63 research outputs found
The impact of compassion-focused therapy on positive and negative mental health outcomes: Results of a series of meta-analyses
Get PDFObjectives: Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) is an integrative, evolution-informed approach to mental health difficulties that has been growing rapidly in the last 30 years. This series of meta-analyses examined the overall efficacy of CFT on positive and negative mental health outcomes, in both clinical and nonclinical populations, compared to active and passive control conditions. Method: A systematic search of six databases was conducted, focusing on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and controlled pilot/feasibility studies of CFT only. All non-English articles and studies focusing on other compassion-based approaches were excluded. Forty-seven controlled trials from the last 14 years were included, with data from 7,875 participants from 17 countries. Results: Even after the exclusion of extreme outliers, CFT was effective in reducing overall negative mental health outcomes (k = 32, g = 0.72, p < .0001), depression (k = 23, g = 0.49, p < .0001), self-criticism (k = 17, g = 0.40, p < .0001) and in improving compassion for self and others (k = 24, g = 0.51, p < .0001). Heterogeneity was high and only partially reduced by moderation analysis, which highlighted larger effects in specific subgroups. Publication bias was present in the meta-analyses conducted on negative outcomes and depressive symptoms. Discussion: Although the long-term effects of CFT are yet to be established and larger-scale, higher-quality RCTs are required, the current state of evidence highlights the benefits of CFT on a range of outcomes in both clinical and nonclinical samples
الظواهر الصوتية في مرويات مدرسة البصرة اللغوية في تهذيب اللغة للأزهري (الإبدال أنموذجا) : The Phonological Phenomena in Basran Linguistic Transmissions through Al-Azhari’s Tahdhib al-Lughah (Ibdāl as a Model)
No full textLanguage transcends being a mere assemblage of symbols; it constitutes the very soul of a civilization, and phonology represents its dynamic pulse. In the formative centuries of Islamic civilization, the city of Basra rose not only as a strategic frontier but as an epicenter of intellectual and linguistic innovation. The Basran school of grammar distinguished itself through rigorous analytical methodologies and an unwavering dedication to linguistic purity. It systematically codified the Arabic language, integrating theoretical precision with a robust oral tradition. Eminent scholars such as Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad—pioneer of Arabic prosody and compiler of the earliest Arabic lexicon—and his illustrious disciple Sibawayh, author of the foundational grammatical treatise Al-Kitab, epitomized this scientific endeavor.This article explores the Basran linguistic legacy through the lens of Tahdhib al-Lugha by Al-Azhari, a seminal lexicon that not only conserves lexical data but also encapsulates the phonetic and philological insights characteristic of the Basran tradition. The study is structured in two principal sections: the first offers a theoretical and historical contextualization of the Basran school and Al-Azhari’s lexicographical methodology; the second provides an analytical examination of pivotal phonological process—ibdāl (systematic phonetic substitution). By tracing this phenomena, the article reveals the Basran scholars’ meticulous attention to phonetic nuance as a mechanism for ensuring linguistic clarity, textual integrity, and aesthetic precision
Imagining one's compassionate self and coping with life difficulties
Get PDFThere is increasing evidence that when people focus on being a certain kind of person, for example optimistic, this changes how
they engage with life difficulties. We explored individuals’ experiences in thinking about a small life difficulty before and then after being guided through a compassionate self exercise. During a compassion focused therapy workshop (2016), 95 participants were guided through a Compassionate Mind Training practice that enables them to compare and contrast thinking about a life difficulty from a natural position and then a compassionate self mental state. Following the exercises, individuals completed a short evaluation form exploring the impact of switching to a compassionate mental state when thinking about the life difficulty. All 95 participants rated switching to a compassionate self as increasing their abilities to be empathic to their difficulty, generate more insight into their difficulty, feel better able to cope and feel encouraged about the future.
Results suggest guiding people to generate a compassionate sense of self is experienced as having a number of helpful outcomes. It is these outcomes generated by the compassionate self that may be useful to people
The evolution of prosocial and antisocial competitive behaviour and the emergence of prosocial and antisocial leadership styles
Get PDFEvolutionary analysis focuses on how genes build organisms with different strategies for engaging and solving life’s challenges of survival and reproduction. One of those challenges is competing with conspecifics for limited resources including reproductive opportunities. This article will suggest that there is now good evidence for considering two dimensions of social competition. First, we will label antisocial strategies, to the extent that they tend to be self-focused, threat sensitive and aggressive, as well as using tactics of bulling, threatening, intimidating or even injuring/killing competitors. Their strategic goal is to stimulate fear-inhibition, flight or submissive compliance in subordinates. Such strategies turn off and inhibit care and affiliative social interactions and motivation and they can be enacted by parents, teachers and leaders. The social signals emitted stimulate various aspects of threat processing in recipients, create stressful and highly stratified groups with a range of detrimental psychological and physiological effects. Second, in contrast, prosocial strategies seek to create relaxed and secure social interactions that enable sharing, cooperative and mutually supportive and beneficial relationships. The friendly and low/no threat social signals emitted in friendly cooperative and affiliative relationships stimulate physiological systems (e.g., oxytocin, the vagus parasympathetic system) that down regulates threat processing, enhances the immune system, facilitates frontal cortical processes and general wellbeing. This article reviews the literature pertaining to the evidence for these two dimensions of social engagement
Differences in the semantics of prosocial words: an exploration of compassion and kindness
Get PDFObjectives: The study of prosocial behaviour has accelerated greatly in the last 20 years. Researchers are exploring different domains of prosocial behaviour such as compassion, kindness, caring, cooperation, empathy, sympathy, love, altruism and morality. While these constructs can overlap, and are sometimes used interchangeably, they also have distinctive features that require careful elucidation. This paper discusses some of the controversies and complexities of describing different (prosocial) mental states, followed by a study investigating the differences between two related prosocial concepts: compassion and kindness. Methods: For the study, a scenario-based questionnaire was developed to assess the degree to which a student (N = 222) and a community (N = 112) sample judged scenarios in terms of compassion or kindness. Subsequently, participants rated emotions (e.g. sadness, anxiety, anger, disgust, joy) associated with each scenario. Results: Both groups clearly distinguished kindness from compassion in the scenarios on the basis of suffering. In addition, participants rated compassion-based scenarios as significantly higher on sadness, anger, anxiety and disgust, whereas kindness-based scenarios had higher levels of joy. As a follow-up, a further sample (29 male, 63 female) also rated compassionate scenarios as involving significantly more suffering compared to the kindness scenarios. Conclusions: Although overlapping concepts, compassion and kindness are clearly understood as different processes with different foci, competencies and emotion textures. This has implications for research in prosocial behaviour, and the cultivation of kindness and compassion for psychotherapy and in general
Parution : Tobias Andersson : "Early Sunnī Historiography. A Study of the Tārīkh of Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ", Brill, oct 2018.
No full textEarly Sunnī Historiography. A Study of the Tārīkh of Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ Series: Islamic History and Civilization, Volume: 157 Author: Tobias Andersson In Early Sunnī Historiography, Tobias Andersson presents the first full-length study of the earliest Islamic chronological history extant: the Tārīkh ( Chronicle) of the Basran ḥadīth scholar and historian Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ al-ʿUṣfurī (d. 240/854). The book examines how Khalīfa worked as a historian in terms of his social and intel..
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No full textObjectivesThe last 20 years have seen considerable research on the nature and biopsychosocial impacts of compassion training on self and others. This training is usually focused on calming and slowing the mind and body and on individual imagery practices and mantras. This study explored the effects of three variations: 1. The impact of using energizing music to generate activation and “drive” for compassion; 2. To focus on imagining “breathing in and breathing out a white light or mist of compassion” to bring compassion to the world; and 3. While listening to energizing music, participants were guided to imagining connecting to the compassion (Sangha) community, imagining oneself as linking with others as part of communities seeking to help the world.MethodsFrom approximately 1,600 members of the Compassionate Mind discussion list, participants were invited to take part in a new energizing focused self-practice study. The study involved listening to recorded guidance on the evolutionary model of compassion and the need to address the potentially harmful side of our nature. This was followed by a 4 1/2-min tonglen-informed guided practice of breathing in and breathing out compassion accompanied by energizing music. Forty-three participants completed several self-report scales measuring compassion orientation, wellbeing, social safeness, and positive affect before and following 2 weeks of practice. Participant experiences were recorded from 6 open explorative questions.ResultsSelf-report measures taken before and following 2 weeks of practice revealed significant increases in self-compassion, compassion to others, openness to compassion from others, activated positive affect, safe positive affect, social safeness, and wellbeing, with the largest effect size relating to compassion for the self (d = −0.76). In addition, qualitative data revealed that the participants had experienced the practice as energizing, inspiring, and felt socially connected and that it had significant impacts on other aspects of their lives. Some participants noted that engaging with suffering also stimulated sadness.ConclusionThis study found that pairing energizing music with breathing practices and specific compassion visualizations, focusing on the desire to bring compassion to the world and be part of a compassionate community, was well-accepted and had a range of significant positive impacts. This study indicates the potential value of exploring energizing in comparison to the more standard soothing and settling practices as ways of stimulating the biopsychosocial processes of compassion.</p
A descriptive study of feelings of arrested escape (entrapment) and arrested anger in people presenting to an Emergency Department following an episode of self-harm
Get PDFBackground and objectives: To explore the role of elevated feelings of anger and desires to escape (fight or flight) which are experienced as inhibited, blocked and arrested (i.e. arrested anger and arrested flight escape leading to feelings of entrapment). This descriptive study developed measures of arrested anger and arrested flight and explored these in the context of a recent self-harm event in people presenting to a Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED).Methods: Fifty-eight individuals presenting to an ED following an act of self-harm were recruited. Participants completed newly developed measures of arrested flight, arrested anger and anger with self in regard to self-harm and suicide intent and depression. Results: 93% participants presented after self-poisoning. The majority (95%) reported having experienced high escape motivation that felt blocked (arrested flight) with 69% reporting feeling angry with someone but unable to express it (arrested anger). For many participants (53.7%), strong desires to escape from current situations and/or to express anger did not diminish immediately after the act. Limitations: As with many studies, a select group of participants agreed to take part and we did not keep records of how many refused.There are no other validated measures of arrested escape and arrested anger and so for this study, our short item-focused measures rely on face validity. Conclusions: Arrested defences of fight and flight, and self-criticism are common in those who have self-harmed and may continue after acts of self-harm. Many participants revealed that talking about their experiences of escape motivation and blocked anger (using our measures) was helpful to them. Practice points: •Feelings of entrapment and arrested anger are common in people who self-harm •Clinicians could benefit from increased awareness and measures of arrested flight and arrested anger•Discussing these concepts and experiences appears to be useful to people who have self-harmed•Further research is needed on how best to help people with such experience
Styles of Leadership, Fears of Compassion, and Competing to Avoid Inferiority
Get PDFThere is general agreement that styles of leadership evolved from mammalian group living strategies that form social ranks. In both non-human primates and humans, different styles of hierarchical dominant-subordinate and leader-follower behavior can be observed. These can be described in terms of dimensions of antisocial (relatively self-focused, aggressive and threat-based) and prosocial (relatively empathic, caring, and supportive) interpersonal styles. The aim of this study was to explore how a set of established self-report questionnaires might relate to these two dimensions. Two hundred and nineteen students completed questionnaires assessing ruthless self-advancement, coalition building, and dominant leadership styles, as well as hypercompetitiveness, narcissism, striving to avoid inferiority, compassion focused and ego focused goals, fears of compassion, social safeness and attachment (in)security. A principal component analysis supported an antisocial leadership style factor which comprised of ruthless self-advancement, narcissism and hypercompetitiveness. This was significantly correlated with fears of compassion, ego focused goals, insecure striving (striving to avoid inferiority), fears of losing out, fears of being overlooked, fears of being rejected, and avoidant relating in close relationships. It was significantly negatively correlated with compassionate goals. As the results did not reveal a clear factor solution for a prosocial leadership style, we chose to use the coalition building leadership style variable. This showed the opposite pattern, being significantly negatively correlated with narcissism, hypercompetitiveness, fears of compassion, fears of active rejection, and avoidance in close relationships. It was significantly positively correlated with secure striving, compassionate goals, and social safeness. We also found that fears of compassion for others was a partial mediator of the relationship between insecure striving with antisocial leadership style. Moreover, lower fears of compassion for the self emerged as a key mediator for the relationship between non-avoidant attachment with coalition building leadership style and, secure non-striving with coalition building leadership style. While the motive to accumulate social power, resources and dominance may be linked to antisocial forms of leadership, the intensity of the drive may also be linked to unaddressed threats and fears of rejection and fears of compassion. Efforts to promote more ethical, moral and prosocial forms of leadership may falter if such fears are left unaddressed
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