Self-compassion (Neff, 2003b) is a newly developed construct of positive psychology while a plethora of studies has highlighted its beneficial outcomes on people's psychological prosperity. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of a brief self-compassion training program on self-compassion, life satisfaction and positive and negative affect as well as to contribute new knowledge by investigating whether changes in self-compassion can significantly predict changes in positive affect. A sample of 42 students of Social Sciences, randomly assigned to either the intervention (N = 20) or the control group (N = 22) group where the first group participated in a psycho-educational training program aiming to train them to be more self-compassionate in challenging situations whilst the control group received no training. The results that revealed through the three different questionnaires (Self-Compassion Scale, Life Satisfaction Scale and Positive and Negative Affect Scale) that both groups completed before and after the completion of the program, showed that the intervention group indeed indicated increases in self-compassion, life satisfaction as well as positive affect scores and decrease in negative affect scores, compared to the control group which reported no changes. Furthermore, participants' increases in self-compassion levels strongly predicted increases in positive affect levels, meaning that those who are high self-compassionate have also high positive affect. These findings suggest the importance of selfcompassion on psychological well-being, testing through the implementation of specific intervention programs. Other possible implications and recommendations for future research are also considered.

This study aimed to explore the role of compassion for self and others, compassion fatigue and subjective happiness on levels of well-being of mental health professionals as well as to contribute new knowledge by investigating whether and to what extent subjective happiness of therapists can be predicted. A sample population of the online survey comprised 58 mental health professionals living and working in Greece-Athens and the method of recruitment was by opportunity sampling. This particular study employed a series of two-tailed Pearson r correlation analyses as well as independent samples t-test and a hierarchical multiple regression analysis for the analysis of the data. The results that revealed through the four different questionnaires (Self-Compassion Scale, Professional Quality of Life Scale, Compassion-for-Others-Scale and Subjective Happiness Scale) showed that self-compassion has a protective function for the therapists. It enhances their subjective happiness, which in turn protects mental health and professional quality of life of therapists by reducing the negative effects of compassion fatigue. These findings highlight the importance of self-compassion, compassion for others and subjective happiness among therapists, as they are correlated with compassion fatigue.