Efficacy of Self-Compassion training on perceived competence and psychological flexibility in bad-caretaker girls

Adolescents who lack family support grow up with a sense of insecurity, fear, and anxiety. According to the research, structural problems of primary family and inappropriate socioenvironmental factors may cause psychological traits in bad-caretaker girls. Therefore, psychological flexibility and perception of competence as a framework for understanding psychopathology and mental health are proposed. Accordingly, the present study seeks to investigate the effectiveness of self-compassion training on the perceived competence and psychological flexibility of the bad-caretaker girls. The research design was quasi-experimental based on pre-test and post-test with control and experimental groups. For this purpose, 24 girls of Mehr Boarding Center were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned into two control and experimental groups. Participants completed the perceived competence, Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire, Acceptance and Mindfulness before and after training. The training was conducted in eight weekly sessions for 2.5 hours. The results of this study by covariance analysis showed that self-compassionate training with 95% confidence leads to increased perceived competence (cognitive 57%, social 60% and physical 44%) and psychological flexibility (avoidance and fusion -57% and acceptance and mindfulness 71%) in the training group. According to the results, self-compassionate training can be used as an effective method to increase the perceived competence and psychological flexibility in the bad-caretaker girls.