NCT05860101

Compassion-Focused Therapy for Distressing Mood Swings: A Case Series

An Investigation Into the Safety, Acceptability and Feasibility of a Brief Compassion-Focused Intervention for People Who Experience Distressing Mood Swings: A Case Series.

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 6 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Institute of Psychiatry, London · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The goal of this case series is to investigate whether a brief compassion-focused intervention is a safe, acceptable and feasible therapy for clients with bipolar affective disorder. The secondary questions are whether a brief compassion focused intervention for BPD clients is associated with changes in bipolar mood symptoms and/ or with changes in psychological processes linked to mood symptoms in bipolar, including: Self-compassion, perfectionism, social comparison and social safeness. Four visual analogue scales will also be completed daily by each participant throughout the project. These scales will measure domains relevant to BPAD symptomology and self-compassion. Participants will complete a 4 session Compassion-Focused Therapy Intervention. The first session will involve completion of the psychoeducation and formulation work which was started during the initial assessment session. Each intervention session will also involve the introduction and practice of CFT techniques or exercises. The trial therapist will introduce the exercise and practice it together with the participant during the session. Participants will then be asked to continue practicing the exercises for homework. Their experience of the practice and any difficulties can then be discussed at the start of the next session.

Conditions

• Bipolar Affective Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Compassion-Focused Therapy	Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is based on the premise that we have three emotion regulation systems, the threat, drive and soothing systems. It has been suggested that our psychological wellbeing is dependent on maintaining a balance between these three systems, and if we lose this balance, e.g. the threat or drive systems become more dominant, then we start to experience emotional difficulties (Gilbert, 2009). In this study, participants are given various exercises to develop their soothing system, and help them to balance overactive threat.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-11-15
• Primary completion: 2023-06-09
• Completion: 2023-06-09
• First posted: 2023-05-16
• Last updated: 2023-05-16

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United Kingdom