Building self-compassion to tackle fears about other people
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving self-esteem in patients with persecutory delusions: Developing and piloting a brief self-compassion intervention.
IRAS ID
247790
Contact name
Ava Forkert
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Oxford / Clinical Trials and Research Governance
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 4 days
Research summary
Low self-esteem is a common problem among people with severe mental health problems. In particular, people who experience severe and distressing persecutory beliefs, for example that others are intentionally trying to harm them. Systematic reviews indicate that low self-esteem might be a causal factor in the occurrence of persecutory beliefs. Therefore, treating low self-esteem may lead to improvements in psychological wellbeing, such as feeling safer, happier and more able to do more of what they want in life.
Research suggests that training people to become more self-compassionate leads to improvements in self-esteem. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is a talking therapy, which uses imagery to increase people’s self-compassion. However, there has been little research on the efficacy of CFT for people with persecutory beliefs.
The purpose of the current study (a small case series) is to explore the feasibility of a brief self-compassion intervention for people with persecutory beliefs. Twelve patients with persecutory beliefs will be recruited from local NHS services. They will be asked to attend four sessions over two weeks, as well as completing pre, post and follow-up assessments. An interview on their experience of the intervention will be conducted at follow-up. It is hoped that training patients with persecutory beliefs in self-compassionate imagery over several sessions would increase their self-esteem and reduce their persecutory beliefs.
REC name
London - Riverside Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/1555
Date of REC Opinion
14 Sep 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion