The Origins of Fears of Compassion: Shame and Lack of Safeness Memories, Fears of Compassion and Psychopathology

ABSTRACT

Empirical and clinical research suggests that some individuals find self-generating compassion and receiving compassion from others difficult and aversive. However, it is unclear how these fears of compassion are linked to early experiences and to psychopathological symptoms. This study explores the relationship between shame traumatic memories, centrality of shame memories, early memories of warmth and safeness, fears of compassion, and depression, anxiety and paranoid symptoms. Participants were 302 individuals from the general community population, who completed self-report measures of fears of compassion, shame memories, early affiliative memories, and psychopathology. Shame traumatic and central memories were positively associated with fears of compassion for self, for others and from others, whereas early memories of warmth and safeness were negatively related to such fears. Path analyses revealed that fears of compassion for self and of receiving compassion from others mediated the effects of shame traumatic memory, centrality of shame memory and early memories of warmth and safeness on depressive, anxious and paranoid symptoms. These findings have implications for therapeutic interventions as these fears, as well as the negative shame-based emotional memories fuelling them, may need to be addressed in therapy to assist patients in self-generating and receiving compassion.

KEYWORDS:

• Anxiety
• depression
• fear of compassion
• paranoid ideation
• shame

Author Notes

Marcela Matos is a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Cognitive and Behavioral Centre for Research and Intervention (CINEICC), University of Coimbra, in Portugal, who has developed research in evolutionary clinical psychology and third wave psychological approaches. She completed her PhD on “Shame memories that shape who we are,” where she investigated how early shame experiences are structured as traumatic memories that become central to personal identity and increase vulnerability to psychopathology. At the moment, her main research focus is on applying and testing the efficacy of a self-compassion and mindfulness-based group intervention in promoting mental and physical well-being in several populations, and also investigating its impact on epigenetic mechanisms and physiological stress responses.

Joana Duarte is a clinical psychologist and researcher at the Cognitive and Behavioral Centre for Research and Intervention (CINEICC), University of Coimbra, in Portugal, and has developed research in mindfulness and compassion. She completed her PhD on “Mindfulness and compassion: related concepts and clinical implications,” where she investigated the benefits of compassion motivations and emotion, and the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based intervention for reducing burnout and compassion fatigue in oncology nurses.

José Pinto-Gouveia is a psychiatrist, and head of the Cognitive and Behavioral Centre for Research and Intervention (CINEICC) and a retired full professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the University of Coimbra. He has been developing and leading several research projects in third wave cognitive and behavioral therapies. He is co-founder of the Portuguese Association of Behavior Therapy and the President of the Portuguese Association for Mindfulness. He has authored more than 200 scientific papers, books and chapters in several physical and psychological conditions, namely psychological adjustment in cancer patients, chronic pain, infertility, obesity, anxiety, depression, personality disorders and eating disorders.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Diana Simões and Tânia Cid the for their help in collecting and entering data.

Funding

This research has been supported by the first author (Marcela Matos) PostDoctoral grant number SFRH/BPD/84185/2012, sponsored by FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology).