Emotion Regulation

An increasing number of studies have been conducted on the role of expression and regulation of emotion in health. Emotion Regulation addresses the question of these studies from diverse angles while encompassing conceptual, developmental, and clinical issues. Central concepts discussed in this volume that are related to health include: coping styles and aggression, alexithymia, emotional intelligence, emotional expression and depression, emotional expression and anxiety disorders, in addition to the emotional competence in children. The book is unique in describing up-to-date theories and empirical research in the area of emotional expression and health.

One of the most important advances in the study of emotion regulation is understanding it as a dynamic process that develops across the life span. Emotion Regulation focuses on current conceptual and methodological issues in terms of change over various time scales: developmental change across years, as well as changes from day to day, from situation to situation, and from moment to moment. Written by top experts in the field, the volume is organized around three age periods of the life span: infancy and childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. By taking the matter of time seriously, these chapters represent promising and necessary approaches to broadening our knowledge of emotion regulation as a dynamic process that changes with age. The volume provides guidance for future research that will enable researchers to leave behind facile and static conceptualizations of emotion regulation in favor of richer and more explanatory frameworks.

This authoritative volume provides a comprehensive road map of the important and rapidly growing field of emotion regulation. Each of the 30 chapters in this handbook reviews the current state of knowledge on the topic at hand, describes salient research methods, and identifies promising directions for future investigation. The contributors—who are the foremost experts in the field—address vital questions about the neurobiological and cognitive bases of emotion regulation, how we develop and use regulatory strategies across the lifespan, individual differences in emotion regulation, social psychological approaches, and implications for psychopathology, clinical interventions, and health.

Emotion is a basic phenomenon of human functioning, most of the time having an adaptive value enhancing our effectiveness in pursuing our goals in the broadest sense. Regulation of these emotions, however, is essential for adaptive functioning, and suboptimal or dysfunctional emotion regulation may even be counterproductive and result in adverse consequences, including a poor well-being and ill health. This volume provides a state-of-the art overview of issues related to the association between emotion regulation and both mental and physical well-being. It covers various areas of research highly relevant to both researchers in the field and clinicians working with emotion regulation issues in their practice. Included topics are arranged along four major areas: • (Neuro-)biological processes involved in the generation and regulation of emotions • Psychological processes and mechanisms related to the link between emotion regulation and psychological well-being as well as physical health • Social perspective on emotion regulation pertaining to well-being and social functioning across the life span • Clinical aspects of emotion regulation and specific mental and physical health problems This broad scope offers the possibility to include research findings and thought-provoking views of leading experts from different fields of research, such as cognitive neuroscience, clinical psychology, psychophysiology, social psychology, and psychiatry on specific topics such as nonconscious emotion regulation, emotional body language, self-control, rumination, mindfulness, social sharing, positive emotions, intergroup emotions, and attachment in their relation to well-being and health. Chapters are based on the “Fourth International Conference on the (Non) Expression of Emotions in Health and Disease” held at Tilburg University in October 2007. In 2007 Springer published “Emotion Regulation: Conceptual and Clinical Issues” based on the Third International Conference on the (Non) Expression of Emotion in Health and Disease,” held at Tilburg University in October 2003. It is anticipated that, depending on sales, we may continue to publish the advances deriving from this conference.

Provides a developmental perspective of the regulation and dysregulation of emotion, in particular, how children learn about feelings and how they learn to deal with both positive and negative feelings. Emotion regulation involves the interaction of physical, behavioral, and cognitive processes in response to changes in one's emotional state. The changes can be brought on by factors internal to the individual (e.g. biological) or external (e.g. other people). Featuring contributions from leading researchers in developmental psychopathology, the volume concentrates on recent theories and data concerning the development of emotion regulation with an emphasis on both intrapersonal and interpersonal processes. Original conceptualizations of the reciprocal influences among the various response systems--neurophysiological-biochemical, behavioral-expressive, and subjective-experiential--are provided, and the individual chapters address both normal and psychopathological forms of emotion regulation, particularly depression and aggression, from infancy through adolescence. This book will appeal to specialists in developmental, clinical, and social psychology, psychiatry, education, and others interested in understanding the developmental processes involved in the regulation of emotion over the course of childhood.

Emotion regulation (ER), which refers to the ability to identify, experience, modulate, and express emotions, is critical to adaptive functioning. Although the term ER has been used synonymously with coping strategies, affect regulation, and self-regulation, it is important to differentiate ER from these other constructs to ensure optimal construct validity and accurate measurement. To this end, ER has been defined as "the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions" (Gross, 1998 p. 275). Emotion is experienced in three primary ways: behaviourally, physiologically, and experientially (Gross, 1998); therefore, ER refers to strategies that alter these three aforementioned emotional processes. This book discusses the processes, cognitive effects, and social consequences of emotion regulation.

Informed by the principles and practices of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), this book presents skills training guidelines specifically designed for participants with cognitive challenges. Clinicians learn how to teach core emotion regulation and adaptive coping skills in a framework that promotes motivation and mastery for all learners, and that helps clients apply what they have learned in daily life. The book features ideas for scaffolding learning, a sample 12-week group curriculum that can also be used in individual skills training, and numerous practical tools, including 150 reproducible handouts and worksheets. The large-size format facilitates photocopying. Purchasers also get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials.

The main goal of this volume is to present, in an integrated framework, the newest, most contemporary perspectives on emotion regulation. The book includes empirically-grounded work and theories that are central to our understanding of the processes that constitute emotion regulation and their consequences. This volume has several secondary aims, as well. One is to highlight several newer subareas in the domain of emotion regulation that hold much promise, such as the relationship between psychopathology and emotion regulation. The book also presents data and theory that have applied value that may be useful for people working in such fields as communication, psychotherapy, and counseling. Finally, the volume gathers contributions across a variety of subfields and includes authors working not just in North America but in other areas of the world. To help achieve these goals, the volume has been organized to begin with the presentation of the most molecular aspects of emotion regulation and to end with the most molar ones. It comprises four parts, each integrating different lines of research from related domains. Part I is devoted to basic processes in emotion regulation, such as neurological, physiological or cognitive processes; part II examines the interplays between emotion regulation and individual regulation; part III presents work on individual differences and developmental processes in emotion regulation; and part IV examines the social functions and constraints of emotion regulation.