A systematic review of the effectiveness of compassion focused imagery in improving psychological outcomes in clinical and non-clinical adult populations.

Most of the studies reported improvements in psychological outcomes, such as improvements in self-compassion and positive affect, reduction in self-criticism, shame and paranoia. Across measures of self-compassion, self-criticism and shame, the effect sizes ranged between 0.02 and 1.1 and estimated treatment effects range between 0.09 and 1.39. Preliminary evidence is promising, with most studies reporting improvements in psychological outcomes; however, the evidence is limited by the methodological challenges and heterogeneity within the literature. Studies that implemented CFI in severe head injury samples reported limited improvements. Improvements in paranoia measures were more consistently reported in non-clinical samples, when compared to studies using clinical samples. High levels of self-criticism emerged as an important potential barrier in individuals' ability to engage with CFI tasks.