The effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on ambivalence in expressing emotion and impulsivity in people with a history of suicide

Suicide is one of the risky behaviors that can lead to many negative personall and social consequences. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on ambivalence in expressing emotion and impulsivity in people with a history of suicide.

This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. With the purposive sampling method, 30 people with a history of suicide referred to psychiatric centers of Sari city were selected and were divided into two experimental and control groups by simple random assignment (15 people in each group). In order to collect data, the ambivalence questionnaire and the impulsivity questionnaire were used. Subjects in the experimental group underwenr compassion-focused therapy. Data analysis was done covariance analysis method.

The scores of emotional expression ambivalence and impulsivity variables among the experimental group were respectively 111.06 and 106.13 in the pre-test, which decreased to 83.71 and 77.91 in the post-test. These scores among the control group were respectively 112.80 and 105.20 in the pre-test, and 110.18 and 103.51 in the post-test. The results of covariance analysis showed that compassion-focused therapy was significantly effective on the post-test scores of ambivalence in emotional expression and impulsivity at the level of 0.001.

Compassion-focused therapy can help to reduce emotional ambivalence and impulsivity in people with a history of suicide. Therefore, compassion-focused therapy can be used to reduce risk factors for suicide.