Applying an emotion regulation framework to integrative approaches to generalized anxiety disorder.

TLDR

Integrative models such as Roemer and Orsillo’s propose new directions for understanding and treating GAD, noting that patients often lack emotion‑awareness and regulation skills and tend to use worry and maladaptive behaviors to avoid or blunt aversive emotions. The study proposes strengthening integrative GAD treatments by incorporating an emotion‑regulation perspective that adds components to increase clients’ comfort with arousing emotions, enhance use of emotional information for problem solving, and improve modulation of emotional experience and expression. The authors recommend adding emotion‑regulation components that train clients to tolerate arousing emotions, use emotional information adaptively, and modulate emotional expression to fit contextual demands. Clin Psychol Sci Prac 9:85–90, 2002.

Abstract

Integrative conceptualizations like that proposed byRoemer and Orsillo provide exciting new directions forunderstanding and treating generalized anxiety disorder(GAD). However, these approaches may be furtherstrengthened by adoption of an emotion regulationperspective. Persons with GAD may have difficulty un-derstanding their emotional experience and may pos-sess few skills to modulate their emotions. They mayexperience emotions as subjectively aversive and useworry and maladaptive interpersonal behaviors as de-fensive strategies to control, avoid, or blunt emotionalexperience. An emotion regulation perspective suggestsadding treatment components to help clients becomemore comfortable with arousing emotional experience,more able to access and utilize emotional informationin adaptive problem solving, and better able to modu-late emotional experience and expression according tocontextual demands.Key words: emotion regulation, generalized anxietydisorder. [Clin Psychol Sci Prac 9:85–90, 2002]