Shame and Depressive Symptoms: Self-compassion and Contingent Self-worth as Mediators?

Individualized Virtual Reality for Increasing Self-Compassion: Evaluation Study

BACKGROUND

Depression and anxiety are common and debilitating mental disorders with severe negative repercussions at both individual and societal levels. Although virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a safe and effective tool for the treatment of anxiety disorders, studies of the therapeutic application of VR to treat depression are more limited.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to test whether a novel type of individualized VR (iVR) can be used to improve self-compassion and decrease depressive symptoms and to evaluate the usability and acceptability of this approach, as rated by participants. The iVR system was designed and developed based on the feedback obtained from a previous study, with improved appearance and feel of the avatar and enhanced graphical quality.

METHODS

A total of 36 young adult participants were recruited from a university community social media site. Participants were aware that the study was investigating a treatment for depression but were not recruited based on depression diagnosis. Participants were asked to complete 2 iVR sessions, spaced 2 weeks apart. At baseline and upon completion of each iVR session, participants were asked to complete validated measures of self-compassion and depression. Upon completion of both iVR sessions, additional measures were administered to assess participants' perceptions about the perceived usability and system acceptability of the iVR approach.

RESULTS

Self-compassion was assessed at the beginning of session 1 (preintervention baseline) and at the end of session 1 (postintervention assessment). Owing to COVID-19 constraints, 36% (13/36) of the participants were unable to complete the follow-up iVR session. Self-compassion was assessed again for the remaining 64% (23/36) of the participants at the end of session 2 (postintervention assessment). Within-group analyses revealed that self-compassion was significantly increased at the end of both session 1 (P=.01) and session 2 (P=.03) relative to baseline. There was also a nonsignificant trend for depressive symptoms to be low at the end of session 2 relative to baseline. Both quantitative and qualitative participant data supported the iVR approach as being acceptable and usable.

CONCLUSIONS

Although these data must be treated as preliminary owing to the small sample size and potential selection bias, the data provide encouraging initial evidence that iVR might be a useful tool to enhance self-compassion and reduce depressive symptoms, highlighting the need for randomized controlled trials in the future.

Depressive Symptoms and Their Impact on Quality of Life in Parkinson's Disease: An Exploratory Network Analysis Approach

The clinical presentation of Parkinson's disease (PD) is often dominated by depressive symptoms, which can significantly impact the patients' quality of life (QoL). However, it is not clear how these depressive symptoms are interconnected, or if some symptoms are more influential in affecting QoL. In the Cohort of Patients with Parkinson's Disease in Spain (COPPADIS) study, 686 patients with PD were analyzed using network analyses. The patients completed the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) and provided their overall QoL (EUROHIS-QOL) at the beginning of the study. The study used centrality measures such as Expected Influence and Bridge Expected Influence to identify depressive symptoms that had the greatest impact on overall QoL. The results of exploratory network analyses indicate that the BDI-II items related to loss of energy, past failure, and tiredness or fatigue have the greatest impact on overall QoL as measured by the EUROHIS-QOL 8-item index. The loss of energy and tiredness or fatigue BDI-II items are also strongly associated with a number of different EUROHIS-QOL items, according to Bridge Expected Influences. For individuals suffering from PD, network analysis can aid in identifying significant non-motor symptoms that impact their QoL, thus paving the way for potential improvements.

Shame and Self-Compassion Connect Childhood Experience of Adversity With Harm Inflicted on the Self and Others

Self-harm, suicide, and harm inflicted on others (e.g., victimization) remain key areas of public concern. Past research has explored the link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and later self-harming and offending behaviors. However, research has not fully explored the interplay between ACEs and modifiable psychological factors, such as shame and self-compassion, that could be targeted to reduce the risk of harm and increase resilience and capacity for post-traumatic growth. The present study explored the relationship between ACEs, harm, shame, and self-compassion. A total of 1,111 adults participated. Approximately 49% were female, 45% male, and 2% nonbinary. Just under a third of the sample were incarcerated. We adopted a cross-sectional survey design and included current and retrospective data. The relationship between the variables was analyzed using Pearson product-moment correlation, and structural equation modeling was applied to explore the potential psychological pathways of causation. The model predicted just under 50% of the harm to self (i.e., self-harm) variance and just over a third (35%) of the harm to others (i.e., psychological and physical aggression) variance. ACEs, shame, and self-compassion had varying roles in mediating the relationship between ACEs and harm. The study increases our understanding of modifiable causal pathways between ACEs and later harming behaviors. Additionally, it indicates the importance of understanding the different dimensions of shame when considering ways to reduce the potential long-term negative consequences of ACEs.

Trait Depression and Subjective Well-Being: The Chain Mediating Role of Community Feeling and Self-Compassion

Although subjective well-being has been widely discussed as being one of the important indicators of clinical depression, few studies have explored how it relates to trait depression. In particular, increasing the number of positive experiences has long been a potential goal for depression-related clinical interventions, but the mechanisms by which such interventions work in countering depression have been poorly studied. Grounded in the cognitive theory of depression, the current study aimed to address this specific gap by testing the mediating effects of community feeling and self-compassion between trait depression and subjective well-being. A survey of 783 college students found that trait depression was not only able to directly and negatively predict individual subjective well-being but also indirectly predict individual subjective well-being through the mediating role of community feeling and self-compassion alone and through the chain mediating role of self-compassion from community feeling. These findings reveal the internal mechanisms of trait depression that, to some extent, impede subjective well-being and offer certain guiding significance for the self-regulation of interventions for clinical and non-clinical individuals with trait depression.

Mental Health of Czech University Psychology Students: Negative Mental Health Attitudes, Mental Health Shame and Self-Compassion

High rates of mental health problems are a growing concern in Czech higher education, negatively impacting students’ performance and wellbeing. Despite the serious nature of poor mental health, students often do not seek help because of negative attitudes and shame over mental health problems. Recent mental health research reports self-compassion is strongly associated with better mental health and reduced shame. However, relationships between those constructs remain to be evaluated among Czech students. This study aims to appraise the relationships between mental health problems, negative mental health attitudes, mental health shame, and self-compassion in this population. An opportunity sample of 119 psychology students from a Czech university completed questionnaires regarding these constructs. Correlation, regression, and path analyses were conducted. Mental health problems were positively associated with negative mental health attitudes and shame, and negatively associated with self-compassion. Self-compassion negatively predicted mental health problems, while negative attitudes and shame did not. Last, self-compassion fully mediated the negative attitudes-mental health problems relationship, and partially mediated the shame-mental health problems relationship. Findings suggest self-compassion is essential for mental health in Czech students and associated with negative mental health attitudes and mental health shame. Czech universities can benefit from incorporating self-compassion training into their curricula to protect students’ mental health.

Depression and Suicide Ideation: The Role of Self-Acceptance for Black Young Adults

Suicide is a leading cause of death for Black young adults. Though depression is commonly linked to increased risk for suicide, empirical literature examining the depression–suicide association and intrinsic buffers for this association remains limited among Black young adults. This study sought to address this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between depression and suicide ideation among Black young adults. Importantly, this study assessed the moderating role of self-acceptance, an index of how content one is with oneself. Study participants included 123 Black young adults (63.5% female, Mage = 20.91 years, SD = 2.45 years) who completed measures evaluating symptoms of depression, suicide ideation, and psychological well-being. Multivariate regression analyses revealed that self-acceptance moderated the association between depressive symptomatology and suicide ideation ( β = −0.05, p < .01, 95% CI [-1.01, −0.11]), such that the depression–suicide ideation association was not significant for individuals who reported high levels of self-acceptance. These findings suggest that self-acceptance may be an important treatment target for interventions aimed specifically at reducing suicide vulnerability among Black young adults.

The Link Between Major Life Events and Quality of Life: The Role of Compassionate Abilities

This study examined whether compassionate skills (the ability to be self-compassionate and to receive compassion from others) operate as mediator processes in the relationship between negative major life events and psychological quality of life (QoL), in 467 adults. The path model accounted for 48% of psychological QoL' variance and indicated that negative appraisal of major life events was associated with decreased psychological QoL, through increased levels of shame and less compassionate abilities. Findings support the importance of community programmes to enhance psychological QoL, that help individuals cultivate self-compassion and the ability to receive compassion from others, especially in face of adverse events.