Department of Psychology, University of the Andes, Bogota, Colombia.
Department of Economics and Social Sciences, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy.
PLoS One. 2023 Feb 7;18(2):e0272198. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272198. eCollection 2023.
Compassion-focused imagery (CFI) can be an effective emotion-regulation technique but can create threat-focused responses in some individuals. However, these findings have been based on tasks involving receiving compassion from others.
This study sought to compare responses CFI involving self-compassion to relaxation and a control task, and to see whether any threat-responses to self-compassion and relaxation decrease with practice.
25 participants with depression/anxiety symptoms and high self-criticism and/or low self-compassion engaged in three tasks (control task, relaxation imagery, and CFI) at three or four separate testing sessions, every three days. Heart-rate variability (HRV) was used to explore group-level differences between tasks. Additionally, we identified how many individuals showed a clinically significant change in HRV in response to compassion (compared to baseline) and how many showed such a change during relaxation (compared to baseline).
During session 1, more individuals had a clinically significant increase in HRV in response to CFI (56%) than in response to relaxation (44%), and fewer had a clinically significant decrease in HRV during CFI (16%) than during relaxation (28%). Comparing the group as a whole, no significant differences between tasks were seen. Repeated sessions led to fewer positive responses to CFI, perhaps reflecting habituation/boredom.
These preliminary findings suggest that in high self-critics (those most likely to find self-compassion difficult), self-compassionate imagery is no more challenging than standard relaxation tasks. For both compassion and relaxation, some individuals respond positively and others negatively. For those who are not benefiting, practice alone is not sufficient to improve response. Effects may differ for other compassion tasks.
Trial number: NCT04647318.
专注于慈悲的意象（CFI）可以是一种有效的情绪调节技术，但在某些个体中可能会产生威胁聚焦的反应。然而，这些发现基于涉及从他人那里获得慈悲的任务。
本研究旨在比较涉及自我慈悲的 CFI 与放松和控制任务的反应，并观察自我慈悲和放松的任何威胁反应是否会随着练习而减少。
25 名有抑郁/焦虑症状和高自我批评和/或低自我慈悲的参与者在三个或四个单独的测试会议上，每隔三天进行三次任务（控制任务、放松意象和 CFI）。心率变异性（HRV）用于探索任务之间的组间差异。此外，我们确定了有多少个体在慈悲（与基线相比）方面表现出 HRV 的临床显著变化，以及有多少个体在放松（与基线相比）方面表现出 HRV 的临床显著变化。
在第 1 次会议期间，更多的个体在 CFI 方面表现出 HRV 的临床显著增加（56%），而不是在放松方面（44%），并且在 CFI 期间表现出 HRV 的临床显著下降的个体（16%）少于在放松期间（28%）。比较整个组，任务之间没有观察到显著差异。重复的会议导致对 CFI 的积极反应减少，这可能反映了习惯化/无聊。
这些初步发现表明，在高自我批评者（最有可能发现自我慈悲困难的人）中，自我慈悲意象并不比标准放松任务更具挑战性。对于慈悲和放松，一些个体反应积极，而另一些个体反应消极。对于那些没有受益的人来说，单独练习不足以改善反应。对于其他慈悲任务，效果可能不同。
试验编号：NCT04647318。
