(PS2-27) Increases in State Self-compassion Across Group ACT for Social Anxiety Disorder: Role of Gender and Pre-treatment Self-compassion

People with social anxiety disorder tend to have low levels of self-compassion. There is evidence that exercises aimed at inducing self-compassion are particularly helpful for those with low levels of trait self-compassion. Further, there are gender differences in self-compassion, with women tending to have lower levels of self-compassion than men. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate change in state self-compassion across treatment for social anxiety disorder and examine whether pre-treatment self-compassion and gender serve as moderators. Participants with social anxiety disorder (N = 47) completed a 10-week online group ACT protocol for social anxiety disorder (two hrs per session). During eight of the ten sessions, participants completed a measure of state self-compassion, four of which were in response to a meditative self-compassion exercise (e.g., compassionate image, taking a self-compassion break). The other four state self-compassion assessments were in response to an alternative exercise targeting acceptance of making mistakes (i.e., warm-up exercises commonly used in improv). Data were analyzed using multi-level modeling to examine change in state self-compassion over the course of therapy. State self-compassion significantly increased over time during therapy, with time significantly predicting 21% of the variance in state self-compassion scores. Pre-treatment self-compassion moderated the relationship between time and self-compassion scores across the four self-compassion meditative practices, such that only those low in pre-treatment self-compassion showed significantly increased self-compassion scores over time (B = .27, 95% CI [.15, .38]). Those high in pre-treatment self-compassion did not significantly increase in self-compassion scores over time (B = .09, 95% CI [-.02, .21]). Gender moderated the relationship between time and self-compassion scores for the alternative exercises, such that only participants who identified as women showed significantly increased self-compassion scores (B = .21, 95% CI [ .10, .31]). Participants who identified as men did not significantly increase in state self-compassion scores over time (B = -.05, 95% CI [-.20, .09]). Overall, these results support that group ACT helps to increase self-compassion levels for those with social anxiety disorder, in particular among those with the lowest levels of self-compassion at the outset.