(Kim, Parker, Doty, Cunnington, Gilbert, & Kirby, 2020)
Scientists are exploring how self-compassion is associated with beneficial health outcomes. Previously, the study of compassion and its effects on health and well-being have been approached theoretically. Researchers have recently advanced the study of compassion using sophisticated multi-method research designs that paint a clearer picture of the neurophysiological effects of self-compassion.
A new study by Kim and colleagues explored how compassion-based training can affect two self-regulatory styles and its relationship to neural, physiological, and behavioral responses. Kim and his team speculated that self-compassion might be fundamentally linked to two distinct self-regulatory styles of self-criticism. One style of self-criticism focuses on opportunities for self-improvement. The second style of self-criticism is theorized to be self-hatred.
With empirical support that self-hatred might be associated with eating disorders, depressive disorders, social anxiety, personality disorders, self-harm, suicide, and interpersonal problems, self-hatred may be a viable transdiagnostic target for treatment.
Compassionate Mind Training (CMT) targets self-hatred by deliberately adopting a self-reassurance state of mind when self-criticisms arise. Originally designed as an adjunct treatment for patients who are non-responsive to traditional treatments, the CMT intervention helps patients learn grounding and body posture, rhythmic breathing, awareness of self-criticism as it arises, and finally helps cultivate compassionate states of mind.
This study recruited 40 participants who completed a series of self-reports, tasks, and psychophysiological measurements at the beginning of the study. During one of the neuroimaging tasks using fMRI to record neural responses, participants were asked to utilize either the self-criticism or a self-reassurance regulatory style while viewing negative expressions “I fail to keep up with my commitments in life,” or neutral expressions such as, “I keep up with my commitments in life.” Participants then rated the intensity of these statements.
Researchers then assessed participants’ heart rate variability (HRV), an index of parasympathetic response, before and while participants listened to a standardized 15 minute recording of the Compassionate Mind Training. Participants were encouraged to follow the guided meditations for a two week period, followed by a second round of HRV testing.
Study results suggest that a brief intervention of Compassionate Mind Training is capable of reducing neural networks associated with threat. By first examining the difference between the neural activation when participants engaged in self-criticism versus self-reassurance, the research team was able to identify greater neural activation across the whole brain in the salience network (SN), believed to process affective pain, and the default mode network (DMN), which is involved in self-referential processing.
Further analyses highlighted that there was greater activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), anterior insula (AI), and the amygdala during the self-criticism condition and reduced activation during the self-reassurance condition. The authors highlight that these study results suggest that the use of criticism and reassurance operate on similar neural pathways.
“Results also indicate that compared to resting states, the practice of cultivating compassion increases parasympathetic response, measured as the increase in HRV.”
Results also indicate that compared to resting states, the practice of cultivating compassion increases parasympathetic response, measured as the increase in HRV. This study also suggests that those participants who had a lower resting HRV engaged in the intervention more and had more increases in HRV from rest to intervention.
Conversely, those with higher HRV engaged less in compassion over the course of the intervention and did not observe significant shifts in parasympathetic response. The authors suggest this might signal that participants at great risk derived more benefits by engaging in compassion. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that the intervention elevated the HRV of a subset of participants so that they were no longer within a clinically-low range, which has been linked to elevated cardiac risk.
Finding from this multi-method study provides fascinating insights into the putative benefits of compassion-based trainings for helping individuals dealing with their own self-criticism While this study adds to a growing body of evidence that supports meditation practices increasing HRV, this study importantly highlights that self-criticism and self-reassurance function on similar neural substrates.
Future studies will have the opportunity to clarify whether these results extend to clinical populations. If so, compassion-based training may offer a viable transdiagnostic therapeutic tool for helping individuals suffering from self-criticism.
Michael is the Founder & Chief Editor of the Science of Mindfulness.
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