The Effectiveness of "Compassion-Focused Therapy" on Guilt and Shame in Women with Eating Disorders

Eating disorder is one of the worrisome factors of public health and several factors play a role in it, among which the main role of tendency to guilt and shame can be mentioned. The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of “Compassion-Focused Therapy” on tendency to guilt and shame in woman with eating disorders.

The current research was of semi-experimental type with pre-test, post-test with control group. The statistical population of this research included all women aged 18 to 40 years who visited an obesity treatment clinic in Tehran in 1401. 30 people were selected using the purposive sampling method and the convenience method. Then, using a simple random method of lottery, "Compassion-Focused Therapy" (15 people) and the control group (15 people) were assigned to the group. Data collection instruments, including demographic information, "Eating Attitude Test-26", "Self-Compassion Scale- Short Form" and “Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale”. The validity of the instruments was not measured and it was limited to the previous researches. Reliability was measured by internal consistency method by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the instruments. “Compassion-Focused Therapy” was implemented during 8 sessions of 90 minutes (during 2 months) for the intervention group, but no training was provided to the control group. The data was analyzed in SPSS.21.

The implemented intervention caused changes in the tendency to guilt and shame scores of people with eating disorders in the later stages and follow-up in the intervention group, and the effect of this intervention was stable in the follow-up stage (2 months later) and the average still decreased. In other words, by adjusting the effect of these independent variables, the group effect shows that the average score after and follow-up has a significant difference (P=0.034) and the group effect is also significant (P<0.001).

“Compassion-Focused Therapy” reduces the tendency to guilt and shame of woman with eating disorders. It is suggested that clinical psychologists and therapists in their interventions, especially in the field of tendency to guilt and shame with eating disorders use the above therapy.