How can we Improve self-care practices and reduce burnout within New Zealand and Australian psychologists? : examining self-compassion and its link to self-care and burnout : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

The demanding nature of psychologists’ work and their exposure to distressing content, puts them at high risk of experiencing stress outcomes. Self-care is widely accepted as important for preventing stress outcomes such as burnout; however, surprisingly few studies have investigated the link between self-care and burnout among psychologists. Further, despite ethical imperatives to engage in self-care, psychologists tend to have a chronic disregard for their own needs and limited research has investigated factors that increase psychologists' engagement in self-care. One promising factor that may enhance self-care and buffer burnout is self-compassion. Prior research within other helping professionals has linked self-compassion with promoting self-care and reducing burnout. However, almost no research has investigated the benefit of self-compassion for psychologists or considered the relationships between these three factors. This research explored self-compassion’s relationship with self-care and burnout in psychologists, as well as whether self-compassion was a moderator of the relationship between self-care and burnout. Currently registered and practicing New Zealand and Australian psychologists (n = 197) were recruited through convenience sampling. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that self-compassion had a significant, positive relationship with both professional and personal self-care in psychologist and that both self-compassion and self-care had significant, negative associations with burnout. Psychologists with greater self-compassion tended to have higher engagement in both professional and personal self-care along with lower levels of burnout. Moderation analysis showed that self-compassion was also a significant moderator of relationship between self-care and burnout, such that self-compassion strengthened the negative relationship that self-care had with burnout in psychologists. Specifically, as psychologists’ level of self-compassion gets higher, the negative relationship between self-care and burnout gets stronger. These results highlight self-compassion as a valuable resource for enhancing self-care practices and buffering burnout within psychologists. This research extends the finding that self-compassion is positively associated with self-care to a population of New Zealand and Australian psychologists, and it provides an initial foundation for new ways of looking at the relationship between self-care and burnout with respect to self-compassion.