Current research
Fears of compassion and positive feelings in relation to alexithymia
This research aims to extend the knowledge on the fears of compassion by exploring the degree to which fear of compassion is linked to different affect processing competencies. We will explore the interrelation of different processes that have been identified in the literature as interfering with positive affects. The secondary objective is to develop and validate a new scale measuring fears of positive feelings.
Findings: Results showed that fears of compassion/positive feelings were highly linked to different aspects of alexithymia, mindfulness, empathy, self-criticism and depression, anxiety and stress. Especially noteworthy was the high correlation between fear of positive feelings (e.g. feeling happy) and depression.
Fear of compassion (student study)
The study developed measures of fear of compassion for others, from others and for self in a student population. We explored the relationship of these fears with measures including self-criticism, attachment styles, depression, anxiety and stress.
Findings: Fear of compassion for self and from others were associated with self-criticism, insecure attachment, depression, anxiety and stress.
Fear of compassion (patient study)
Following the student study, the aim of this project is to explore various fears of compassion in a depressed patient population. This will be achieved by a series of questionnaires assessing these fears in individuals with mental health problems.
Compassion on the wards
The aim of this research is to explore the facilitators and inhibitors of compassion on acute psychiatric units. This research will contribute to the literature on facilitating compassion in the health service and, in particular, identify ways to increase facilitators and reduce inhibitors to compassionate care.
Entrapment study
This study will explore suicide/attempted suicide from an evolutionary perspective which focuses on the arousal of defensive behaviours such as fight or flight, which are then blocked. These will be investigated in relation to other social process variables, including attachment, social connectedness and concealment.
Participants who have self-harmed will complete a series of short questionnaires about arrested flight, arrested anger, defeat, self-harm/suicide and social process variables.
Competitiveness and caring
The aim of this study is to explore behaviours of competitiveness and caring in a depressed population. We hypothesised that depressed patients will report that they feel they have few qualities that would enable them to compete and 'keep up' in life, but they will still report feeling they have certain caring qualities such as being, kind, considerate, generous etc.
Findings: The data suggests that in students and particularly patients, competitiveness is strongly associated with depression.
Development of compassionate and critical facial expressions
This study aimed to develop a new set of facial expression stimuli. With the help of actors we used emotional memory and imagery techniques to try to generate realistic facial expressions of compassion and criticism. Once validated, this facial stimulus set will be used in a number of studies.
Attentional biases towards compassionate and critical facial expressions
This study aims to explore attentional biases towards compassionate and critical facial expressions using our new stimulus set. We will explore the link between attentional biases and measures of mood, attachment and social rank. We hypothesise that participants who have insecure attachments, inferior social rank and low mood, will show greater attentional biases toward critical faces and may fail to process compassionate facial expressions.
Findings: Results showed that low self-critics were faster to respond to compassionate faces whilst high critics were slower.
Neural correlates of compassionate and critical imagery: Experts vs. novices
The aim of this research is to further explore neurophysiological systems involved in self-criticism and self-compassion, but in individuals training in compassionate imagery (Buddhist monks) versus those who are not (medical students). This study is in collaboration with the University of Glasgow.
Neural correlates of compassionate and critical imagery
The aim of this research was to explore neurophysiological systems involved in self-critical and self-compassionate thought using fMRI. This was in collaboration with Aston University.
Compassion for self and others
The aim of this study was to design new measures for self-compassion and compassion for others. The new scales were completed by Derby University students alongside existing measures of self-compassion and compassion for others and measures of depression, anxiety and stress.
Different types of positive affect in student and bipolar populations
This study aimed to explore different types of positive affect in students and a bipolar population. We hypothesised that in comparison with students, bipolar patients would report fewer experiences of feeling safe, soothed, content and warm. We believe this affect-regulating system to be understimulated in this patient population.
