An exploration of self-compassion and psychosis

Abstract

Psychosis is an umbrella term used to describe a specific set of experiences, including hallucinations, delusions and paranoia. Psychotic experiences are understood to lie on a continuum and are therefore experienced by both clinical and non-clinical samples. Whilst some individuals may experience little distress from their experiences and not require specialist support, other experiences can be severe, enduring and affect friendships, employment and romantic relationships. When considering the adverse effect psychosis can have, research exploring the aetiology and treatment of psychosis is of great importance. This thesis aims to build on the current understanding in this area, utilizing three distinct chapters.
The first chapter aims to provide background and context for the following two chapters. It provides an in-depth exploration of the continuum nature of psychosis, a critical literature review of the current understanding of psychosis and alternative perspectives of psychosis to the traditional medical model. The second chapter systematically reviews existing research, exploring whether compassion focused interventions improve therapeutic outcomes within samples experiencing psychosis. The final chapter is an original piece of quantitative research exploring whether cognitive theory of mind mediates the relationship between developmental trauma and paranoia in a non-clinical population when controlling for self-compassion.
It is hoped that overall narrative of the thesis has clinical benefit, identifying helpful considerations for the assessment, formulation and intervention of psychosis like experiences. Both research chapters have been written for following guidelines for The British Journal of Psychology, please see Appendix O for the rationale and relevant author guidelines.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Megan Rodgerson: orcid.org/0009-0005-3937-3087

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