During psychotherapy, patient and therapist tend to spontaneously synchronize their vocal pitch, bodily movements, and even their physiological processes. In the present article, we consider how this pervasive phenomenon may shed new light on the therapeutic relationship- or alliance- and its role within psychotherapy. We first review clinical research on the alliance and the multidisciplinary area of interpersonal synchrony. We then integrate both literatures in the Interpersonal Synchrony (In-Sync) model of psychotherapy. According to the model, the alliance is grounded in the coupling of patient and therapist's brains. Because brains do not interact directly, movement synchrony may help to establish inter-brain coupling. Inter-brain coupling may provide patient and therapist with access to another's internal states, which facilitates common understanding and emotional sharing. Over time, these interpersonal exchanges may improve patients' emotion-regulatory capacities and related therapeutic outcomes. We discuss the empirical assessment of interpersonal synchrony and review preliminary research on synchrony in psychotherapy. Finally, we summarize our main conclusions and consider the broader implications of viewing psychotherapy as the product of two interacting brains.

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Synchrony in Psychotherapy: A Review and an Integrative Framework for the Therapeutic Alliance.

The present review adopts an action control perspective on emotion regulation, contextualising the gap between emotion control goals (e.g., I want to remain calm) and emotional outcomes (e.g., anger, anxiety, and aggression) in terms of the broader literature on goal pursuit. We propose that failure to effectively regulate emotions can result from difficulties with the self-regulatory tasks of (i) identifying the need to regulate, (ii) deciding whether and how to regulate, and (iii) enacting a regulation strategy. Next we review evidence that a technique traditionally associated with regulating behavioural goals (forming implementation intentions or “if-then” planning) can help to overcome these difficulties. Meta-analysis indicated that forming implementation intentions is effective in modifying emotional outcomes, with a large effect relative to no regulation instructions (k = 21, N = 1306 d + = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.61 to 1.20) and a medium-sized effect relative to goal intention instructions (k = 29, N = 1208, d + = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.42 to 0.65). Our conclusion is that research on emotion regulation might benefit from an action control perspective and the interventions that this perspective offers.

Effective regulation of affect: An action control perspective on emotion regulation

Mindfulness meditation improves emotion regulation and reduces drug abuse.

The number of studies and theoretical contributions on emotion regulation has grown rapidly. In this article we describe the concept of flexible emotion regulation. We argue that the effectiveness of specific emotion regulation strategies depends on the interaction of the features of a situation and personality characteristics of the individual regulating his/her emotions. We review a few recent theoretical contributions and studies that have attempted to capture some aspects of the flexibility of emotion regulation rather than distinguish between overly adaptive and maladaptive strategies. Moreover, we discuss potential personality determinants of effectiveness of particular regulatory strategies. We claim that further studies should address the interaction of situational and dispositional factors in shaping the effectiveness of particular emotion regulation strategies. So far, situational and personality determinants have been studied rather separately.

/pdf/flexible-emotion-regulation-how-situational-demands-and-2ms2diwzpi.pdf

Flexible Emotion Regulation: How Situational Demands and Individual Differences Influence the Effectiveness of Regulatory Strategies.

Emotion researchers are increasingly interested in processes by which people influence others' feelings. Although one such process, interpersonal emotion regulation, has received particular attention in recent years, there remains confusion about exactly how to define this process. The present article aims to distinguish interpersonal emotion regulation from other, related processes by outlining its four key characteristics. Specifically, interpersonal emotion regulation is presented as a process of (i) regulation, that (ii) has an affective target, (iii) is deliberate, and (iv) has a social target. Considering these characteristics raises questions for future research concerning factors that may influence the process of interpersonal emotion regulation, why interpersonal emotion regulation sometimes fails, and whether interventions can improve people's use of interpersonal emotion regulation.

The four key characteristics of interpersonal emotion regulation

Emotion regulation is not always deliberate, but can also operate on nonconscious or implicit levels. Adopting an action control perspective, the authors distinguish three ways in which implicit processes may support emotion regulation. First, implicit processes may allow people to decide whether or not to engage in emotion regulation, through implicit activation of emotion regulation goals and implicit monitoring of whether emotional responses are compatible with these goals. Second, implicit processes may guide people in selecting suitable emotion regulation strategies, by activating habitual strategies and by tailoring strategies to situational affordances. Third, the implicit processes recruited by habits and implementation intentions may facilitate the enactment of emotion regulation strategies. Implicit processes are thus vital in the self-regulation of emotion.

Implicit emotion regulation: feeling better without knowing why☆

Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood glucose levels. The present experiment investigated the hypothesis that the extent to which people’s blood glucose levels decline during emotion regulation attempts is influenced by whether they believe themselves to be good or poor at emotion control. We found that although good and poor emotion regulators were equally able to achieve positive and negative moods, the blood glucose of poor emotion regulators was reduced after performing an affect-improving task, whereas the blood glucose of good emotion regulators remained unchanged. As evidence suggests that glucose is a limited energy resource upon which self-control relies, the implication is that good emotion regulators are able to achieve the same positive mood with less cost to their self-regulatory resource. Thus, depletion may not be an inevitable consequence of engaging in emotion regulation.

Paschal L Sheeran

Papers

Implicit emotion regulation: feeling better without knowing why☆

BRIEF REPORT Achieving the same for less: Improving mood depletes blood glucose for people with poor (but not good) emotion control