Soothing Oneself and Resisting Self-Attacks: The Treatment of Two Intrapersonal Deficits in Depression Vulnerability

Self-critical individuals are more likely to become and remain depressed (Blatt, Experiences of depression: Theoretical, research and clinical perspectives , American Psychological Association Press, Washington, DC, 2004). This vulnerability to depression may reflect the association of trait self-cr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive therapy and research 2009-06, Vol.33 (3), p.301-313
Main Authors: Kelly, Allison C., Zuroff, David C., Shapira, Leah B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acne
Behavior therapy. Cognitive therapy
Biological and medical sciences
Clinical Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Criticism
Critics
Intervention
Medical sciences
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Mental depression
Original Article
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychotherapy
Quality of Life Research
Self compassion
Self help
Treatments
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Self-critical individuals are more likely to become and remain depressed (Blatt, Experiences of depression: Theoretical, research and clinical perspectives , American Psychological Association Press, Washington, DC, 2004). This vulnerability to depression may reflect the association of trait self-criticism with difficulties self-soothing and resisting self-attacks. The current study tested the impact of two self-help interventions designed to reduce depression by improving these two intrapersonal deficits. The first was designed to foster compassionate self-relating whereas the second was designed to foster resilient self-relating. Seventy-five distressed acne sufferers were assigned to one of three conditions: a self-soothing intervention, an attack-resisting intervention, or a control condition. The interventions consisted of daily imagery-based self-talk exercises inspired by Gilbert’s ( Genes on the couch: Explorations in evolutionary psychotherapy , Brenner-Routledge, Hove, 2000) social mentatlities theory and compassionate mind training (Gilbert and Irons, Compassion: Conceptualisations, research and use in psychotherapy , Brunner-Routledge, London, 2005). In two weeks, the self-soothing intervention lowered shame and skin complaints. The attack-resisting intervention lowered depression, shame, and skin complaints, and was especially effective at lowering depression for self-critics. Implications for the treatment of self-criticism and depression are discussed.
ISSN:0147-5916
1573-2819
DOI:10.1007/s10608-008-9202-1