Self-forgiveness, self-compassion and psychological health: A qualitative exploration of change during compassion focused therapy groups

Purpose Little research exists into the relationships between self-forgiveness, self-compassion, affect and psychological health, and are only just beginning to be explored within the self-compassion and the Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) literature. Methods This qualitative study (n = 31) utilised Thematic Analysis (TA) to understand participants' experiences of participating in a 12-week compassion-focused therapy group. Results Thematic analysis yielded two major themes: 'becoming self-compassionate and self-forgiving', and 'the CFT group was beneficial'. The first major theme reflected participants' growing familiarity, awareness and insight into their inhibitions to and the benefits of self-compassion and self-forgiveness, their capacities for self-condemnation, becoming appropriately responsible for their thoughts and actions, and the links between self-compassion and the process of self-forgiveness. The second major theme reflected participants' impressions that taking part in the CFT group and developing CFT skills had facilitated personal change through taking compassionate ownership for their thoughts and feelings about themselves and their mistakes, rather than condemning themselves and others. Participants reported that these changes helped to regulate their negative affect through the development of more compassionate and balanced thinking about their mistakes, leading to improvements in psychological health. Conclusions The findings of this study provide explanations of the processes of change in CFT in relation to self-forgiveness, affect and psychological health and contribute to the theory and practice of CFT especially as practiced within a group format.