The development of emotion regulation and dysregulation: a clinical perspective

Abstract

Clinical conceptualizations of emotion that stress its disruptive influences and functional models of emotion that emphasize its adaptive aspects can be integrated into a developmental psychopathology framework. Under certain conditions, emotion regulation may develop dysregulatory aspects that can become a characteristic of an individual's coping style. This style may then jeopardize or impair functioning and become associated with symptomatic, disordered functioning. Emotional development provides a critical vantage point from which to study the development of symptomatology and psychopathology, particularly given the prevalence of emotional symptoms in various forms of psychopathology. Dimensions of emotionality that can be used to characterize dysregulation include access to the range of emotions, flexible modulation of intensity, duration, and transitions between emotions, acquisition and use of cultural display rules, and the ability to reflect on the complexity and value of one's own emotions in a self-supporting manner. Developmental psychopathology provides a framework within which to examine how emotions are regulatory, how their regulation changes over time, and under what conditions an adaptive emotion process can develop into a pattern of dysregulation that then becomes, or sustains, some symptoms of mental disorders. Such research requires samples that include children with and without risk or presence of particular mental health problems, paradigms that allow the examination of dimensions of emotionality in context and provide multiple assessments that include observations of children's reactions beyond what they themselves can report, and analyses that extend beyond simple global aggregates such as positive and negative emotion. We believe that it is particularly important to study children and their families in situations that challenge their emotional adaptation. The developmental tasks of emotional life evolve in exchanges between the child and the world of events and relationships. The emotional conditions of early childhood appear to be very important in optimizing or interfering with how the child's emotionality regulates his or her interpersonal and intrapsychic functioning and how the child learns to regulate emotion. The experiences that accrue around emotional events influence the stable aspects of the developing personality and become trait-like aspects of the person (Malatesta & Wilson, 1988). Dysregulation occurs when an emotional reaction loses breadth and flexibility. If a dysregulatory pattern becomes stabilized and part of the emotional repertoire, it is likely that this pattern is a symptom and supports other symptoms. When development and adaptation are compromised, the dysregulation has evolved into a form of psychopathology. The line between normative variations and clinical conditions is not clearly drawn.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)