Fear of Compassion: Description, Causes and Prevention

Abstract

All the procedures performed for the individual's mental health are aimed at increasing positive feelings and thoughts and reducing negative feelings and thoughts. But some individuals escape from positive emotions and thoughts and fear them. The sense of compassion may be one of the emotions that some people are afraid of, and try to remove from themselves for different reasons. Fear of compassion is caused by both the lack of compassion and the fear of the presence of compassion. This fear both affects the health of the individual negatively and may cause deterioration of social relations. Fear of compassion is also associated with health problems such as depression, stress, empathy, alexithymia, eating disorder, fear of happiness, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and panic disorder. Any treatment for these problems is closely linked to the identification of fear of compassion to be successful. The origin of fear of compassion is sometimes seen as an important cause of childhood traumas and sometimes the lack of a warm relationship with parents in childhood. The aim of this article is to define the concept of fear of compassion, to explain related concepts, to introduce related measurement tools and to raise awareness of help in this way.

Keywords

• fear of compassion
• fear of positive emotion