Exploring compassionate attributes and skills among individuals participating in compassion‐focused therapy for enhancing well‐being (original) (raw)

Objectives. The conceptual approach of compassion underlying compassion-focused therapy (CFT) is based on theoretical rather than empirical grounds. The aim of the present study was to seek empirical support for components of compassion as outlined in the theoretical model underpinning CFT, and to explore which components, if any, matter most for improving well-being. Design. A sequential exploratory mixed methods design was employed. Methods. Alongside a randomized controlled trial (RCT), we systematically examined 625 emails sent by 87 RCT participants to five counsellors during the course of a wellbeing enhancing CFT self-help intervention, to identify theoretically based compassionate attributes and skills. Next, in a quantitative analysis, we compared participants who did and did not show clinically relevant improvement on well-being with regard to the occurrence of compassionate attributes and skills. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.