Qualitative Analysis of Self-Compassion and Its Relationship to Self-Report Rating Measures of Self-Compassion Open Access

Abstract

With the rise of self-compassion interventions as a novel approach to promote psychological well-being of individuals, a few studies have implemented self-compassion interventions to address psychological problems such as body image concerns (Albertson, Neff, Dill-Shackleford, 2014; Toole & Craighead, 2016). However, none of the studies attempted to analyze the self-compassionate letters that are often used in self-compassion intervention. The present study devised a coding scheme based on a qualitative content analysis of self-compassionate letters that indicated the degree of understanding of self-compassion. This study examined the relationships between two standard self-report measures, the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) and Fear of Self-Compassion (FSC) and scores reflecting the level of self-compassion found in self-compassionate letter samples. The results indicated a significant negative correlation between the two self-report measures but no significant relationships between those measures and the letter scores. The findings suggest that assessing the level of self-compassion expressed in a writing sample which was written after exposure to psychoeducational information on self-compassion may be a useful indication of the degree to which an individual was able to learn and apply the constructs as instructed, i.e. a manipulation check. However, for many individuals, even the brief exposure to the psychoeducational information may have impacted the level of self-compassion they were able to reflect in their letter. Thus, their letter scores may not have accurately reflected their initial level of self-compassion, which would explain the low correlation with the pretest self-reports of self-compassion. The lack of correlation between the letter scores and the pre-post measures of self-compassion suggests that differential ability to incorporate psychoeducational information into a self-compassionate letter does not predict who will benefit more from the intervention. Results support prior findings that even brief exposure to the concepts of self-compassion improves self-reported self-compassion.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

I.                Introduction………………………………………………………     1

II.              Methods………………………………………………………….      8

III.            Results…………………………………………………………...     12

IV.            Discussion………………………………………………………..    16

V.              References………………………………………………………..     21

VI.           Appendices……………………………………………………….     25

VII.     Table 1 ............................................................................................     29

VIII.    Figure 1............................................................................................    30

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Psychology
Subfield / Discipline	Clinical Psychology
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, General Psychology, Clinical
Keyword	coding scheme self-compassion self-compassion intervention fear of self-compassion content qualitative analysis
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Craighead, Linda, Emory University
Committee Members	Banerjee, Samiran, Emory University Duke, Marshall, Emory University

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