Go soft or go home? A review of empirical studies on the role of self-compassion in the competitive sport setting

Abstract

Self-compassion describes a supportive attitude towards oneself. Research outside the sport context suggests that self-compassion might be beneficial in terms of psychological processes that are helpful for athletic performance. At the same time, there are reasons to assume that athletes may fear a negative influence of SC on their self-improvement motivation. Therefore, it seemed worthwhile to clarify the role of self-compassion in the competitive sport setting by reviewing the current research. A literature search was conducted using PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, PSYNDEX, and SPORTDiscus. Eligibility criteria were peer-reviewed publication, publication in English, original research and research investigating self-compassion in competitive athletes. From 17 publications that met the inclusion criteria, we identified 19 studies, most of which were quantitative, employing a cross-sectional design. Additionally, we found only one intervention study, one experimental study and four qualitative studies using interviews. We provided an integrative narrative description of the study aims, hypotheses, methodological characteristics and study results. Based on the reviewed findings we concluded that future research should relate their research question more often to existing theoretical models and that more intervention and longitudinal studies are needed. Thus far, qualitative studies highlight the potential ambivalence of athletes towards SC. Quantitative research indicates that SC is beneficial for athletes’ well-being and their ability to deal with adversities in sports, whereas the role of self-compassion for self-improvement motivation remains unclear.

Mindful self-reflection to support sustainable high-performance coaching: A process evaluation of a novel method development in elite sport

“…This necessity also raises issues of the availability of support systems to HPCs and the responsibility professional organizations have for the training and development of coaches to work sustainably in their profession (Fletcher & Wagstaff, 2009). Finally, and in line with the general discussion points alluded earlier, we see a need for a range of applied intervention work for HPCs drawing on mindfulness (Longshore & Sachs, 2015;Lundqvist et al, 2018) and its effect on energy and mood (Pawsey et al, in press), how reflective practice is developed (Huntley et al, 2019) and how self-compassion may be cultivated (Mosewich et al, 2019;R€ othlin et al, 2019).…”

“…Additionally, the participants noted that the SMS-diary prompted them to become aware of their "inner voice" (too often self-critical in nature) and its impact on wellbeing, which reflects another domain often addressed in compassion-focused therapy (Gilbert, 2009). While self-compassion has only recently received attention within elite sport and with focus on athletes (R€ othlin et al, 2019;Walton et al, 2020), the extant and emerging findings reported here relating to the perceived long-term positive behavior changes offer promising indications that self-compassion may help HPCs in their pursuit of sustainable well-being (c.f. Zessin et al, 2015).…”

Mental Health in Athletes: Where Are the Treatment Studies?

“…Research on compassion-based interventions ( Neff, 2003 ; Gilbert, 2009 ) in sport is also scarce but is gaining interest ( Craig et al, 2020 ). However, despite an increased interest, a scoping review ( Röthlin, 2019 ) on the role of self-compassion in competitive sport settings only found one intervention study (i.e., Mosewich et al, 2013 ). Given the lack of empirical evidence, athletes experiencing mental health problems or disorders need to be included in future studies to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions based on CBT, ACT, or CFT.…”

Investigating the Links Between Performers’ Self-Compassion, Mental Toughness and Their Social Environment: A Semi-Systematic Review

“…Previous literature reviews have focused on the concept of self-compassion within sport or physical activity in general. Röthlin et al (2019) did a scoping review of the published evidence on self-compassion research in competitive sport. They answered the question about whether self-compassion is beneficial to competitive athletes.…”

“…Another literature review on self-compassion and physical activity was conducted by Wong et al (2021) , focusing on self-care and differing from Röthlin et al’s (2019) study in that it looked at the general population rather than high-level performers. The authors highlighted that self-compassion was a trait allowing a positive and healthy self-care engagement.…”