica de autorrelato, foi constituído de uma amostra de 407 profissionais da APS e utilizou questionário sociodemográfico e escalas AAQ-2, HADS, FFMQ e SCS como instrumentos. Os dados demográficos foram analisados por meio de estatística descritiva padrão. A análise fatorial confirmatória foi realizada para analisar a dimensionalidade do AAQ-2 e a consistência interna foi examinada com base no coeficiente α Cronbach. Coeficientes r de Pearson foram calculados entre os fatores da AAQ-II e as escalas HADS e SCS para avaliar as correlações. Resultados: A média de idade desses profissionais foi de 41, 12 (10,10) anos, 84,5% são do sexo feminino, 70,3% vivem com companheiro. No que se refere à ocupação profissional, 17,7% são médicos, 25,1% enfermeiras e 57,2% outros (agentes comunitários, dentistas etc). A categoria em estudo apresentou altos índices de ansiedade e depressão correlacionados à inflexibilidade psicológica, medida pela AAQ-II. Conclusões: Os resultados encontrados apontam o AAQ-2 como um instrumento válido para a população de profissionais da Atenção Primária à Saúde no Brasil, apresentando boa consistência interna. Há forte correlação positiva entre escores de ansiedade/depressão e inflexibilidade psicológica, bem como em autocompaixão e mindfulness. / Introduction: The psychological flexibility has been considered an important predictor of quality of life. Experiential avoidance, in turn, is related to various diseases. Health indicators on workers of Primary Care Services indicate high levels of burnout and mental disorders in the category. Objectives: This study evaluates the internal consistency and construct validity of the factors of the Brazilian version of AAQ-2 scale (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire), correlating them with measures of anxiety, mindfulness and self-compassion in this population. Method: The study, correlational cross-sectional, with measurements obtained by self-report technique consisted of a sample universe of 407 PHC professionals and used sociodemographic questionnaire and the AAQ-II scales, HADS, FFMQ and SCS as instruments. Demographic data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Confirmatory Factor analysis were used to analyze the dimensionality of AAQ-II and the internal consistency was examined based on the Cronbach α coefficient. Correlations Pearson's r were made between the AAQ-II factors and the HADS scales and SCS to assess the correlations. Results: The mean age of these workers is 41, 12 (10,10) years, 84.5% were female, 70.3% live with a partner. With regard to occupation, 17.7% are physicians, nurses 25.1% and 57.2% other (community workers, dentists etc). The category study reported high levels of anxiety and depression related to psychological inflexibility, as measured by AAQ-II. Conclusions: The AAQ-II seems to be a valid instrument in the population of Primary Care Providers in Brazil, with good internal consistency.There is a strong positive correlation between scores of anxiety / depression and psychological inflexibility, as well as in self-compassion and mindfulness. / BV UNIFESP: Teses e dissertações

abstract: Multiple studies have found that writing with self-compassion about a difficult event helps promote mental health and improve affect in college students and non-clinical populations (Johnson & O'Brien, 2013; Leary et al, 2007; Shapira & Mongrain, 2010). This study investigated whether a self-compassion writing intervention would lead to increases in self-compassion and proactive coping and reductions in depression and physical symptoms in a sample of individuals with different types of mental illness. This study also looked more broadly at the feasibility of conducting an online randomized trial on individuals with mental illness, including psychotic disorders, on Amazon MTurk. Individuals with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and/or depression on Amazon MTurk were recruited and randomly assigned to either a (1) treatment condition in which participants wrote with self-compassion or a (2) neutral condition in which participants wrote about how they spent their time. Participants were asked to write for 20 minutes each day for three consecutive days. Outcome measures were administered at baseline, after the three-day intervention, and one month later. Computerized linguistic analysis (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2015) was also used to analyze participants' writing to determine if the intervention had the intended effect. Both the treatment and control groups showed significant improvements in self-compassion, proactive coping, general mental health and physical health following the intervention and both groups showed significant improvements in self-compassion, proactive coping and general mental health between the post-test and 1-month follow-up. In addition, the self-compassion writing group's positive affect improved significantly more than the control group after the wave 1 writing intervention and the control group's negative affect improved significantly more than the self-compassion writing group after the wave 2 writing intervention. Overall, the results suggest both self-compassion writing and writing about how one spends one's time may be beneficial for individuals with mental illness with different needs. Moreover, it was found Amazon MTurk may not be a reliable platform for recruiting individuals with psychotic disorders, and that the prevalence of individuals with any mental illness on MTurk may be equal or greater than the prevalence of any mental illness in the general population. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Social Work 2018

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is the intentional destruction of bodily tissue in the absence of suicidal motives. NSSI is strongly associated with self-criticism (Gilbert et al., 2010) and individuals who self-injure often report doing so to punish themselves. Conversely, self-compassion, or the tendency to be caring with oneself, is associated with psychological well-being (Neff et al., 2007). The aim of the present study was to determine whether experimentally inducing self-criticism or self-compassion would lead to changes in implicit identification with NSSI. The Self-Injury Implicit Association Test (SI-IAT; Nock & Banaji, 2007) is an assessment of the strength of the automatic associations that a person holds between themselves and NSSI. Participants were randomly assigned to a self-criticism induction, a self-compassion induction, or a neutral condition and completed the SI-IAT before and after the induction. Results showed that participants in the self-criticism induction experienced an increase in their implicit associations with NSSI while implicit associations in the self-compassion and control conditions generally did not change. Results were not significantly different for those with or without a history of NSSI and highlight the importance of self-criticism in NSSI. Future research should examine increases in self-criticism as a potential precursor of NSSI in longitudinal samples.

According to the American School Counseling Association (ASCA, 2010), school counselors are charged with meeting the academic, social/emotional and career needs of all students (2010). In addition, school counselors serve as the front line in dealing with trauma and crisis in their schools. Those counselors who understand the importance of their own wellness and practice healthy lifestyle behaviors are better equipped to meet these demands. Unfortunately, not all school counselors are practicing what they advocate for their students relative to promoting wellness in their own lives (O'Halloran & Linton, 2000). This lack of congruence, where school counselors are not modeling the positive lifestyle and self-care behaviors they expect of their students, may take a toll on counselors’ emotional health. Research has been conducted exploring counselor wellness through the lens of compassion fatigue and burnout, but there has been limited research from a strength-based perspective specifically with school counselors. This study aims to add to the literature and explore the experiences of individual school counselors who can prioritize and integrate wellness principles and self-compassion behaviors and have been able to persist in the profession for 10 years or more. Seven school counselors participated in semi-structured interviews that explored their experiences regarding wellness behaviors and the practice of self-compassion. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. Results indicated school counselors do integrate self-compassion and positive wellness behaviors. All participants shared several wellness practices such as, scheduling and modeling self-care, seeking out opportunities to increase their knowledge in the area of wellness as well as the practice of self-compassionate behavior.

Psykisk ohälsa ökar för de flesta grupper i Sverige, men minoritetsgrupper är mer utsatta än andra. Syftet med vår studie var att ta reda på hur situationen ser ut för HBTQI-individer i Sverige och skapa underlag för att kunna underlätta för denna utsatta grupp. Utifrån Meyers minoritetsstressmodell och Neffs definition av självmedkänsla vill vi svara på frågan om det finns något samband mellan minoritetsstress och psykisk hälsa hos HBTQI-individer och om självmedkänsla i så fall medierar detta förhållande. Deltagarna bestod av svensktalande personer över 18 år som identifierar sig som HBTQI. Dessa rekryterades via Facebook och andra internetbaserade forum. Mätinstrumentet var en online-enkät där konstruktet psykisk hälsa definierades som grad av ångest- och nedstämdhetssymtomatologi och grad av livskvalitet. Enkäten mätte även konstrukten självmedkänsla och minoritetsstress. Resultaten visade att det finns ett signifikant positivt samband mellan graden av minoritetsstress och graden av ångest- och nedstämdhetssymtomatologi. Högre grader självmedkänsla var kopplat till lägre grader psykisk ohälsa och högre grader livskvalitet. Självmedkänsla var kopplat till proximal minoritetsstress men inte distal minoritetsstress. En mediationsanalys visade att självmedkänsla har en signifikant medierande effekt på förhållandet mellan minoritetsstress och psykisk ohälsa. Sammanfattningsvis visade sig självmedkänsla vara en viktig faktor för att förstå förhållandet mellan minoritetsstress och psykisk ohälsa och är därmed något som framtida interventioner mot psykisk ohälsa hos HBTQI-individer bör fokusera på. / Mental illness is increasing in Sweden, and minority groups are more at risk than others. The purpose of our study was to determine what the situation is for LGBTQ-individuals in Sweden and create a basis to aid this group. Based on Meyer's minority stress model and Neff’s definition of self-compassion, we want to answer the question regarding if there is a connection between minority stress and mental health in LGBTQ-individuals, and if self-compassion mediates this relationship. The participants consisted of Swedish-speaking people over the age of 18 that self-identify as LGBTQ. These were recruited via Facebook and other internet-based forums. The measurement was an online-survey where the construct mental health was defined as degree of anxiety- and depression symptomatology as well as quality of life. The survey also measured the constructs self-compassion and minority stress. The results showed a significant positive relationship between minority stress and degree of anxiety- and depression symptomatology. Higher degrees of self-compassion were related to lower degrees of mental illness and higher degrees of quality of life. Self-compassion was related to proximal minority stress but not distal minority stress. A mediation analysis showed that self-compassion has a significant mediating effect on the relationship between minority stress and mental illness. In conclusion, self-compassion was proven to be an important factor in understanding the relationship between minority stress and mental illness and is therefore something future interventions targeting mental health in the LGBTQ community should focus on.

Body dissatisfaction and disordered eating behaviors are significant public health concerns, especially among college-age women. Despite extensive research, the complex nature of disordered eating and its etiology has prevented a satisfactory predictive model from being developed and validated and has therefore hindered the development of effective prevention and intervention strategies. This study aimed to integrate four of the most common etiological theories into a model to predict disordered eating behaviors. Bivariate correlations and moderation analyses were conducted to determine the strength of relationships between variables and to determine whether a protective factor (i.e., self-compassion) moderates the effects of risk factors (i.e., media exposure, thin-ideal internalization, negative affect) on body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and bulimic behaviors. Results indicated that there were correlations between negative affect, thin-ideal internalization, and disordered eating behaviors. Contrary to hypotheses, media exposure had significant relationships with both bulimia and body dissatisfaction but was not significantly associated with thin-ideal internalization. Broadly, negative affect and thin-ideal internalization predicted disordered eating behaviors. Finally, self-compassion did not emerge as a consistent moderator of the relationship between the three risk factors and disordered eating behaviors – except with drive for thinness. Findings have potential implications for mental and physical healthcare interventions to reduce symptom experiences and increase well-being.

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abstract: Interpersonal strain is linked with depressive symptoms in middle-aged adults. Self-compassion is an emerging resilience construct that may be advantageous in navigating relationship strain by helping individuals respond to emotions in a kind and nonjudgmental way. Although theory and empirical evidence suggests that self-compassion is protective against the impact of stress on mental health outcomes, many studies have not investigated how self-compassion operates in the context of relationship strain. In addition, few studies have examined psychological or physiological mechanisms by which self-compassion protects against mental health outcomes, depression in particular. Thus, this study examined 1) the extent to which trait self-compassion buffers the relation between family strain and depressive symptoms, and 2) whether these buffering effects are mediated by hope and inflammatory processes (IL-6) in a sample of 762 middle-aged, community-dwelling adults. Results from structural equation models indicated that family strain was unrelated to depressive symptoms and the relation was not moderated by self-compassion. Hope, but not IL-6, mediated the relation between family strain and depressive symptoms and the indirect effect was not conditional on levels of self-compassion. Taken together, the findings suggest that family strain may lead individuals to experience less hope and subsequent increases in depressive symptoms, and further, that a self-compassionate attitude does not affect this relation. Implications for future self-compassion interventions are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2019

Self-compassion, typically operationalized as the total score of the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003b), has been shown to be related to increased psychological well-being and lower depression in students of the social sciences, users of psychology websites and psychotherapy patients. The current study builds on the existing literature by examining the link between self-compassion and depressive symptomatology in a sample representative of the German general population (n = 2,404). The SCS subscales of self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification, and the “self-coldness”, composite score, which encompass these three negative subscales, consistently differed between subsamples of individuals without any depressive symptoms, with any depressive syndromes, and with major depressive disorder. The contribution of the positive SCS subscales of self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness to the variance in depressive symptomatology was almost negligible. However, when combined to a “self-compassion composite”, the positive SCS subscales significantly moderated the relationship between “self-coldness” and depressive symptoms in the general population. This speaks for self-compassion having the potential to buffer self-coldness related to depression—providing an argument for interventions that foster self-caring, kind, and forgiving attitudes towards oneself.