Embodying the Perfect Nurturer in Compassion Focused Therapy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Embodying the Perfect Nurturer in Compassion Focused Therapy
IRAS ID
319723
Contact name
James Hackley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Depression is a common mental health condition. When depressed, people often have lots of self-critical thoughts. This can make depression worse and more likely too recur. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) aims to help people who are depressed. It tries to do this by helping depressed clients to be less self-critical and more self-compassionate. One technique in CFT which aims to help clients to be more self-compassionate is the ‘Perfect Nurturer’ (PN) exercise. This is an exercise where clients create a mental image of a perfectly caring, compassionate person or thing (e.g., animal, book character) who is there to offer support and care when life gets tough.
Chair-work is also a technique used in CFT. In chair-work, different chairs are used to explore different parts of our self and how we talk to our self. Compassion focused chair-work is used to practice talking to parts of ourselves in a caring way. These chair-work exercises can be helpful in the treatment of depression.
Although the PN chair-work exercise is regularly used in clinical practice, research hasn’t yet explored the effect of this exercise on clients being treated for depression. This study aims to be the first to explore this. In the study, clients receiving CFT treatment for low mood, in NHS mental health services, will complete a 30 - 60 minute interview after undergoing the PN chair-work exercise delivered as part of their course of therapy. The researchers aim to recruit 8-10 participants. The interview will explore the experience of the therapeutic technique. The researchers hope to better understand what was helpful or difficult about the PN chair-work exercise, and what clients learned from doing the exercise.
The findings will be used to improve how the exercise is used and how therapists are trained.
REC name
East of England - Essex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/EE/0305
Date of REC Opinion
6 Feb 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion