ABSTRACT
Religious sexual minorities often face unique stressors due to their minoritized sexual identity, which leads to feelings of depression. Self-compassion has been posited to be effective for people across identities to bolster their mental health and alleviate the adverse effects of stress. The present study uses a sample of 541 sexual minorities to answer the question, is self-compassion a useful mindset to benefit sexual minorities facing religious and sexual identity struggles, using current and former Latter-day Saints as a case study. Multiple regression analyses indicated that both religious and sexual identity struggles relate to higher depression, whereas self-compassion relates to lower depression. Further, self-compassion moderated the relationship between religious doubt struggles and depression, such that the adverse effects of doubt struggles were weakened when self-compassion was higher. Findings suggest that self-compassion is an effective mindset and tool to alleviate depression generally and in response to religious doubt for sexual minorities specifically. Implications for mental health providers are discussed.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).