Self-compassion as a mediator of the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and psychotic symptoms in clinical and non-clinical groups.

This is the first study to show that self-compassion mediates the link between CSA and both paranoia and psychotic symptoms in adulthood. Self-compassion may therefore be an important transdiagnostic candidate target in therapy to mitigate the impact of early adversity on paranoia in both clinical and non-clinical groups. Limitations include the small clinical sample and inclusion of a cannabis-using non-clinical sample, though recent cannabis use did not impact self-compassion levels.