Practice is not easy for everyone when it comes to telling oneself warm words. For patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD), especially those for whom self-criticism and difficulty regulating emotions stand out, self-compassion meditation often hits a wall from the start. A research team from the BPD unit at Spain’s Sant Creu i Sant Pau Hospital in Barcelona released the results of a preliminary study targeting that issue in the international academic journal 『Psychiatry Research』 on July 16.
Oxytocin Sprayed in the Nose, Right Before Meditation
The research team split 18 participants diagnosed with BPD into two groups of 9. One group received oxytocin 24 international units (IU) via a nasal spray, while the other received a placebo, and both then completed a 15-minute guided self-compassion meditation. The process was repeated once per week for 5 weeks. The study was designed as a double-blind setup in which neither the participants nor the researchers knew which group received the real medication.
The quality of meditation was measured with the Compassion Practice Quality Scale. Self-compassion meditation includes a process of visualizing warm images in one’s mind and staying with the sensations from those images, and how well this imagery immersion is carried out was a key indicator.
Imagery Scores: 77 to 67
The results showed that the oxytocin group’s average imagery score was about 77 out of 100, while the placebo group’s was about 67. The adjusted difference was 23.98 points, with a partial eta-squared of .57, which corresponds to a large effect size within this sample. The researchers said participants who received oxytocin reported relatively fewer difficulties during compassion practice.
Oxytocin is known as a hormone involved in attachment and social bonding. The research team’s hypothesis is that this hormone lowers the threshold for the process of bringing up warm feelings toward other people and toward oneself—helping people perform the meditation itself more effectively.
Not Symptom Improvement, but the “Quality of Meditation Performance” Measured
A sample size of 18 is the scale of a preliminary trial. The research team also presented the findings as a step to confirm the validity of follow-up studies, not as evidence of treatment effects. It should also be considered that the primary outcome was the “quality of meditation performance,” not symptom improvement, and that the observation period was short at 5 weeks.
The significance lies elsewhere. It is an attempt to design ways to lower those barriers, while also asking, when bringing a meditation program into clinical practice, “for whom does this method not work, and why?” This is research that could lead into discussions about how to help people for whom participation itself is difficult, as mindfulness-based programs keep growing in domestic hospitals and counseling settings.
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