It helps in psychopathologies:
Anxiety:
Findings: Patients did not differ from controls in IS. However, significant differences were found in MI measures. Patients presented increased worries in their beliefs about somatic sensations compared to controls. These results reflect a discrepancy between direct body sensing (IS) and reflexive thoughts about body states (MI).
Conclusion: Our findings support the idea that hypervigilance to body symptoms is not necessarily a bottom-up dispositional tendency (where patients are hypersensitive about bodily signals), but rather a metacognitive process related to threatening beliefs about body/somatic sensations.
Conclusion Significant differences were observed only in the beliefs that patients have about somatic sensations but not in their sensitivity to detect them. Considering these results, previous studies, and anxiety models, it seems that IS (interoceptive sensitivity) might be a vulnerability factor for panic attacks. Still, the fundamental mechanism in the pathogenesis of panic attacks might be a tendency to experience somatic/body signals as threatening sensations.
Date: 2015
Autism spectrum disorders:
In conclusion, the training was an effective process for learning of the skill of emotional facial expression recognition through video recordings and the observation of the contexts leading to the expressions. It can be suggested that trainers and researchers working with autistic individuals use video modeling in the training of facial expressions and different social skills. Because the preparation of videos is not costly and the use of video modeling is easy, this training method can be preferred by trainers and parents.
Source: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1060175.pdf
Trait emotional intelligence (“trait EI”) concerns our perceptions of our emotional abilities, that is, how good we believe we are in terms of understanding, regulating, and expressing emotions in order to adapt to our environment and maintain well-being. Findings to date suggest that individual differences in trait EI are a consistent predictor of human behavior across the life span.
Date: 2016
Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1754073916650493#_i12
Coping, Emotion Regulation, and Psychopathology in Childhood and
Adolescence: A Meta-Analysis and Narrative Review
… a quantitative meta-analysis of 212 studies (N _ 80,850 participants) …
After accounting for publication bias, findings indicate that the broad domain of emotion regulation and adaptive coping and the factors of primary control coping and secondary control coping are related to lower levels of symptoms of psychopathology. Further, the domain of maladaptive coping, the factor of disengagement coping, and the strategies of emotional suppression, avoidance, and denial are related to higher levels of symptoms of psychopathology
Date: 2017
Source: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000110
And pdf paper “Compasetal2017PsychBulletin.pfd”
Neurocognitive bases of emotion regulation development in adolescence
Development of adaptive ER strategies can support interventions for psychopathology.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26340451
AND: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929315000717
Perceived social pressure not to experience negative emotion is linked to selective attention for negative information
Previous research has shown that social expectancies (the perceived social pressure not to feel negative emotion (NE)) exacerbate feelings of sadness.
The findings suggest that, for people who experience many NE’s (perceived social pressure not to feel negative emotion), social expectancies may lead to discrepancies between how they think they ought to feel and the kind of emotional information they pay attention to.
Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02699931.2015.1103702
Life history strategies and psychopathology: the faster the life strategies, the more symptoms of psychopathology
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513816301118
Indeed, emotion dysregulation lies at the core of many psychopathologies. Thus, anxiety regulation is central to all effective psychological treatment. The predominant perspective on emotion regulation and dysregulation is appraisal theory, which proposes that the cognitive appraisal of an event generates an emotional response. According to Gross’s process model, any emotion can become dysregulated when the patient lacks or fails to use an appropriate regulatory strategy. Therefore, the clinician must teach the patient better regulatory strategies. The perspective we put forward departs from Gross’s model based on appraisal theory. The experiential-dynamic emotion-regulation model, EDER, grounded in affective neuroscience and modern psychodynamic psychotherapy proposes that (1) emotions precede cognition (temporal and neuroanatomical primacy), (2) emotions are not inherently dysregulated (they have specific properties of time and strength proportional to the quality of the stimulus), and (3) dysregulation derives from the combination of emotions plus conditioned anxiety, or from secondary-defensive affects, both leading to dysregulated-affective states (DASs). To regulate DAS, the clinician must regulate the dysregulating anxiety or restructure the defenses, which create defensive affects, and then help the client to fully express the underlying emotions that elicit anxiety and defenses.
Source: Grecucci A., Chiffi D., Di Marzio F., Frederickson J., Job R. (2016a). Anxiety and Its Regulation: Neural Mechanisms and Regulation Techniques According to the Experiential-Dynamic Approach, in Anxiety Disorders. Rijeka: InTech Publishing.
2016
It is now widely accepted that almost all forms of psychopathologies are associated with specific dysregulated emotions or dysregulatory mechanisms (Grecucci et al., 2016a – Grecucci A., Chiffi D., Di Marzio F., Frederickson J., Job R. (2016a). Anxiety and Its Regulation: Neural Mechanisms and Regulation Techniques According to the Experiential-Dynamic Approach, in Anxiety Disorders. Rijeka: InTech Publishing.).
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5479113/
Preschoolers’ Emotion Expression and Regulation: Relations with School Adjustment
In sum, we found that preschoolers’ observed negative emotional expressiveness and dysregulation, especially boys’, contributed to variation in teachers’ views of their school adjustment. Despite evidence of potential gender-based difficulties with teacher ratings that bear continued study, our findings highlighted the importance of continued focus on promotion of emotional competence in preschoolers, particularly for boys, especially in terms of preschoolers’ use of emotion language to assist in emotion regulation.
Date: 2018
“Chronic stress is bad for adults, but it is particularly troublesome for children, because among many other effects, it can disrupt still-developing white matter in the brain, causing long-term problems with complex thinking and memory skills, attention, learning and behavior,” Compas said. “We found that the ways children cope are highly personal, and the strategies they choose do not always lead to ameliorating the negative affects of stress.”
“In this new work, we found that when the subjects used adaptive strategies, like looking at a problem in a different way, engaging in problem solving or pursuing constructive communication, they were better able to manage the adverse effects of stress,” Compas said. “Those who used maladaptive strategies like suppressing, avoiding or denying their feelings, had higher levels of problems associated with stress.”
“We have found the most effective strategies … are ones that involve adapting to the stressors rather than trying to change the stressors.”
These findings echo what Compas has learned through his longitudinal studies of children coping with cancer and other chronic pediatric conditions.
“Most or all of the stressful aspects of cancer are uncontrollable, from the diagnosis itself, to the treatments, to the side effects of treatments, and the uncertainty about the future,” he said. “We have found time and again that the most effective strategies for coping with these types of uncontrollable stress are ones that involve adapting to the stressors rather than trying to change the stressors.”
“Stress is the single most potent risk factor for mental health problems in children and adolescents, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome, eating disorders and substance use,” Compas said. “But the good news is the brain is malleable. Once positive coping skills are learned and put into practice, especially as a family, they can be used to manage stress for a lifetime.”
Date: 2017
AND: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28616996
The powerful role of language in emotion is predicted by a constructionist approach, which suggests that emotions occur when sensations are categorized using emotion category knowledge supported by language. We discuss the accumulating evidence from social-cognitive, neuropsychological, cross-cultural, and neuroimaging studies that emotion words go beyond communication to help constitute emotional perceptions, and perhaps even emotional experiences. We look ahead to current directions in research on emotional intelligence, emotion regulation, and psychotherapy.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25983400
AND: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963721414553440
The anterior cingulate cortex in psychopathology and psychotherapy: effects on awareness and repression of affect
The awareness of emotion and its subsequent regulation is an essential part of psychopathology and psychotherapy. A body of evidence indicates that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) plays a key role in accessing and regulating emotion and thus participates both in the conscious awareness and the repression of emotion.
… This distinction may support therapeutic interventions that target the up- or down-regulation of emotion dependent on clinical disorder. Specific focus is made to psychoanalytic therapy, being built upon the tenet of accessing repressed emotions, for which the ACC appears functionally significant. The research reviewed provides insight into how the ACC may be a primary region in the suppression and repression of emotion. Suggestions for how the ACC may be activated in different types of psychotherapy are also made.
Date: 2016
AND: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15294145.2016.1149777
To suppress, or not to suppress? That is repression: controlling intrusive thoughts in addictive behaviour.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25648574
AND: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306460315000416
Parental responses to child experiences of trauma following presentation at emergency departments: a qualitative study
Child PTSD symptoms
Child PTSD was measured by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index,24 a widely used measure of child post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) with good internal consistency and test–retest reliability.25
The use of avoidance strategies may be potentially maladaptive as child cognitive avoidance and parental advocacy of avoidance have been linked with child PTSD severity.12 36 However, it may also be entirely appropriate if children are themselves experiencing minimal distress. For some parents, avoidant coping was a consequence of their own distress, which was notably strong even where parents did not witness the trauma themselves.16 Parent and child PTSS have been found to be associated with each other37 and parents use of avoidance in their own coping may negatively impact on child adjustment by modelling maladaptive strategies. Some parents held the assumption that their child would initiate discussions if needed, which may not be valid; existing research demonstrates that parental awareness of child PTSS is often low.38
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5128846/
Parental Responses to Children’s Avoidance in Fear-Provoking Situations: Relation to Child Anxiety and Mediators of Intervention Response
Date: 2018
AND: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10566-018-9440-7
Anxiety and emotion acceptance:
Neural correlates of emotion acceptance vs worry or suppression in generalized anxiety disorder
Emotion acceptance resulted in lower ratings of distress than worry and was associated with increased dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation and increased ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC)-amygdala functional connectivity. In contrast, worry showed significantly greater distress ratings than acceptance or suppression and was associated with increased precuneus, VLPFC, amygdala and hippocampal activation. Suppression did not significantly differ from acceptance in distress ratings or amygdala recruitment, but resulted in significantly greater insula and VLPFC activation and decreased VLPFC-amygdala functional connectivity. Emotion acceptance closely aligned with activation and connectivity patterns reported in studies of contextual extinction learning and mindful awareness.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28402571
Highlights
Inflammation was associated with more sickness symptoms in breast cancer patients.
Low average emotional acceptance predicted high symptoms across inflammatory levels.
High emotional acceptance within-person attenuated effects of inflammation on sickness.
Emotional acceptance was shown for the first time to moderate the associations of cytokines with sickness symptoms in breast cancer patients over time following diagnosis and treatment. The association between emotional acceptance and sickness symptoms was significantly different from zero but relatively small in comparison to the range of sickness symptoms. Results suggest that targeting emotion regulation may help to break the cycle between inflammation and sickness symptoms in women with breast cancer.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26916219
AND: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159116300381
Emotions and Emotion Regulation in Breast Cancer Survivorship
Attempts to regulate emotions may lessen their potentially negative effects on physical and psychological well-being. Researchers have called for the study of emotion regulation (ER) in health psychology and psycho-oncology.
Cancer diagnosis and treatment can elicit strong and varied emotions. Although emotions decrease for the majority of patients, a substantial minority experiences persistent negative emotions. Attempts to regulate these emotions may lessen their direct negative effects on physical and psychological well-being. New data presented provides additional evidence for the impact of emotions and emotion regulation on quality of life for patients with a breast cancer recurrence.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5041057/
AND: http://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/4/3/56/htm
Emotional Suppression Mediates the Relation Between Adverse Life Events and Adolescent Suicide: Implications for Prevention
… certain coping strategies appear to be more problematic than others in increasing future psychopathology, and emotional suppression in particular has been associated with poor mental health outcomes in adults and children. However, no studies to date have examined the potential mediating role of emotional suppression in the relation between adverse life events and suicidal thoughts/behavior in adolescence. The goal of the current study was to examine emotional suppression as a mediator in the relation between childhood adversity and future suicidal thoughts/behaviors in youth. A total of 625 participants, aged 14–19 years, seeking ER services were administered measures assessing adverse life events, coping strategies, suicidal ideation in the last 2 weeks, and suicide attempts in the last month. The results suggest that emotional suppression mediates the relation between adversity and both (1) suicidal thoughts and (2) suicide attempts above and beyond demographic variables and depressive symptoms. This study has important implications for interventions aimed at preventing suicidal thoughts and behavior in adolescents with histories of adversity.
Date: 2014
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5036455/
AND: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11121-013-0367-9
The Social Costs of Emotional Suppression: A Prospective Study of the Transition to College
In this longitudinal investigation, suppression was predictive of multiple adverse social outcomes following the transition to college. These findings held across three different domains of social functioning (social support, closeness to others, and social satisfaction) and three different assessment methods (weekly diaries, end-of-term self-reports, and peer reports). Importantly, these effects were of similar direction and magnitude both for stable individual differences in suppression and for recent, dynamically invoked changes in suppression.
Date: 2009
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141473/
Emotion aceptance:
A concise definition of emotion acceptance remains somewhat elusive, but broadly speaking emotion acceptance refers to the process of observing and allowing emotional experiences to occur as they unfold in the context of the present moment, without attempts to control, suppress or alter them in any way. Whereas emotion regulation through more traditional CBT strategies such as cognitive reappraisal focuses on replacing worry thoughts with alternate thinking patterns, emotion regulation with acceptance focuses on allowing the distress related to uncertainty, unpredictability or uncontrollability to occur whilst shifting the focus from internal, self-referent processing to an awareness of the self in context with the external world in the present moment.
…
However, extinction based approaches suffer from relapse over time. Luckily, in 1997 evidence of a complete erasure of emotional learning was experimentally provided (Roullet and Sara, 1998; Przybyslawski et al., 1999; Nader et al., 2000; Nader and Einarsson, 2010; Ecker et al., 2013). This process is known as Memory Reconsolidation (Nader et al., 2000; Nader and Einarsson, 2010). The target emotional learning is reactivated in a labile (plastic) state that allows the learning to be erased by offering the experience of an opposite emotional experience (see Ecker et al., 2012 for its clinical applications). We hypothesize that once a Memory Reconsolidation process is reached in the therapeutic setting, the patient can bear the feelings his defenses formerly warded off. Since the defense is no longer necessary, it no longer provokes the dysregulated affects. Likewise, since the patient is able to bear the formerly warded off feelings, they no longer trigger the previous level of anxiety which was dysregulating. As a result, the dysregulated affect and the associated mechanisms that produce the dysregulation cease to exist. Interestingly, different models of therapy (primarily, but not exclusively, experiential approaches) have recently arrived at similar conclusions and implemented similar processes in their practice even before Memory Reconsolidation was discovered.
Subconscious Fear Exposure Helps Reduce Phobias, Study Finds
Return of fear:
Consistent with predictions, a post-treatment implicit measure of attitudes toward public
speaking (the Personalized Implicit Association Test [PIAT]) predicted ROF at 1-month follow-
- These results suggest that change in the automatically activated attitude toward the phobic
stimulus is an important goal of exposure therapy and that an implicit measure like the PIAT can
provide a useful measure of such change by which to gauge the adequacy of exposure treatment and predict its long-term efficacy.