Effect of an Emotion Regulation Training Program on Mental Well-Being

Abstract

This study aimed to develop and validate a brief emotion regulation training program that improved mental well-being. The program was preventative in nature, designed to build resilience while fostering more satisfying personal and professional relationships in a community sample. It was developed and piloted with 10 graduate students during Study 1; for Study 2, a community sample of 75 adults were randomly allocated to either a treatment (n = 38) or control (n = 37) group. In the pilot program, the social validity of the program was confirmed, while study 2 demonstrated significant changes in positive coping techniques (i.e., reappraisal) at one-year follow-up in the treatment group when compared with the control. These findings may have broad implications in the health sector due to the brevity, scalability, and costeffectiveness of this newly designed intervention.

Validation of an Emotion Regulation Training Program on Mental Well-Being

“…During the four-week intervention, 2.5-hour semistructured workshops using a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based techniques were used within the ERT program (LeBlanc et al., 2017). In addition, a computer performance test was administered to 38 participants (19 treatment, 19 control), where matched pairs were chosen randomly from the larger sample ( n = 104).…”

“…With these concerns in mind, the current research aimed to further validate a compact Emotion Regulation Training (ERT) program by applying it on a larger scale (LeBlanc, Ozer, Pourseied, & Mohiyeddini, 2017). The program was theoretically based on the Process Model of Emotion Regulation (Gross, 1998), which states there are numerous strategies one can utilize to modulate their emotional responses.…”

“…The current training program followed a three-tiered process involving education, application, and bibliotherapy (supporting mental health through literature; LeBlanc et al., 2017). The intervention was operationalized as mental conditioning and viewed as a proactive way to enhance resilience, synonymous with using physical conditioning to enhance one’s physical health.…”

“…The objectives of the current study were twofold. First, the research aimed to further validate the main outcomes of an earlier study (see LeBlanc et al., 2017) in a larger sample, utilizing a quasi-experimental design, matching groups based on age and gender as this has been shown to significantly influence affect regulation and well-being (Gross & John, 2003). Second, in addition to self-report and questionnaire data, this study collected objective data; as memory and attention have been shown to be impacted by emotion regulation (Gross, 2007), a cognitive performance test was implemented to evaluate the impact the increased use of reappraisal had on performance.…”

“…As mentioned previously, there is limited empirical evidence demonstrating the feasibility and utility of developing emotion regulation competencies in healthy adult samples, and thus, the current study attempts to contribute to this area by validating a recently designed training program (see LeBlanc et al., 2017). The training program is unique, as it employs a multidimensional methodology, teaches a diverse set of skills, and has shown preliminary success at providing a coping tool kit to effectively deal with life’s challenging events (LeBlanc et al., 2017). This program may have broader applications in alternative environments and could be implemented in community mental health centers as well as organizational and educational settings to promote mental health literacy and increase affect regulation competencies.…”