Notes and References for I Heart Me: The Science of Self-

Love, by David R Hamilton, Ph.D. (Hay House, 2015)

Chapter 1: The Three Stages of Self-Love

1. For the ‘victimology’ study, see: B. Grayson and M. I. Stein, ‘Attracting assault’,
Journal of Communication 1981, Winter, 31(1), 68–75

Chapter 2: Meet the Parents

1. For the study comparing stress and anxiety levels in middle and working class girls,
see: V. Walkerdine, unpublished study, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths
College, University of London, 1995, cited in Oliver James, They F*** You Up: How
to Survive Family Life (Bloomsbury, 2002)

2. For the study citing 20% American girls from affluent backgrounds suffered from
serious depression, see: S. S. Luthar and B. E. Becker, ‘Privileged but pressured? A
study of affluent youth’, Child Development 2002, 73, 1,593–610

3. For the note that the figure is only 7% in the general population, see: S. S. Luthar
and B. E. Becker, ‘Privileged but pressured? A study of affluent youth’, Child
Development 2002, 73, 1,593–610

4. To watch the video of Oscar, as a puppy, afraid to cross the door threshold, see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhz3kmXFWrw or simply search ‘Oscar
Labrador’ on YouTube.

The video title is: ‘Oscar, our Labrador puppy, scared to cross the threshold for his
first walk.’

Chapter 3: How to Use Your Body to Change How You Feel

1. For information on Cliff Kuhn, see his website: http://www.drcliffordkuhn.com.

2. For the research that found that copying a smile or frown impacted mood, see: C. L.
Kleinke, T. R. Peterson and T. R. Rutledge, ‘Effects of self-generated facial
expressions on mood’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1998, 74(1),
272–9
 3. For Paul Eckman’s research on how smiling or grimacing impacted the ANS, see: P.
Eckman, ‘An argument for basic emotions’, Cognition and Emotion 1992, 6(3/4), 169–
200

4. For Amy Cuddy’s ‘Power Pose’ research, see: D. R. Carney, A. J. C. Cuddy and A.
J. Yap, ‘Power posing: brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk
tolerance’, Psychological Science 2010, 21(10), 1,363–8

Chapter 4: Visualization

1. For a summary review of how mental practice impacts the brain, see: U. Debamot,
M. Sperduti, F. Di Rienzo and A. Guillot, ‘Experts’ bodies, experts’ minds: how
physical and mental training shapes the brain’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2014, 8, article 280, 1–17

2. For the ‘piano study’ where playing or imagining playing piano notes resulted in the
same degree of brain changes, see: A. Pascual-Leone, D. Nguyet, L. G. Cohen, J. P.
Brasil-Neto, A. Cammarota and M. Hallet, ‘Modulation of muscle responses evoked
by transcranial magnetic stimulation during the acquisition of new fine motor skills’,
Journal of Neurophysiology 1995, 74(3), 1,037–45, cited in David R. Hamilton, PhD,
How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body (Hay House, 2008)

Chapter 5: Does It Matter If People Like You?

1. For the research showing that increases in connectedness resulted in increases in

happiness, see: J. H. Fowler and N. A. Christakis, ‘Dynamic spread of happiness in a
large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart
Study’, British Medical Journal 2008, 337, a2,338, 1–9

Chapter 7: Body Image

1. For the UK study estimating that 87% of females have dieted, see: A. Furnham and
N. Greaves, ‘Gender and locus of control correlates of body image dissatisfaction’,
European Journal of Personality 1994, 8, 183–2000

2. For research correlating eating disorders with shame, see: V. Cardi, R. Di Matteo, P.
Gilbert and J. Treasure, ‘Rank perception and self-evaluation in eating disorders’,
International Journal of Eating Disorders 2014, 47(5), 543–52

3. To watch a reading of Elizabeth Caproni’s monologue called, ‘Mocha Choca Latte,

yah Yah … Please’, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8JFcim1nkQ or simply
search ‘Yah! Celebs’ eye view’ on YouTube.
 4. For how the Playgirl centerfold male has increased in muscle and lost fat, see: H. G.
Pope, K. A. Phillips and R. Olivardia, The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male
Body Obsession, Free Press, 2000

5. For news on the increase in steroid use in the UK, see: T. Moore, ‘HIV fears over
increase in steroid injections’, Sky News, 9 April 2014

6. For the changing stats of Miss America winners, see: Sarah Grogan, Body Image
(Routledge, 2008)

7. For the study of 299 French and Italian girls shown idealized images in magazines,
see: R. Rodgers and H. Chabrol, ‘The impact of exposure to images of ideally thin
models on body dissatisfaction in young French and Italian women’, Encephale 2009,
35(3), 262–8

8. For the study where rating of attractiveness of certain BMIs was affected by what
size of model a participant was shown, see: I. D. Stephen and A. T-M. Perera, ‘Judging
the difference between attractiveness and health: does exposure to model images
influence the judgments made by men and women?’, PLOS ONE 2014, 9(1), e86,302

Chapter 10: Self-Compassion

1. Kristin Neff discusses many benefits of self-compassion in Self-Compassion: Stop

Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind (Hodder, 2011)

2. For the research linking self-compassion, as rated according to a questionnaire, with

inflammation, see: J. G. Breines, M. V. Thoma, D. Gianferante, L. Hanlin, X. Chen
and N. Rohleder, ‘Self-compassion as a predictor of interleukin-6 response to acute
psychosocial stress’, Brain Behaviour and Immunity 2014, 37, 109–14

3. For the research showing how practicing compassion and self-compassion reduced
inflammation, see: T. W. W. Pace, L. T. Negi, D. D. Adame, S. P. Cole, T. I. Sivillia,
T. D. Brown, M. J. Issa and C. L. Raison, ‘Effect of compassion meditation on
neuroendocrine, innate immune and behavioural responses to psychosocial stress’,
Psychoneuroendocrinology 2009, 34(1), 87–98

4. For the study showing how self-compassion practice reduced self-criticism, see: B.
Shahar, O. Szesepsenwol, S. Zilcha-Mano, N. Haim, O. Zamir, S. Levi-Yeshuvi and
N. Levit-Binnun, ‘A wait-list randomized controlled trial of loving-kindness
meditation programme for self-criticism’, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
2015, 22(4), 346-356

5. For the study showing how a practice of the Loving-Kindness meditation increased
positive emotion, see: B. Fredrickson, M. Cohn, K. A. Coffey, J. Pek and S. M. Finkel,
‘Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness
meditation, build consequential personal resources’, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 2008, 95(5), 1,045–62
 6. For the ‘Hard Marriage, Heart Heart’ research, see: P. Pearsall, ‘Contextual
cardiology: what modern medicine can learn from ancient Hawaiian wisdom’,
Cleveland Clinical Journal of Medicine 2007, 74(1), S99–104. The research this paper
described as an example of ‘Hard Marriage, Hard Heart’ was: T. W. Smith, C. Berg,
B. N. Uchino, P. Florsheim and G. Pearce, ‘Marital conflict behavior and coronary
artery calcification’, paper presented at the American Psychosomatic Society’s 64th
Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, 3 March 2006

7. For the study showing how the Loving-Kindness meditation improved social
connectedness, see: C. A. Hutcherson, E. M. Seppala and J. J. Gross, ‘Loving-kindness
meditation increases social connectedness’, Emotion 2008, 8(5), 720–24

8. For the study showing how a practice of the Loving-Kindness meditation reduced
back pain, see: J. W. Carson, F. J. Keefe, T. R. Lynch, K. M. Carson, V. Goli, A-M.
Fras and S. R. Thorp, ‘Loving-kindness meditation for chronic low back pain’, Journal
of Holistic Nursing 2005, 23(3), 287–304

9. For the study showing how helping others reduced chronic back pain, see: P.
Arnstein, M. Vidal, C. Wells-Federman, B. Morgan and M. Caudill, ‘From chronic
pain patient to peer: benefits and risks of volunteering’, Pain Management Nursing
2002, 3(3), 94–103

Chapter 11: Forgiveness

1. For a summary of forgiveness research, see Chapter 12: ‘Letting Go of the Past’ in
David R. Hamilton, PhD, Why Kindness is Good for You, Hay House, 2010. The
individual references cited there are:

-R. D. Enright, E. A. Gassin and C. Wu, ‘Forgiveness: a developmental view’, Journal

of Moral Education 1992, 21, 99–114

-C. V. O. Witvliet, T. E. Ludwig and K. L. Vander Laan, ‘Granting forgiveness or

harbouring grudges: implications for emotion, physiology, and health’, Psychological
Science 2001, 121, 117–23

-J. P. Friedberg, S. Suchday and D. V. Shelov, ‘The impact of forgiveness on

cardiovascular reactivity and recovery’, International Journal of Psychophysiology
2007, 65(2), 87–94

-M. Waltman, D. Russell and R. Enright, ‘Research study suggests forgiving attitude
may be beneficial to the heart’, paper presented at the American Psychosomatic
Society Annual Meeting, 5–8 March 2003, Phoenix, Arizona

-D. Tibbits, G. Ellis, C. Piramelli, F. M. Luskin and R. Lukman, ‘Hypertension

reduction through forgiveness training’, Journal of Pastoral Care and Counselling
2006, 60(1–2), 27–34
 -M. E. McCulloch, L. M. Root and A. D. Cohen, ‘Writing about the benefits of an
interpersonal transgression facilitates forgiveness’, Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology 2006, 74(5), 887–97

Chapter 14: The Fourth Stage of Self-Love

1. For Pim van Lommel’s NDE research, see: P. van Lommel, R. van Wees, V.
Meyers and I. Elfferich, ‘Near death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a
prospective study in the Netherlands’, The Lancet 2001, 358, 2,039–45

2. For general information on NDE’s see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-

death_experience.

-For specific accounts of NDE’s, see, Anita Moorjani, Dying to Be Me (Hay House,
2012) and Eben Alexander M.D., Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the
Afterlife (Simon and Schuster, 2012)

3. For research showing that thoughts sent by one person were correlated with brain
activation in a partner, see: L. J. Standish, L. Kozac, L. C. Johnson and T. Richards,
‘Electroencephalographic evidence of correlated event-related signals between the
brains of spatially and sensory isolated human subjects’, Journal of Alternative and
Complementary Medicine 2004, 10(2), 307–14

4. Research showing that people say they have sensed someone staring, and even
through CCTV, was cited in R. Sheldrake, Seven Experiments That Could Change the
World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (Fourth Estate, 1994)

5. The research showing that volunteers could guess who was going to telephone them,
see: R. Sheldrake, L. Avraamides and M. Novak, ‘Sensing the sending of SMS
messages: an automated test’, Explore 2009, 5(5), 272–6