Compassion Focused Therapy as a Treatment for Body Weight Shame Associated with Obesity.

Compassion focused therapy will be delivered to participants across 12 x 2 hour sessions. The intervention will be co-facilitated by an experienced registered clinical psychologist and a provisional health psychologist at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. The procedures, activities and processes used will follow the 12 week therapy protocol of Compassion Focused Therapy titled 'Compassion Focused Therapy: Group Manual' by Gilbert, Kirby and Petrocchi (in press). It will be delivered face to face in a group therapy format. Covering understanding the mind, mindfulness, compassion and compassion cultivation. The Compassion Focused Group Therapy program is comprised of approximately one 2-hour session per week. The program will focus on practices including: (1) a soothing rhythm breathing practice; (2) a practice focused on creating friendly facial expressions and voice tones as part of compassion; (3) a practice aimed to develop mindfulness and increase attention to one’s current mental state; (4) a practice aimed to develop the sense of a compassionate self that is based upon feelings of wisdom, strength and commitment to be supportive and helpful to self and others; (5) an imagery practice aimed to develop a compassionate image of another mind that has caring intent towards the self; and (6) a practice aimed to develop a compassionate self that has caring intent towards the self and how to use compassion focusing to work with self-criticism and life difficulties. Below is weekly agenda outlining the content covered during each session: 1. An introduction to compassion 2. Fears and blockers, the balancing effect of compassion and a compassion focused reality check 3. Mindfulness and soothing, rhythm, breathing 4. Introduction to compassion from others 5. Introduction to the compassionate self 6. Self-criticism 7. Shame and guilt 8. Compassion for self 9. Understanding of our multiple selves 10. Compassion for others 11. Compassion assertiveness 12. Wrap-up content and reflection Inclusion criteria (obesity - as determined by body weight index and body weight shame) will be assessed over the phone as self reported measures when participant interest is expressed. Availability, participants must agree to attend all sessions. If they are unavailable to commit to the required therapy times they will not be allowed to participate in the study. All participants must be over the age of 18. Assessment items (pre and post) will be administered online via Qualtrics for self-report surveys and in person for physiological assesment. Participants will be asked if they wish to complete follow-up assessment items administered online via Qualtrics 6-months after the completion of the intervention. Participants attendance will be reordered via a roll check list at the start of each session by the lead researcher. Groups will consist of approximately 6 participants as per previous research recommendations (Dutton et al 2014).