The DOI matches its Crossref record; 41 of the 41 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Self-Compassion and Psychological Well-being
Abstract
Self-compassion involves being touched by and open to one’s own suffering, not avoiding or disconnecting from it, generating the desire to alleviate one’s suffering and to heal oneself with kindness. Self-compassion also involves offering nonjudgmental understanding to one’s pain, inadequacies, and failures, so that one’s experience is seen as part of the larger human experience. This chapter will provide an overview of theory and research on self-compassion and its link to psychological well-being, which is the goal of clinical practice. It will discuss what self-compassion is and what it is not (e.g., a form of weakness, selfishness, etc.), and provide empirical evidence to support these distinctions. Finally, it will discuss methods that have been developed to teach individuals how to be more self-compassionate in their daily lives, some clinical implications of self-compassion training, and future directions for research.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“The increased positive affect and decreased negative affect observed in our research following the 8-week MSC training are also in line with results from other studies in which the MSC programme was used (Neff and Germer, 2017; Yela et al., 2020a; Yela et al., 2022).”
From Long-term effectiveness of the Mindful Self-Compassion programme compared to a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction intervention: a quasi-randomised controlled trial involving regular mindfulness practice for 1 year (2025) · cites this paper as Neff and Germer, 2017
In the citing paper
“Opierając się na wcześniejszych badaniach, które udokumentowały istotne korelacje (od małych/umiarkowanych do dużych) między współczuciem dla siebie i cechą uważności oraz między współczuciem dla siebie a wskaźnikami zdrowia psychicznego idobrostanu [28, 35, 36]”
From The Polish adaptation of the Self-Compassion Scale Short Form (2024) · cites this paper as [35]
Citations
Cites
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037//0003-066x.56.3.218 · Cited by 18,025
The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being
Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.822 · Cited by 13,448
On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.141 · Cited by 11,567
Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition.
Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., Segal, Z. V., Abbey, S., Speca, M., Velting, D., et al. (2004) · Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice · doi:10.1093/clipsy.bph077 · Cited by 7,234
The Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Self-Compassion
NEFF, K. D. (2003) · Self and Identity · doi:10.1080/15298860309027 · Cited by 6,436 · cited 14×
“…of selfcompassion has been associated with feelings of autonomy, competence, relatedness, and selfdetermination (Magnus, Kowalski, & McHugh, 2010; Neff, 2003a), suggesting that selfcompassion helps meet the basic psychological needs that Ryan and Deci (2001) argue are fundamental to eudaimonic…”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationSelf-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself
NEFF, K. (2003) · Self and Identity · doi:10.1080/15298860309032 · Cited by 5,440
Self-citationResponses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes
Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1991) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-843x.100.4.569 · Cited by 4,529
A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self-compassion program
Neff, K. D., & Germer, C. K. (2013) · Journal of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1002/jclp.21923 · Cited by 2,253
Self-citationIs there a universal need for positive self-regard?
Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.106.4.766 · Cited by 2,247
Compassion: an evolutionary analysis and empirical review
Goetz, J. L., Keltner, D., & Simon-Thomas, E. (2010) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0018807 · Cited by 2,200
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Neff, K. D., Tóth-Király, I., Yarnell, L. M., Arimitsu, K., Castilho, P., Ghorbani, N., Guo, H. X., Hirsch, J. K., Hupfeld, J., Hutz, C. S., et al. (2019) · Psychological Assessment · doi:10.1037/pas0000629 · Cited by 397
Self-compassion and Psychological Distress in Adolescents—a Meta-analysis
Marsh, I. C., Chan, S. W. Y., & MacBeth, A. (2018) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-017-0850-7 · Cited by 465
“The concept of self-compassion is rooted in Buddhist philosophy (where self-compassion is considered to be identical to compassion towards others, merely turned inward to the self (Neff 2004).”
BackgroundPositive psychology in a pandemic: buffering, bolstering, and building mental health
Waters, L., Algoe, S. B., Dutton, J., Emmons, R., Fredrickson, B. L., Heaphy, E., Moskowitz, J. T., Neff, K., Niemiec, R., Pury, C., et al. (2022) · The Journal of Positive Psychology · doi:10.1080/17439760.2021.1871945 · Cited by 377
“This friendly and benevolent attitude strengthens our ability to cope with difficulties and find their silver linings, helping to explain why self-compassionate people are happier, more optimistic, and satisfied with their lives than those who give themselves the cold shoulder (Neff & Germer, 2017).”
BackgroundSelf-citationMuris, P., & Otgaar, H. (2020) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-020-01363-0 · Cited by 162
A meta-analysis of the relation between self-compassion and self-efficacy
Liao, K. Y.-H., Stead, G. B., & Liao, C.-Y. (2021) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-021-01626-4 · Cited by 109
Metadata
- Authors
- Neff, K., & Germer, C.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- ORCID
- Neff, Kristin
- Venue
- Oxford Handbooks Online
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Published
- 2017-10-05
- OpenAlex
- W2775655995
- Cited by
- 215
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 12
- FWCI
- 23.52
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Oxford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Keywords
- self-compassion, psychological well-being, self-compassion training, suffering, self-kindness
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
