Miron, L. R., Sherrill, A. M., & Orcutt, H. K. (2015). Fear of self-compassion and psychological inflexibility interact to predict PTSD symptom severity. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 4(1), 37-41. doi:10.1016/j.jcbs.2014.10.003
Evidence suggests that increasing self-compassion is a worthwhile therapeutic target and may be adaptive in the context of trauma recovery. Recently, researchers have noted that particular individuals respond to self-compassion with fear and resistance, a phenomenon known as fear of self-compassion. We argue that fear of self-compassion may increase post-trauma suffering, particularly for individuals who routinely attempt to control private experiences. The present study investigated relations among fear of self-compassion, psychological inflexibility, and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in a sample of trauma-exposed undergraduates (N = 201). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed a significant interaction between fear of self-compassion and psychological inflexibility (B = 1.22, p < .05), controlling for negative affect. Follow-up simple effects indicated that psychological inflexibility moderated the relationships between fear of self-compassion and PTS among participants with higher psychological inflexibility (B = 3.81, p < .01), but not for those with lower psychological inflexibility. The prospect of fear of self-compassion as a contextual-behavioral treatment target is discussed.
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