Clients' Facial Expressions of Self-Compassion, Self-Criticism, and Self-Protection in Emotion-Focused Therapy Videos

Ghazaleh Bailey; Júlia Halamová; Viktória Vráblová

doi:10.3390/ijerph20021129

Clients' Facial Expressions of Self-Compassion, Self-Criticism, and Self-Protection in Emotion-Focused Therapy Videos

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 9;20(2):1129. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20021129.

Authors

Ghazaleh Bailey¹, Júlia Halamová¹, Viktória Vráblová¹

Affiliation

¹ Institute of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynské luhy 4, 821 05 Bratislava, Slovakia.

Abstract

Clients' facial expressions allow psychotherapists to gather more information about clients' emotional processing. This study aims to examine and investigate the facial Action Units (AUs) of self-compassion, self-criticism, and self-protection within real Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) sessions. For this purpose, we used the facial analysis software iMotions. Twelve video sessions were selected for the analysis based on specific criteria. For self-compassion, the following AUs were significant: AUs 4 (brow furrow), 15 (lip corner depressor), and the AU12_smile (lip corner puller). For self-criticism, iMotions identified the AUs 2 (outer brow raise), AU1 (inner brow raise), AU7 (lid tighten), AU12_smirk (unilateral lip corner puller), and AU43 (eye closure). Self-protection was combined using the occurrence of AUs 1 and 4 and AU12_smirk. Moreover, the findings support the significance of discerning self-compassion and self-protection as two different concepts.

Keywords: automated facial analysis; emotion-focused therapy; iMotions.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Emotion-Focused Therapy*
Emotions
Facial Expression*
Humans
Self-Assessment
Self-Compassion

Grants and funding

Writing of this work was supported by the Vedecká grantová agentúra VEGA under Grant 1/0075/19.