Abstract
Armed Forces personnel are exposed to traumatic experiences during their work; therefore, they are at risk of developing emotional difficulties such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), following traumatic experiences. Despite evidence to suggest that self-compassion is effective in reducing the symptoms of PTSD, and greater levels of self-compassion are associated with enhanced resilience, self-compassion in armed forces personnel and armed forces veterans remains under-researched. As a result, it is not known if therapeutic approaches that use self-compassion interventions are an acceptable and effective treatment for this population. Having previously shown that a one-off self-compassion exercise has temporary beneficial psychophysiological effects in non-clinical participants, we conducted this proof-of concept study to investigate whether this exercise is equally beneficial in veterans who had experienced deployment to a combat zone. Additionally, we examined if brief a self-compassion exercise can temporarily reduce hyperarousal symptoms and increase feelings of social connectedness. The current study also investigated the association between PTSD symptom severity, emotion regulation, and self-compassion in 56 veterans. All participants listened to a loving-kindness meditation for self-compassion (LKM-S) and psychophysiological recordings were taken throughout. Psychophysiological effects were observed including heart-rate (HR), skin conductance (SCL), and heart-rate variability (HRV) to determine associations with PTSD and changes in response associated with the self-compassion induction. PTSD symptom severity, dispositional emotion regulation, and self-compassion were measured, and participants also completed state measures of hyperarousal and social connectedness before and after the LKM-S. The findings partially demonstrated that self-compassion can be elicited in a veteran population but there were considerable individual differences in psychophysiological responses. The findings are discussed in light of existing theories of PTSD and self-compassion and the implications of using self-compassion based psychological approaches with veterans.
Highlights
The impact of war-related trauma on soldiers is well recognized and exposure to traumatic events while carrying out occupational duties can put armed forces personnel at an increased risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Dunn et al, 2015)
Outliers were detected after examining boxplots, inspection of their values did not reveal them to be extreme, so they were kept in the analysis in order to include all participants in the analysis
The outlying data points were changed to the closest value that was under the cut off, which is a technique for dealing with outliers, while maintaining the shape of the sample distribution but the outliers do not distort the data (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007)
Summary
The impact of war-related trauma on soldiers is well recognized and exposure to traumatic events while carrying out occupational duties can put armed forces personnel at an increased risk for developing PTSD (Dunn et al, 2015). Due to the constant threat to life or of serious physical injury endured for long periods of time, the hypervigilance is reinforced while on deployment (Kimble et al, 2013). As a result, it can become habitual and triggered and difficult to eradicate once back in civilian life. Individuals are on constant “high alert” even when threat is low (Kimble et al, 2013), becoming problematic in civilian life as it can lead to disruptions in functioning such as increased aggression and sleep problems (Germain and Neilsen, 2003; Taft et al, 2007; Conoscenti et al, 2009)
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