Emotion regulation deficits and depression-related maladaptive interpersonal behaviours.

ABSTRACTCoyne's interpersonal theory of depression posits that those with depressive symptoms engage in maladaptive interpersonal behaviours that, although intended to assuage distress, push away social supports and increase depressive symptoms (Coyne, 1976). Excessive reassurance seeking, negative feedback seeking, and conversational self-focus are three behaviours implicated in Coyne's theory, yet their correlates- apart from depressive symptoms- are poorly understood. The current study considered the potential role of intrapersonal emotion regulation deficits as an additional vulnerability factor for these behaviours. Mediation models further tested whether linkages between emotion regulation deficits and maladaptive interpersonal behaviours helped to explain short-term increases in depressive symptoms, as further suggested by theory. Older adolescents (N = 291, M age = 18.9) completed self-report measures of emotion regulation deficits, depressive symptoms, and the three maladaptive interpersonal behaviours during an initial lab visit and again four weeks later. A series of multiple regression models suggested that emotion regulation difficulties are uniquely associated with each of the behaviours over and above the impact of depressive symptoms. Mediation analyses suggested that only excessive reassurance seeking mediated the association between initial emotion regulation deficits and increased depressive symptoms over time. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Enhancing Stress Management Coping Skills Using Induced Affect and Collaborative Daily Assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of induced affect (IA) and collaborative (therapeutic) assessment (CA) as components of Cognitive-Affective Stress Management Training (CASMT). IA is a technique for rehearsing cognitive and physical relaxationcoping skills under conditions of high affective arousal, which has been shown to result in high levels of coping self-efficacy. CA provides diary-based feedback to clients about the processes underlying theirstress experiences and helps identify affect-arousing experiences to be targeted by IA. We include descriptions of the IA technique and anonline stress and coping daily diary, as well as sample transcripts illustrating how CA is integrated into CASMT and how IA evokes high affective arousal and skills rehearsal. To illustrate idiographic assessment, we also describe threetreatment cases involving female clients between the ages of 20 and 35 with anxiety symptoms who participated in six weeks of CASMT and reported their daily stress and coping experiences (before, during, and following the intervention)for a total of ten weeks. The resulting time series data, analyzed using Simulation Modeling Analysis (SMA), revealed that all clients reported improved negative affect regulation over the course of treatment, yet they exhibited idiographic patterns of change on other outcome and coping skills variables. These results illustrate how IA and CA may be used to enhance emotional self-regulation and how time-series analyses can identify idiographic aspects of treatment response that would not be evident in group data.

Intrapersonal Emotion Regulation Difficulties and Maladaptive Interpersonal Behavior in Adolescence.

Although most research conceptualizes emotion regulation as an internal process (i.e., intrapersonal), emotions are frequently regulated in an interpersonal context. Adolescents may be particularly prone to turn to peers for assistance, given that honing emotion regulation abilities is a key task and peers become increasingly important at this stage. Adolescents each participated with a self-nominated same-gender friend (total N = 186; M age = 15.68 years). All participants provided self-reports of their own emotion regulation difficulties and their engagement in interpersonal behaviors (excessive reassurance seeking, negative feedback seeking, conversational self-focus, self-disclosure) as well as their perceptions of their friends' engagement in excessive reassurance seeking and conversational self-focus. Using a cross-lagged panel model design, the current study tested associations between adolescents' intrapersonal emotion regulation difficulties and engagement in self- and friend-reported interpersonal emotion regulation behaviors at 3 time points over 6 months. Gender and age group differences were considered. Results evidenced concurrent and longitudinal associations between emotion regulation difficulties and self-reported maladaptive (excessive reassurance seeking, conversational self-focus, negative feedback seeking), but not adaptive (self-disclosure), interpersonal regulatory behaviors. Friends' reports of adolescents' excessive reassurance seeking and conversational self-focus were associated concurrently, but not longitudinally, with self-reported emotion regulation difficulties. Implications for clinical intervention with adolescents struggling to regulate emotions are discussed.