ACT With Compassion

We have a new paper out in the journal Current Opinion in Psychology about shame, self-criticism, stigma, and compassion in ACT.

Five studies show ACT helps with shame and self-stigma
In this paper, we reviewed the existing research demonstrating that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help with shame and what is called self-stigma, or buying into negative public attitudes related to a certain characteristic (e.g., “I’m a dirty smoker.”) At the time we wrote this paper, there were five studies showing that ACT helps to ease shame and self-stigma. These studies focused on people struggling with substance abuse, obesity, sexuality-related distress and stigma, and stigma related to HIV.

Each month we highlight some practical resources for therapists interested in compassion. We don’t go into great depth about what we find, but encourage you to check them out if you think they’re interesting.

Every month, we scour the scientific literature for interesting studies that have practical implications for therapists working with shame, self-criticism, or compassion. Below are a few of our favorites for this month:

Research shows that behaviors that we track are likely to change as a result of self monitoring. This strategy can be used to develop more awareness of self-critical tendencies and foster daily experiences of self-compassion. We adapted Kristin Neff's self-compassion scale to a daily format that asks people to reflect on their level of self-compassion once per day. This measure can also be used to assess change over time, if the therapist wants to use it in that manner.

Each month we highlight some practical resources for therapists interested in compassion. We don’t go into great depth about what we find, but encourage you to check them out if you think they’re interesting.

Every month, we scour the scientific literature for interesting studies that have practical implications for therapists working with shame, self-criticism, or compassion. Below are a few of our favorites for this month:

People who are chronically self-critical often become numb to the effects of their self-criticism.

Through closely attending to the emotional reaction to self-criticism, people can begin to feel the real impact of this way of relating to oneself. Doing chair work where the critical side is enacted can sometimes begin to elicit the emotional reactions of shame, hurt, helplessness, or sadness that are created by a harsh way of being with oneself. At this stage it's often useful to support the client in developing a sense for the harm being created by self-criticism.  This handout I created (adapted from emotion-focused therapy) can help clients to explore this in their daily life. It guides them to pause, feel, and explore the impact of self-criticism as it occurs in their life. 

Each month we highlight some practical resources for therapists interested in compassion. We don’t go into great depth about what we find, but encourage you to check them out if you think they’re interesting.

Last week, The Compassionate Mind Foundation listserv discussed the issue of working compassionately with a client experiencing feelings of betrayal, anger, and shame in her relationship with her parents. This client seemed to be experiencing a pattern typical of survivors of betrayal trauma in which, when she allowed herself to experience any anger toward her parents, the anger would always be followed by beliefs that she was betraying her parents with her anger, and then she would feel shame.

Dr. Russell Kolts chimed in with some clinical wisdom worth sharing about how he would bring compassion to this situation. Here is some of what he said:

Every month, we scour the scientific literature for interesting studies that have practical implications for therapists working with shame, self-criticism, or compassion. Below are a few of our favorites for this month: