The Effectiveness of Mindful Self-Compassion Program on Distress Tolerance, Emotional Expression, and Psychological Flexibility in Individuals with Social Anxiety Disorder

Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the mindfulness-based self-compassion program on distress tolerance, emotional expression, and psychological resilience in individuals with social anxiety disorder.Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test and post-test design. Thirty individuals with social anxiety disorder were selected through purposive sampling in counseling centers and cyberspace, and they were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. At the beginning and end of the study, the two groups answered the questionnaires, including Social Phobia Inventory (SPI), Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS), Emotional Expressiveness Scale (EES), and Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI). The experimental group underwent a mindful self-compassion intervention for eight weekly sessions, one session lasting 150 minutes, while the control group did not receive any treatment. Univariate analyses of covariance were employed to analyze the data using SPSS software version 27.Results: The results of ANCOVA analyses showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the post-test of distress tolerance, emotional expression, and psychological flexibility (p < 0.05). The results of the Bonferroni test showed that the experimental group had higher scores in the post-test of distress tolerance, emotional expression, and psychological flexibility than the control group (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Findings indicate that the mindful self-compassion program is effective in enhancing distress tolerance, emotional expression, and psychological flexibility for individuals with social anxiety disorder.