Enhancing self-compassion using a gestalt two-chair intervention

The construct of self-compassion, recently defined and operationalized by Neff, offers an alternative approach to thinking about psychological well-being. Self-compassion has three components which mutually influence and engender each other: self-kindness, awareness of common humanity, and mindfulness. Although new, the construct of self-compassion shows great promise. As measured using Neff's Self-Compassion Scale, it demonstrates positive associations with current markers of psychological well-being, such as self-acceptance, life satisfaction, social connectedness, self-esteem, mindfulness, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, personal growth, reflective and affective wisdom, curiosity and exploration in life, happiness, and optimism. It has also demonstrated negative associations with anxiety, depression, self-criticism, neuroticism, rumination, thought suppression, and neurotic perfectionism. Because self-compassion has been shown to be linked with psychological health in multiple studies, finding a way to increase self-compassion through psychotherapeutic intervention is an important research task. This dissertation study is an initial investigation of the possibility of increasing self-compassion using a specially designed Gestalt-type two-chair intervention. The Gestalt two-chair dialogue has already been found to assist clients in challenging maladaptive, self-critical beliefs and to help clients transform negative evaluations of their wants and needs into self-acceptance. A sample of 80 university students was divided into an intervention and control group. All participants completed measures of self-compassion, measures targeted at the individual components of self-compassion, and measures of general psychological well-being. Intervention participants received a specifically designed version of a Gestalt two-chair intervention for an intrapsychic conflict. Hypotheses for the study included expectations (a) for the intervention group, of a greater increase in self-compassion, as well as other positive attitudes toward the self, and a greater decrease in negative attitudes toward the self; (b) within the intervention group, of better outcomes for participants whose sessions resulted in greater depth of experiencing and softening; and (c) at follow-up, of increased evidence of self-compassionate attitudes and behaviors in the intervention group. In addition, the study provides additional verification of the links between self-compassion and other markers of psychological health, and validation of the Self-Compassion Scale as a measure of the construct of self-compassion.