What is self-compassion? A process-based examination of the self-compassion psychometric wars

The last few decades have seen an explosion of self-compassion research, and yet the measurement of self-compassion remains fiercely debated. Rakhimov et al (2022) add fire to the debate by showing that a single factor mode, with six subfactors, fits Neff ‘s (2003) self-compassion scale (SCS) extremely well and arguing that a single total score can therefore be used in future research and practice. In this paper, we disagree with this conclusion, and argue that the debate can only be resolved by stating analytic assumptions, examining self-compassion theory, and considering the pragmatic purposes of the instrument. We examine self-compassion in terms of pragmatic analysis and process-based theory that brings together different self-compassion approaches. From a process-based perspective, we argue that it is generally unhelpful to describe self-compassion as a single global dimension, like hot (self-compassion) and cold (self-criticism). This practice prematurely shuts down interesting research and hypotheses. Some people will be high in both process, some will be low, and some will be somewhere in-between, depending on context. Further, the processes may relate differently for different people. Whilst it might be defensible to use the six subscale scores, the use of a total score for trait self-compassion is not justified.