This systematic literature review examined the clinical utility of the construct of self disgust
in understanding mental distress. Specifically, the review assessed whether there is a shared conceptual definition of self-disgust, the face and construct validity of the quantitative
assessment measures of self-disgust, and the predictive validity of self-disgust in formulating
the development of a range of psychological difficulties. A systematic database search
supplemented by manual searches of references and citations identified thirty-one relevant
papers (27 quantitative, 3 qualitative, 1 mixed). Analysis of qualitative papers indicated a
number of shared features in the definition of self-disgust, including a visceral sense of self elicited nausea accompanied by social withdrawal and attempts at cleansing or suppressing
aspects of the self. Quantitative assessment measures appeared to capture these dimension and
evidenced good psychometric properties, although some measures may have only partially
captured the full self-disgust construct. Strong relationships were observed between self disgust
and a range of mental health presentations, in particular depression, body-image difficulties, and trauma-related difficulties. However, these relationships are smaller when the effects of other negative self-referential emotions were controlled, and stronger conclusions about the predictive validity of self-disgust are limited by the cross-sectional nature of many of the studies.