ACT With Compassion

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.

It's important in using this handout to debrief it carefully to see what the client is learning from filling it out and to help foster a stance of curiosity toward their own self-criticism or compassion. Discussing the client's patterns of responses on the daily ratings can reveal triggers for self-criticism that weren't previously noticed or identify ways the person is already being compassionate with themselves that can be built upon.

The self-compassion daily rating scale can be downloaded here.

You can access the handout mentioned in this post along with other homework exercises here.