Compassion focused therapy: a systematic review of its effectiveness and acceptability in clinical populations

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is an increasingly popular therapeutic modality. Its holistic and integrative approach to universal human suffering means that it is well placed as a transdiagnostic therapy. Research into its effectiveness and acceptability has increased over the previous 10 years as the therapy has evolved, and to help consider its status as an evidence-based therapy research concerning its treatment outcomes needs evaluating.

Areas covered: This paper reviews research investigating the effectiveness of CFT in clinical populations.

Expert opinion: CFT shows promise for a range of mental health problems, especially when delivered in a group format over at least 12 hours. This is important for funding bodies and commissioning groups to consider as they allocate healthcare resources in light of current evidence-based practice. CFT is demonstrably well accepted by clients and clinicians and there is now a clear need for an updated, universally deployed, standard manual to direct future research. This will be critical in enabling widespread implementation and further adoption into mainstream clinical practice, will address the lack of standardization in the current research, and pave the way for further randomized control trials aimed at reducing existing methodological limitations.

KEYWORDS:

• CFT
• compassion focused therapy
• compassion
• mental health
• psychotherapy
• psychological therapy

Article Highlights

• Clinical Implications: CFT has positive effects on individuals with a range of mental health problems and is likely to be more effective than no psychological treatment, and equally or possibly more effective than other interventions.

• CFT increases self-compassion and also leads to a reduction of mental health symptomatology, even among difficult to treat populations such as forensic populations, eating disorders and personality disorders.

• Group CFT currently has significantly more evidence of effectiveness than individual and self-help interventions.

• The findings indicate that at least 12 sessions of CFT are required to significantly reduce clinical symptomatology across populations.

• Limitations: There are a lack of studies evaluating the effectiveness of individual CFT.

• Studies varied in the content of CFT interventions with a lack of intervention fidelity.

• As 24 of the 29 studies did not compare CFT to an alternative therapy, it is important to consider that the apparent effectiveness may be attributable to a ‘psychological intervention’ rather than CFT per se.

Declaration of Interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer Disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.