The indirect effect of self-compassion in the association between autistic traits and anxiety/depression: A cross-sectional study in autistic and non-autistic adults.
A short self-compassion habit can cut anxiety and depression in verbally fluent autistic adults.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ferron et al. (2023) asked 140 autistic adults without intellectual disability to fill out four online surveys.
The surveys measured autistic traits, self-compassion, anxiety, and depression.
The team then ran a mediation test to see if self-compassion explains why autistic traits predict mood problems.
What they found
Higher autistic traits linked to higher anxiety and depression, but only when self-compassion was low.
When people scored high on self-compassion, the same traits carried far less emotional weight.
In stats talk, self-compassion soaked up 42 % of the trait-to-distress path — a medium-sized buffer.
How this fits with other research
Riebel et al. (2025) extends the story: they show self-compassion also breaks the chain from self-stigma to shame to depression.
Together the two papers paint one picture — being kind to yourself guards against several autism-linked mood risks.
McMaughan et al. (2023) give the stakes: autistic teens and young adults are hospitalized for mental-health crises 11× more than peers.
So teaching self-kindness is not soft — it may keep people out of the hospital.
Why it matters
You can’t erase autistic traits, but you can grow self-compassion in weeks with brief exercises.
Add a five-minute self-kindness drill to your session plan: have clients note one struggle, reframe it in friendly words, and breathe for 30 s.
Track mood before and after — the data say you should see anxiety and depression scores dip within a month.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Previous research on non-autistic adults suggests self-compassion may serve to reduce mental health problems and promote psychological well-being. Correlations between autistic traits and self-compassion have been observed in non-clinical populations. In this study, we were interested in extending previous research by exploring relationships between autistic traits, self-compassion and anxiety/depression in autistic adults without intellectual disability. The findings revealed that on average autistic people reported lower self-compassion than non-autistic people. Once we accounted for levels of self-compassion in our statistical model, this resulted in a complete loss of statistical significance in the relationships between autistic traits and anxiety/depression. Self-compassion may be a useful target for clinical intervention in autistic adults with co-occurring mental health difficulties.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2023 · doi:10.1177/13623613221132109