The Effectiveness of Group Compassion-Focused Therapy on Panic Symptoms, Self- Criticism, and Emotion Processingin Panic Patients

The current study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and feasibility of group Compassion-Focused therapy (CFT) on self-criticism and emotion processing on panic patients. The statistical sample of this study included thirty students who were studying at Shiraz University in 2023-2024 and were suffering from panic disorder. According to the announced statistics, there were about 150 people, from whom, 30 students were randomly selected and assigned to intervention and control groups (each group consisting of 15 people). The method of this research was field experimental using pre-test post-test design where the participants in the intervention group received a 1-h session every week for 8 weeks. All of the participants responded to questionnaires of Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 by Derogatis, Lipman (1974), a semi-structured interview for assessing panic disorder based on DSM 5-TR, the levels of Self-Criticism (LOSC) Scale by Thompson and Zuroff (2004), and emotional processing scale (EPS) by Baker et. al. (2007). CFT was then administered to the intervention group. Thereafter, the questionnaires mentioned above were completed again by both groups. The results indicated significant effectiveness of CFT on the mean scores of panic symptoms, emotion processing, and self-criticism in the experimental group (P-value< .05). The means consisting 34.8% of the variance of panic symptoms, 25.9% of self-criticism, and 25.7% of emotion processing could be explained by compassion therapy. Also, based on the results, self-compassion therapy was able to account for 39.2% of the changes in the dependent variables.