The Role of Self-Compassion and Mindfulness in Modifying Maladaptive Behaviors Related to Mental Health
Keywords:
Self-compassion, Mindfulness, Maladaptive Behavior, Mental Health, Emotion Regulation, Qualitative ResearchAbstract
This study aimed to explain individuals’ lived experiences of how self-compassion and mindfulness contribute to identifying, interrupting, and modifying maladaptive behaviors that directly or indirectly undermine mental health. A qualitative descriptive-interpretive design was employed. The participants were 20 adults living in Tehran who reported recurrent mental health-related maladaptive behaviors, including rumination, experiential avoidance, procrastination, social withdrawal, emotional eating, excessive digital-media use, neglect of self-care, or impulsive interpersonal reactions. All participants had at least three months of experience practicing mindfulness, self-compassion, or both. Participants were selected through purposive maximum-variation sampling. Data were collected exclusively through individual semi-structured interviews. Data collection and analysis proceeded concurrently. Theoretical and meaning saturation was reached after the eighteenth interview, followed by two confirmatory interviews. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. NVivo version 14 was used to organize transcripts, codes, analytic memos, subcategories, and themes. Credibility was strengthened through member reflection, peer review of coding, maximum variation, reflexive documentation, and maintenance of an audit trail. The analysis generated 412 initial codes, 68 focused codes, 14 subcategories, and four main categories: “interrupting automatic behavioral cycles through present-moment awareness,” “replacing self-criticism and shame with compassionate self-responding,” “enhancing distress tolerance and adaptive emotion regulation,” and “reconstructing self-care, relationships, and value-consistent choices.” Participants described mindfulness as creating a pause between internal triggers and behavioral reactions, thereby enabling them to recognize bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts, urges, and situational cues before acting. Self-compassion reduced punitive self-talk and prevented occasional lapses from developing into cycles of shame, hopelessness, and behavioral repetition. The interaction of mindfulness and self-compassion was associated with greater help-seeking, flexible accountability, self-care, and a quicker return to adaptive behavior following setbacks. Mindfulness appeared to modify maladaptive behavior primarily through nonreactive awareness, attentional regulation, and early recognition of triggers, whereas self-compassion facilitated change by reducing self-criticism, isolation, and fear of failure. Their combined use may constitute a transdiagnostic pathway for improving emotion regulation and modifying maladaptive coping patterns. Mindfulness and self-compassion should nevertheless be taught in culturally responsive and clinically appropriate ways and should not be treated as universal substitutes for comprehensive psychological or psychiatric care.
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