Although mindfulness-based interventions can increase self-compassion, these programs devote
relatively little time to explicitly teaching skills of self-compassion and focus primarily on teaching
techniques to enhance mindfulness. For this reason, Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff have
developed a short-term intervention program specifically designed to teach self-compassion skills
called Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), which is described in detail in Box I. There is already
preliminary evidence that the program is effective[47]. A randomized controlled study of the MSC
program compared outcomes for a treatment group (
N
= 24; 78% fem
age = 51.21) to those
who were randomized to a waitlist control group (
27; 82% female;
M
age = 49.11). Compared
to the control group, participation in MSC was significantly more likely to increase participants’
degree of self-compassion. In fact, MSC increased self-compassion levels by 43%.
Figure 3.
Percent decrease in depression, anxiety, stress and emotional avoidance
To provide comparative insight into the size of this increase, MSC increased self-compassion by
1.13 points on a 5-point scale. A review of the literature revealed that five MBSR studies yielded an
average increase of .44 points (range of .11 to .61) on the SCS[42],[43],[48],[49],[50], while three
MBCT studies yielded an average increase of .30 points (range of .22 to .38) on the
SCS[46],[51],[52]. This suggests that the specific teaching of s
the MSC
program is particularly effective for increasing self-compassion levels.
Participation in the MSC program also significantly increased mindfulness and compassion for
others compared to the control group, but to a lesser extent. Program participation was associated
with other beneficial outcomes, significantly decreasing depression, anxiety, stress and emotional
avoidance, and significantly increasing life satisfaction.
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