

Low to moderate dysregulation is often associated with anxiety, depression, shame, and may involve unhealthy coping mechanisms (e.g., substance use or avoidance of interpersonal situations). Severe difficulty with emotion dysregulation may involve substantial functional impairment (e.g., difficulty holding a job), substantial interpersonal conflict (e.g., inability to keep friends or chronic high conflict with family), or the development of high risk coping mechanisms (e.g., suicidality, self-injury, or aggression). However, a number of factors can result in persistent emotion dysregulation, interrupting the course of emotional development: Trauma. However, emotional dysregulation is a common process we observe and work with in our client population. Emotion Dysregulation Most emotion regulation skills are learned as part of normal adult development. Emotional dysregulation is a term used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to describe difficulty with regulating emotions. Moderate level concerns with dysregulation may involve greater impairments in functioning, such as chronic difficulty with interpersonal interactions. Emotion dysregulation is defined as patterns of emotional experience or expression that interfere with goal-directed activity. Emotion regulation works to bring the emotion back down to baseline after the peak of emotion. Lower level concerns with dysregulation often involve the ability to function fairly well in day-to-day life (e.g., attending work) but may involve distress or exhaustion in doing so. Individuals with emotion dysregulation may react impulsively and in ways that either exacerbate the situation (e.g., screaming at someone) or prevent the situation from resolving (e.g., shutting down and refusing to speak to someone).Įmotional dysregulation difficulties occur on a spectrum. Emotional dysregulation is the inability to moderate emotions and often causes extreme emotional reactions, fluctuating moods, and difficulty calming down. Dysregulation may come in the form of difficulty regulating the intensity of one’s emotions, the rapid onset of the emotional state, and the length of the emotional state. Emotion dysregulation is a pattern of difficulty in responding effectively (e.g., consistent with values and situation) in the presence of an emotional trigger.
