Interpersonal Emotion Regulation: From Research to Group Therapy

Abstract

The concept of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) refers to a variety of processes in which emotion regulation occurs as part of live social interactions and includes, among others, also those interpersonal interactions in which individuals turn to others to be helped or to help the others in managing emotions. Although IER may be a concept of interest in group therapy, specific theoretical insights in this field appear to be missed. In this article, we firstly provide a review of IER definitions, of classifications of IER strategies, and of IER clinical conceptualizations. Afterwards, we discuss the relevance of considering IER for group therapy, both in terms of non-specific group therapeutic factors and of group therapy techniques promoting adaptive emotion regulation, underlining the potentially relevant role of IER behaviors as intrinsically involved in group experience.

Dreaming during COVID-19: the effects of a world trauma

“…It has been hypothesised that one of the functions of dreaming is to process, interpret and reorganize the narrative of the material accumulated in memories during waking hours and to play an active role in the reorganization of affective information, contributing to the consolidation of emotional memory itself (Sterpenich, Perogamvros, Tononi, & Schwartz, 2020). Dream activity is therefore characterized by internally generated emotional and sensorimotor experiences, which promote the reorganization of cortical networks aimed at psychological well-being (Messina et al, 2021). The activity is thus diverted from the motor systems and is then directed to the perceptual systems.…”

New horizons in group psychotherapy research and practice from third wave positive psychology: a practice-friendly review

“…The therapist has the opportunity to observe the spontaneous manifestations of phenomena, such as patients’ overreliance or underuse of the group to regulate emotions, help request/provision, adoption of adaptive/maladaptive strategies to regulate internal states in relation to other group members, and many others (Messina et al ., 2021 , p. 1).…”

“…Adaptive regulation processes allow clients to (a) more fully experience their emotional world, rather than dissociating or avoiding and (b) use emotion productively as cues to underlying needs, desires, and motivations. Affective neuroscientific evidence points to both explicit (e.g., semantic) and implicit (e.g., relational) pathways toward ER (Messina et al, 2016(Messina et al, , 2021.…”

Difficulties in interpersonal regulation of emotions (DIRE) questionnaire: Psychometric Properties of the Italian Version and Associations with psychopathological symptoms

“…Emotion regulation refers to the processes by which individuals influence the experience and expression of their emotions (Gross, 1998 ). Although emotion regulation research has historically focused on processes that occur within an individual, people often turn to others for regulating emotions, such that communication and social interaction can become part of the regulation process (Dixon-Gordon et al, 2015 ; Frederickson et al, 2018; Barthel et al, 2018 ; Messina et al, 2021a ; Grecucci et al, 2021 ). The interpersonal context is therefore a powerful means to elicit emotional reactions (Grecucci et al, 2013a , b , 2020 ), as well as to regulate someone’s emotions (Zaki & Williams, 2013 ; Rimé, 2007 ).…”

“…Researchers have generally characterized emotion regulation strategies as adaptive and maladaptive according to their effectiveness in modifying emotions (Gross & John, 2003; Webb et al, 2012 ; Sheppes & Gross, 2012 ) and based on their associations with psychopathology (Aldao et al, 2010 ; Hu et al, 2014 ). Among more widely investigated strategies, efforts to positively reappraise the event (Weber et al, 2014; Messina et al, 2015 ) and non-judgemental acceptance of emotional reactions (Kohl et al, 2012 ; Messina et al, 2016 , Messina et al, 2021b; c Faustino et al, 2020 ) are often considered adaptive strategies, whereas repetitive ruminative thoughts about negative situations (Watkins, 2008) and suppression of emotional reactions (Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000 ) are considered maladaptive. Although there is now a robust scientific literature regarding these strategies, among others, all of these strategies represent intrapersonal emotion regulation processes.…”