Discussion
The present study evaluated how a clinical population with high self-criticism and/or low self-compassion responded to self-compassionate imagery over time, compared to relaxation imagery and a control task. Hypotheses 1, 3 and 4 were not supported; but Hypothesis 2 was supported. Below, results are discussed in further detail.Findings did not support Hypothesis 1 since at the initial session, no between-task differences were seen (although a trend in the expected direction was seen for self-compassion, which produced higher HRV than both relaxation and control tasks). The non-significant findings may reflect the small sample size, high variance of HRV between participants, and the fact that some individuals in session 1 responded positively to the two therapeutic tasks and others neutrally or negatively (see Hypothesis 2 was supported, since at each session a greater number of individuals showed positive responses to both compassion and to relaxation, and fewer number of individuals showed a negative response to compassion compared to relaxation. Specifically, at the first assessment, clinically-significant increases in HRV was found in 56% of participants, which was more than the proportion that showed a clinically-significant positive response to relaxation imagery (44%). Furthermore, fewer participants showed a clinically-significant negative response to self-compassionate imagery (16%) than to relaxation (28%).Together, these results indicate that self-compassion imagery is at least as acceptable as commonly-used relaxation exercises—even for individuals with characteristics that make them most at risk for showing threat-responses to compassion [Given that there were no significant differences at the group level, we cannot hypothesize whether the mechanisms that triggered a positive or negative response in clients are the same or different across the two therapeutic tasks of compassion and relaxation. CFI has been hypothesized to specifically activate care-based motivation of compassion, rooted in evolutionarily developed brain systems that humans share with other mammals and linked to the myelinated vagus nerve [