From childhood emotional maltreatment to depressive symptoms in adulthood: The roles of self-compassion and shame

BackgroundEmotional abuse is a form of maltreatment that most strongly predicts adult depressive symptoms in community samples. Introject theories suggest that some depressive symptoms stem from survivors having learned to treat themselves the way they were treated by their perpetrators.ObjectiveMalevolent introjects may undermine self-compassion, which may subsequently maintain feelings of shame. Thus, we hypothesized that self-compassion and shame would mediate the path from retrospective reports of maltreatment to concurrent depressive symptoms in adulthood.Participants and SettingParticipants were 244 adult community members and college students living in a Southwestern American metroplex.MethodWe ran a multiple mediator path model with emotional abuse as the independent variable. We specified four covariates: physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect, and held constant the variance they explained in self-compassion, shame, and depression.ResultsOur final model accounted for 53.1% of the variance in adult depressive symptoms. A significant indirect effect from emotional abuse passed through both mediators and ended in adult depressive symptoms. We also found an indirect path from emotional neglect to depression passing through both mediators.ConclusionsIt appears emotional abuse and emotional neglect can undermine the formation of self-compassion. Low self-compassion predicts greater shame and depressive symptoms. Our model suggests self-compassion may be a particularly effective intervention point for survivors of emotional maltreatment.