Can online self-compassion training cut stress in psychologists?
A short web-based course in mindful self-compassion lowered stress and burnout symptoms in working psychologists compared with a wait-list, and people who became less harsh on themselves improved most.
Source
Mindful Self-Compassion Training Reduces Stress and Burnout Symptoms Among Practicing Psychologists: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Brief Web-Based Intervention
Study at a glance
- Design
- RCT — Individually randomised wait-list controlled trial; pre-post measures analysed with intention-to-treat mixed linear models
- N
- N=101 · 101 randomised (52 intervention, 49 wait-list); post-test completed by 40 in the intervention group and 41 in the control group
- Population
- Practicing psychologists in Sweden recruited through a closed Facebook group, almost all women
- Outcome
- Perceived stress (PSS) and burnout symptoms (SMBQ) as primary outcomes; self-compassion (SCS) and mindfulness (FFMQ) as secondary
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
What they did
The researchers randomly assigned 101 practicing psychologists in Sweden to a 6-week online program or to a wait-list. The program asked for about 15 minutes of guided practice a day, mixing standard mindfulness exercises such as body scans with loving-kindness and self-compassion exercises. Everyone completed questionnaires on stress, burnout, self-compassion and mindfulness before and after, and the authors also split the self-compassion scale into a 'self-compassion' part and a 'self-coldness' (self-judgement, isolation, over-identification) part.
What they found
Compared with the wait-list, the trained group improved on every measure. Gains in self-compassion were large, gains in mindfulness and reductions in self-coldness were moderate, and reductions in stress and burnout were smaller, with the weakest effects on physical fatigue. Self-coldness was more strongly related to stress and burnout than the positive self-compassion items, and decreases in self-coldness tracked decreases in burnout. Gains in mindfulness explained an extra 16.1% of the variance in stress reduction beyond changes in self-compassion.
The limits
What it doesn't show
The control group simply waited, so expectancy and attention effects cannot be separated from the specific self-compassion content; the authors call for an active control such as a plain mindfulness program. All outcomes were self-reported, there was no long-term follow-up, and almost all participants were women recruited through social media, so results may not generalise to men or to less motivated staff. The analyses linking change in self-coldness to change in burnout are correlational, and compassion toward patients was never measured.
Key terms
- Self-compassion
- Treating yourself with kindness when you suffer or fail, seeing hardship as part of common human experience, and holding painful feelings in balanced awareness.
- Self-coldness
- The opposite pole of the Self-Compassion Scale: self-judgement, feeling isolated in one's struggles, and over-identifying with painful thoughts.
- Wait-list control
- A control group that receives no intervention during the study but is offered it afterwards; it controls for time passing but not for expectations or attention.
- Burnout
- A state of exhaustion linked to prolonged work stress, here measured as physical fatigue, cognitive weariness, tension and listlessness.
- Intention-to-treat analysis
- Analysing everyone as randomised, including people who dropped out, to avoid bias from selective dropout.
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Which outcome showed the largest training effect?
Common questions
Why study psychologists specifically?
Helping professionals face heavy emotional demands, and Swedish data showed rising sick leave for stress and burnout among psychologists, so they are a group who might benefit and whose wellbeing may affect patient care.
Is self-compassion just the same thing as mindfulness?
They overlap, but in this study changes in mindfulness predicted additional reductions in stress beyond changes in self-compassion, suggesting they are partly distinct.
Did doing more of the program help more?
Somewhat. Completing more steps was modestly linked to larger gains in self-compassion and larger drops in stress, though not to gains in mindfulness.
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