TY - JOUR

T1 - A systematic review of the clinical utility of the concept of self‐disgust

AU - Clarke, Aoife

AU - Simpson, Jane

AU - Varese, Filippo

N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Clarke A, Simpson J, Varese F. A systematic review of the clinical utility of the concept of self‐disgust. Clin Psychol Psychother. 2018;1–25. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2335 which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cpp.2335 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.

PY - 2019/1

Y1 - 2019/1

N2 - This systematic literature review examined the clinical utility of the construct of self disgustin understanding mental distress. Specifically, the review assessed whether there is a shared conceptual definition of self-disgust, the face and construct validity of the quantitativeassessment measures of self-disgust, and the predictive validity of self-disgust in formulatingthe development of a range of psychological difficulties. A systematic database searchsupplemented by manual searches of references and citations identified thirty-one relevantpapers (27 quantitative, 3 qualitative, 1 mixed). Analysis of qualitative papers indicated anumber 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 suppressingaspects of the self. Quantitative assessment measures appeared to capture these dimension andevidenced good psychometric properties, although some measures may have only partiallycaptured the full self-disgust construct. Strong relationships were observed between self disgustand 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.

AB - This systematic literature review examined the clinical utility of the construct of self disgustin understanding mental distress. Specifically, the review assessed whether there is a shared conceptual definition of self-disgust, the face and construct validity of the quantitativeassessment measures of self-disgust, and the predictive validity of self-disgust in formulatingthe development of a range of psychological difficulties. A systematic database searchsupplemented by manual searches of references and citations identified thirty-one relevantpapers (27 quantitative, 3 qualitative, 1 mixed). Analysis of qualitative papers indicated anumber 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 suppressingaspects of the self. Quantitative assessment measures appeared to capture these dimension andevidenced good psychometric properties, although some measures may have only partiallycaptured the full self-disgust construct. Strong relationships were observed between self disgustand 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.

KW - mental health

KW - review

KW - self-disgust

KW - utility

KW - validity

U2 - 10.1002/cpp.2335

DO - 10.1002/cpp.2335

M3 - Journal article

VL - 26

SP - 110

EP - 134

JO - Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy

JF - Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy

SN - 1063-3995

IS - 1

ER -