Self-compassion journals and eating disorders
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The efficacy of compassionate journal keeping in addressing experiences of shame, low self-compassion, fear of self-compassion and disorder symptoms in individuals with eating disorders
IRAS ID
250725
Contact name
Trudi Edginton
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
City University London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The proposed study intends to investigate whether keeping a self-compassion journal is of therapeutic significance in addressing experiences of shame, low self-compassion, fear of self-compassion and disorder symptoms in individual with eating disorders.
The study intends to recruit individuals who meet DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED) from the North East London Foundation Trust-NELFT eating disorders service treatment waiting list.
Participants will be randomly allocated to two conditions.
- Experimental condition: participants will receive an information pack introducing them to the intervention task. The information pack will include a summary of self-compassion and self-compassion journal keeping. It will also include instructions asking participants to record a (daily) self-compassion journal for 2 weeks and instructions to record how much they spent writing in their journals per day.
These time logs will be collected by the researcher at the end of the 2 weeks. The self-compassion journals will not be collected.
- Control condition: will remain on the waiting list (treatment as usual; TAU).Participants in both conditions will complete the following measures at the start of the experiment (baseline measures) and after 2 weeks (outcome measures);
Self-Compassion & Self-Criticism Scales (SCCS)
Fears of Compassion Scales (FCS)
Experiences of Shame Scale (ESS)
Eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDE-Q).The researcher expects:
- to record improvements in shame, self-compassion and fear of self-compassion in those with an eating disorder after 2 weeks of keeping a self-compassion journal.
- that greater improvements to shame, self-compassion and fear of self-compassion will result in greater symptom reduction.
- no change in levels of shame, self-compassion, fear of self-compassion and eating disorder symptoms in the waiting list control group.The researcher also hypothesises that there will be a correlational relationship between measures SCCS, FCS, ESS, EDE-q and time spent writing journals.
REC name
London - Queen Square Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/LO/0257
Date of REC Opinion
10 Apr 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion