Examining Pathways of Childhood Maltreatment and Emotional Dysregulation Using Self-Compassion

ABSTRACT

Childhood maltreatment has well-documented relationships with emotional dysregulation. Emotional dysregulation confers heightened risk for psychopathology and therefore represents an important therapeutic target for survivors of childhood maltreatment. Emerging research suggests that deficits in self-compassion may be one pathway by which childhood maltreatment adversely impacts emotional regulation processes. The current study sought to replicate previous research by investigating the mitigating effects of self-compassion on emotional dysregulation in a nonclinical sample of women with varying degrees of childhood maltreatment (N = 245). Hierarchical regression analyses showed that self-compassion predicted emotional dysregulation above and beyond childhood maltreatment and current substance use (including current alcohol use). Additionally, mediation analyses revealed that self-compassion exerted an indirect effect on the relationship between childhood maltreatment and emotional dysregulation. Overall, these results replicate previous findings and further support self-compassion as an explanatory mechanism connecting childhood maltreatment with later emotional dysregulation. Clinical and research implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Abuse
• childhood maltreatment
• coping
• emotional regulation
• self-compassion
• self-kindness
• substance use
• trauma