Emotion Regulation (Part 1)

What is Lewis (1992) and Tracy & Robins (2007) model of emotions?

There are primary emotions which develop very early on without need for self consciousness (18-24mth)

There are secondary emotions which develop later (0-9) that require self consciousness

What are proposed primary emotions? (Name at least 3)

• Joy

• Distress

• Anger

• Fear

• Disgust

• Surprise

What are proposed secondary (self conscious) emotions? (name 3)

Shame

Guilt

Pride

Embarrassment

What are characteristics of secondary (self conscious) emotions? (5)

• Require self awareness and self-representation

• Emerge later

• Facilitate social goals

• No universal facial expressions

• More cognitively complex

Emotion is not just an affective feeling, but a?

Full body response

What is Linehan (1993)’s model for describing emotions? (non-visual) (5)

A process involving cascading interactions

First, we don’t even notice it, and our body responds first (affect)

Then, start to register what it is (feeling)

Then, can name it (emotion)

Can then lead to other experiences.

What is Linehan (1993)’s model for describing emotions? (visual)

Prompting event 1 → interpretation, brain change → face and body language → emotion name) → after effects → more prompting

What is Leahy’s definition of emotion regulation?

Any coping strategy (problematic or adaptive) that the individual uses when confronted with an unwanted intensity of an emotion

What is Gross’s definition of emotions?

Heterogenous set of processes by which emotions are themselves regulated. Can be intrinsic (of self) or extrinsic (of others)

Hill (2015) would argue that when we are regulated we are: (1 main point, name at least 3 of the other ones)

We feel safe.

• Adaptive

• Flexible

• Self-possessed

• All psychological resources are available

• Available for interpersonal connection, play, exploration

• Background of self-mastery

• Self-experience: agency and authenticity

What is emotional dysregulation, according to Leahy? This can involve what?

Difficulty or inability in coping with experience or processing emotions. Can be undermodulated or overmodulated

What does under-modulation of emotions lead to? What is a disorder that possibly arises?

Over-aroused - excessive intensification of emotions; BPD

What does over-modulation lead to? What is a disorder that possibly arises?

Under-arousal - Excessive deactivation of emotional responding; Depression

To Hill (2015), dysregulation looks like what? (1 main point), name at least 3 others)

People do not feel in control of their behaviour, thoughts, feelings, and don’t feel like themselves

• Decreased agency

• Decreased availability for relating

• Detached from experience of self and others

• Sense of reality is ‘off’

• Decreased reflective capacity

• Perception narrowly filtered

• Representational accuracy decreased and replaced with scripted versions of self and others

• Decreased flexibility, spontaneity, increased reactivity

In the main, what are the problem?

Not emotions but defenses/coping strategies

How do coping mechanisms relate to therapeutic relationships?

Triangle of conflict - Feelings/impulses result in anxiety and defense strategies which need to be targeted

Triangle of person/relationships - Past (attachment relationships) relate to current self and therapy/transference.

What is Hill/Schores theory of affect regulation systems?

Hill theorised there are two systems thought to develop that are helpful for affect regulation, primary and secondary. Schore believed a secure attachment directly relates to an individual’s capacity to regulate emotions through neuropsychological influences.

What are key aspects of the Primary Affect Regulating System/ Implicit system? (4)

• Automatic

• Unconscious

• Deep neurological level

• Gut response to rising affect

Wuhat are key aspects of the Secondary affect regulation system? (5)

• Top down

• Deliberate

• Conscious

• Slower

• Requires verbal, reflective capacity / mentalisation

What is Schore’s psychoneurobiological theory of the development of self regulation?

Primary Affect Regulating System (PARS) - secure attachment experiences facilitate optimal limbic system organisation

Implicit memories of secure regulatory experiences become the operating instructions for a balanced autonomic nervous system

Essentially, secure attachments have neurobiological effects on the limbic system, affecting capacity for effective PARS

Describe first phase of PARS

• First, structures of limbic system come online. Circuits develop that connect the limbic system to the SNS, then PNS

• Once achieved, infant’s LS can appraise body-based affect and socioemotional info linked to the system that regulates arousal. HPA and ANS.

• Organisation depends on infant’s affect regulation experiences

• 12-14 months, limbic circuits regulating sympathetic arousal innervate, laying framework for upregulation.

• 12-14, 16-18 months, limbic circuits for PNS arousal innervate, lays framework for downregulation

What is the parasympathetic nervous system? (PNS)

NS responsible for calming down. If too much threat is reached, causes collapse

What is the sympathetic nervous system? (SNS)

Fight or flight system

What is the attachment relationship about while the limbic circuits regulating the SNS innervate?

Child’s increasing mobility and mother’s need to inhibit

What is the attachment relationship about while the limbic circuits regulating the PNS innervate?

Tasks related to the child’s mobility

What is the second phase of PARS development, according to Schore? (2, one shortened version of the former)

R orbito frontal cortex forms connection to subcortical LS structures. Allows ROFC to inhibit body-based urges mediated by subcortical structures and perform executive functions.

Basically, LS + ROFC = ability to appraise environment and up or down regulate as necessary

The limbic/socio-emotional brain is shaped by what?

Experiences in attachment relationships

Infant neurological development is dependent on?

Emotional capacities of caregivers

What is attunement?

Synchronicity of affect states

• Shared experience amplifies experience and contributes to a sense of regulation

• ‘Experienced empathy’ offers reassurance and connectedness

• Develops in attachment but also relevant down the line in the therapeutic relationship

According to Siegel, what does attachment allow?

The parent to help the infant organise its own mind

What is dyadic regulation/ the process of developing dyadic regulation?

Transmission of affect occurs first through touch, then moves to nonverbal implicit communication (facial expresion). W/ sufficient repetition of these patterns of communication, experiences become ingrained/internalised

What do Ainsworth’s Strange Situations show? (3)

Capacity to regulate affect. Strange Situation can be thought of as what happens within the child-carer relationship when the infant is afraid.

When afraid, the attachment system is activated. Role of the caregiver is to deactivate this.

So, in SS, not just looking at how the child reacted when the parent left the room, but how the carer and infant interacted during the dysregulation and how long it took to return to a regulated affect state.

What should ideally happen in an attachment relationship, according to Schore?

Caregiver and infant learn the rhythmic structure of the other through psychobiological attunement

What is the internal working model?

Structure of memory and expectation, particularly of an attachment caregiver

How does the internal working model of attachment affect later relationships?

Shapes an individual’s expectations of responses to his or her requests for care and comfort

What are characteristics of an avoidant attachment pattern in a therapeutic context? (5 - attentional deployment, relational behaviour, emotion regulation, means of regulating emotion, therapy behavior)

Attention directed away from stress source

Moving away from the therapist

Hypoarousal

Autoregulation

Might be slouched, show low engagement, and think others have the problem

What are characteristics of an anxious attachment pattern in a therapeutic context? (5 - attentional deployment, relational behaviour, emotion regulation, means of regulating emotion, therapeutic behaviour)

1. Hypervigilant for expected source of threat

2. Moves against therapist

3. Hyperarousal

4. Dyadic regulation

5. More gestures, energy, attempts to change subject, expectation of external regulation, moving against therapeutic effort when overwhelmed

When is the window of affect tolerance?

Not too aroused or hypoaroused — feel optimally aroused and safe

What is the difference between auto and dyadic regulation?

Dyadic regulation is co-regulation, which eventually turns into auto-regulation with repeated learning

The development of a Secondary Affect Regulating System (SARS) is dependent on what?

Development of PARS, enabling optimal development and functioning of SARS

Secondary affect-regulating system (top-down) is also known as what?

Mentalisation

What is mentalisation? (6)

Left brain dominant

Cortically based

Voluntary

Conscious

Slower system

Higher order cognitive assessment

Mentalisation is a _____ system, and therefore ____.

Slower; doesn’t provide for responses in the moment but allows for contemplation of past and future states

What are tasks to achieve mentalisation capacity usually in place by?

6 yrs

What are tasks to achieve mentalisation capacity? (4)

• Sense the mind is representational in nature, and representation is distinct from the thing represented

• Intentions can be represented and can indicate possible action

• Others have minds too, and can be like-minded or not

• We construct our representations w/ varying degrees of accuracy for ourselves and others

How does mentalisation regulate affect? (4)

1. Identifies it

2. Elaboration - fine-tuning meaning, involves effortful focusing and cognitive appraisal of situation

3. Thinking through of a feeling in the midst of ‘live’ affect

4. Sense of mastery emerges from mentalisation