Emotional regulation Flashcards
Primary vs secondary emotions
2ndary = shame, guilt, pride, embrassement
- Require self-awareness (differential self-form others. Develop a sense of self as “I” this is who I am and “am” as how do other people see me)
Emotional regulation
What happens when we are regulated/not regulated
Emotional regulation
- Coping strategy the individual uses when confronted with an unwanted intensity of emotion
- Ability to respond in a manner that is socially tolerable and ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed.
Involve
- Intrinsic (involve just yourself) distract yourself, take deep breaths
- Extrinsic (involve others) talk to someone seek comfort
When we are regulated we are
- Adaptive / Flexible
available: memories, attention, ability to concentrate when needed
- Available for connecting with others, play and exploration
- Self-experience: presence, agency, authenticity, well-being
- = we feel safe
Emotional dysregulation
- Difficulty in coping with experience or processing emotions
o Under-modulation = over-aroused-excessive intensification of emotions
E.g., excessive anger
o Over-modulation = under-aroused-excessive deactivation of emotional responding
E.g., depression (slow)
Attachment and the Capacity to regulate affect
- Basic forms of self-soothing are hard wired (thumb sucking) but capacity to regulate affect emerges from the primary carer-infant relationship
- dyadic regulation is where the carer regulates the baby’s emotion (i.e., baby relies on caregiver to soothe as can’t do it itself yet), and with repetition, these become ingrained/automatic/self-regulation, and auto regulation is when you are able to regulate yourself.
Assessment
- RISK
What coping strategies use?
- Signs behavioural dysregulation, self-concept instability, relationship instability
- How feeling/name emotions/how feel in body
- Mentalisation ability
- Understand others’ emotions?
- Inventory of altered self-capacities questionnaire (measures identify, rela problems, ability to regulate)
Treatment
DBT (Linehan)
- Mindfulness eg attention shifting, grounding
- Interpersonal effectiveness eg role plays
- Distress tolerance eg Temp, Intense exercise, Paced breathing
- Emotion regulation eg psycheod re emotions normal, zones of emo, self monitoring emotions and how feels body, affect recognition
Mentalisation based therapy
Schema focused therapy
CBT
- Relaxation techniques/coping strategies
- Challenge cognitions that are barriers to expressing emotions (eg ppl will reject me/don’t care, any experiences of that not being true?)
- Challenge catastrophic cognitions re emotions (i’m happy or in danger zone, living in emotional extremes)
- Emotion Regulation may involve:
- Affect Education
- Cognitive restructuring
- Relaxation
- Behavioural activation
- Affect tolerance
- Behavioural changes
- Modifying attempts to seek validation in problematic ways.
- Mindfulness/Attention training re: emotion cues.
- Restructuring defenses
- Building a more adaptive psychological structure
Modal Model of emotions
Situation
1. (not being in the situation)
2. (change aspect of the situation: physically (if it was internal that would be cognitive) e.g Examples of situation modification may include injecting humour into a speech to elicit laughter or extending the physical distance between oneself and another person
Attention
- (directing attention away/towards = distraction, rumination, worry, thought suppression )
Appraisal
- ( changing how we think about the situation using reappraisal, look at things from an outside perspective, using humour)
Response
- (changing how our response by inhibiting emotional expressions, exercising)
PARS AND SARS
Primary Affect Regulating System (PARS)
1. Neurological growth spurt prenatally to 16/18 months - limbic system comes online and allows for body based appraisals ( notice i feel shit)
2. ROFC connects limbic system and allows for up and down regulation and executive functions come online (eg can think is mum likely to come? And
3. learn ability to self-soothe)
- NB. capacity to regulate affect occurs from attachment relationship (attachment allows infant to organise its mind)
Secondary Affect Regulating System (SARS)
- Need to develop PARS first
- By 6 years, begin mentalise
- Mentalisation: Ability to reflect on and understand one’s own state of mind, and the mental state of others (eg recognise others have minds too and can be like-minded or not)
ORRR BRUNO:
PARS AND SARS
- PARS
- Need someone
- Secure attachment allows for optimal limbic structure
- Wont have optimal structure if insecure
- Reacting to threat is the limbic structure
- Neurological growth phase if during this time there’s secure attachment we have good limbic structure
- 12-14 you start to crawl if you come across danger you don’t want parasympathetic to come online because you can’t defend self but if your badly regulated then you will do parasympathetic
- Limbic system connected with frontal lobe you Start to think for yourself and strategies that worked in the past still use others to regulate yourself: child learns from caregiver of what to do
- The glass box: babies thinking for itself but listening to mum – takes feedback - SARS
- Internalisation process, attachment framework absorbed and they have these skills and strategies there and can draw on them
- Mentalisation: knowing our emotions how we are feeling,
- Regulating yourself don’t need someone
- Struggle with reflection on emotional experiences, shut down or lash out
- Dysregulated don’t have good internal strategies and the ones they do have are maladaptive, cutting, shouting
Insecure attachment – PARS wasn’t well developed during attachment style
- SARS you will see when emotions are running high her copying stageies weren’t working so would lash out and self-harm as a strategy
