Exploring the mediating role of self‐blame and coping in the relationships between self‐compassion and distress in females following the sexual assault

Abstract

Objective: The present study investigated the associations between self-compassion, self-blame, disengagement coping, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression symptom severity among females who had experienced sexual assault. We also examined whether the relationships between self-compassion and both PTSD and depression severity were mediated by self-blame and coping. Method: A volunteer sample of female adults (N = 207)completed surveys online or on paper.Results: Mediational analyses showed that higher selfcompassion was associated with lower behavioral selfblame, characterological self-blame (CSB), and disengagement coping which, in turn, were associated with less PTSD.Higher self-compassion was associated with less depression severity directly and indirectly via CSB.Conclusions: These findings suggest that self-compassion may be relevant for understanding postassault mental health, partially through its associations with self-blame and coping. Clinicians working with sexual assault survivors may choose to augment treatment-as-usual with interventions designed to increase self-compassion. K E Y W O R D S disengagement coping, PTSD, self-blame, self-compassion, sexual assault J. Clin. Psychol. 2019;75:766-779. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jclp 766 |

Self‐compassion, trauma, and posttraumatic stress disorder: A systematic review

“…Ten of the papers employed mediational analysis to explore the relationships between self‐compassion, trauma, and PTSD. One study found a significant direct relationship between self‐compassion and PTSD (Bistricky et al, ), and four studies found indirect relationships via interpersonal competence (Bistricky et al, ), emotional dysregulation (Barlow et al, ), self‐blame attributions, and disengagement coping (Hamrick & Owens, ) and grief ruminations (Lenferink et al, ). Scoglio et al () reversed the constructs and found that emotion regulation also mediated the relationship between PTSD and self‐compassion.…”

“…Maheux and Price () found no difference in ratings of self‐compassion by trauma type or by exposure to multiple types of traumatic events; however, they noted that participants who met criteria for PTSD reported lower levels of self‐compassion (Maheux & Price, ). One study utilizing a nonclinical sample of female survivors of sexual assault found that participants with a history of CSA showed no significant difference in level of self‐compassion compared with those with no history of CSA (Hamrick & Owens, ). No strong patterns emerged across trauma types; however, notable, physical abuse was not related self‐compassion in two studies (Miron et al, ; Wu et al, ).…”

“…First, the investigation that self‐compassion differs among trauma‐exposed adults and non‐trauma‐exposed adults was sparse in the reviewed papers, with only two studies comparing these groups (Boykin et al, ; Tarber et al, ); consequently, conclusions drawn about the comparisons are limited; however, findings indicated that decreased self‐compassion and increased fear of self‐compassion were associated with trauma. Similarly, only three studies compared self‐compassion by trauma type (Hamrick & Owens, ; Maheux & Price, ; Miron et al, ). This highlights one of the many challenges with trauma research that trauma exposure is common and trauma types are not discrete, either in the general population or in clinical groups, with individuals often exposed to more than one type across the lifespan.…”

“…It is worth considering that much of the existing research used the DSM‐IV criteria, so tells us something about the relationship between that conceptualization of PTSD and self‐compassion. Ten of the reviewed studies used DSM‐5 criteria (Au et al, ; Boykin et al, ; Hamrick & Owens, ; Held et al, ; Lang et al, ; Lenferink et al, ; Maheux & Price, , ; McLean, Fiorillo, & Follette, ). With the reformulation of the PTSD symptom clusters, it is likely that the expanded clusters, which now include persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs about oneself, distorted cognitions that leads to self‐blame, and persistent negative emotional state such as guilt or shame, will be strongly negatively related to self‐compassion, as demonstrated by Maheux and Price ().…”

Emotion regulation and the experience of racial microaggressions.

“…Higher self-compassion was related to lower experiential avoidance and anger rumination, similar to findings for trait-mindfulness. In the relationship between racial microaggressions and self-blame and rumination, it was found that higher self-compassion was related to higher self-blame and rumination, respectively; both of these findings are inconsistent with previous research (Hamrick & Owens, 2018;Svendsen, Kvernenes, Wiker, & Dundas, 2017).…”