Roles
Student Authors:
Wesley Ellen Gregory '15, Gettysburg College
Jillian V. Glazer '18, Gettysburg college
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-2017
Department 1
Psychology
Abstract
We conducted an experiment to examine self-compassion and responses to pain among undergraduate women with and without histories of self-injury. After a writing task that has been shown to increase self-compassion in a values-affirming condition relative to a neutral control condition, participants completed a self-report measure of state self-compassion and the cold pressor task. As predicted, participants with a history of self-injury reported lower trait self-compassion than those without such a history, and participants in the values-affirming condition reported significantly higher state self-compassion than those in the control condition. Moreover, participants with a history of self-injury demonstrated significantly less insensitivity to pain in the values-affirming condition than the control condition. Future research should investigate the possibility that interventions involving self-compassion and/or affirmation of values may help correct high-risk responses to pain among those who self-injure.
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Gregory, W.E., J.V. Glazer, & K.R. Berenson, K.R. "Self-compassion, self-injury, and pain." Cognitive Therapy and Research 41, no. 5 (2017). 777-786.
Required Publisher's Statement
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-017-9846-9