Journal of Psychiatry

An evaluation of compassion focused interventions and therapies

Joint Event on World Congress on Psychiatry & Psychological Syndromes & 29^th International Conference on Adolescent Medicine and Child Psychology

December 06-07, 2018 | Rome, Italy

Aspasia Eleni Paltoglou

Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Psychiatry

Abstract:

There is evidence that lowers the levels of compassion are associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress. Compassion is the ability to be sensitive towards suffering and a tendency of attempt to reduce it. It can be directed towards ourselves (self-compassion) to others as well as from others to ourselves. Interventions and therapies that help individuals increase compassion have shown promising results, including reduced levels of shame and self-criticism, as well as lower levels of depression and anxiety. Compassion focused therapy combines techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy with findings from various areas of psychology, neuroscience and is mainly aimed at enhancing compassion in clinical populations. On the other hand, interventions such as mindful self-compassion program focus specifically on self-compassion and can be used with non-clinical populations. Interestingly, a recent study used virtual reality and embodiment to deliver a self-compassion intervention. The results showed reduced level of depression and self-criticism, demonstrating the potential of combining a self-compassion intervention with immersive technology that could lead to effective and easy to administer interventions. In this presentation, studies testing the effectiveness of different types of compassion interventions and therapies will be discussed and evaluated.

Biography :

E-mail: a.paltoglou@mmu.ac.uk