Abstract:

Previous studies have demonstrated that self-compassion interventions can effectively alleviate psychological symptoms associated with anxiety-related psychiatric disorders. However, the underlying mechanism through which self-compassion improves anxiety remains unclear. Exposure therapy, which is based on fear extinction, is a key treatment for anxiety disorders. Investigating how self-compassion interventions can promote fear extinction may provide insights into the mechanism of exposure therapy. To investigate this question, we randomly assigned 56 healthy participants to complete either a self-compassion writing (N = 29) or a control writing (N = 27) task before fear extinction. We measured positive and negative affects before and after writing. US expectancy and skin conductance responses were recorded during the early and late phases of fear extinction. Results revealed that the negative affect reduced in both writing tasks, but self-compassion writing group displayed lower US expectancy to both conditioned threat and safety cues during early and late fear extinction compared to control writing group. Furthermore, in the self-compassion group, skin conductance responses were found to be smaller during the early fear extinction phase compared to the late fear extinction phase. These results suggest that self-compassion writing may facilitate fear extinction through updating the cognition that the conditioned cues is no longer dangerous. This providing insights into the psychological and physiological mechanisms that underlie the beneficial effects of self-compassion on anxiety symptoms. Moreover, our results emphasize the need to incorporate cognitive interventions into exposure therapy based on the fear extinction paradigm.

Key words: anxiety, exposure therapy, negative affect, self-compassion, fear extinction