Treatment of Depression from a Self-Regulation Perspective: Basic Concepts and Applied Strategies in Self-System Therapy

Abstract

Self-regulation models of psychopathology provide a theory-based, empirically supported framework for developing psychotherapeutic interventions that complement and extend current cognitive-behavioral models. However, many clinicians are only minimally familiar with the psychology of self-regulation. The aim of the present manuscript is twofold. First, we provide an overview of self-regulation as a motivational process essential to well-being and introduce two related theories of self-regulation which have been applied to depression. Second, we describe how self-regulatory concepts and processes from those two theories have been translated into psychosocial interventions, focusing specifically on self-system therapy (SST), a brief structured treatment for depression that targets personal goal pursuit. Two randomized controlled trials have shown that SST is superior to cognitive therapy for depressed clients with specific self-regulatory deficits, and both studies found evidence that SST works in part by restoring adaptive self-regulation. Self-regulation-based psychotherapeutic approaches to depression hold significant promise for enhancing treatment efficacy and ultimately may provide an individualizable framework for treatment planning.

Emotion dysregulation explains associations between anxiety sensitivity and hazardous drinking and drinking motives among adult treatment-seeking smokers.

“…Specifically, although anxiety sensitivity was significantly associated with alcohol problems, coping motives, and conformity motives, the associations of anxiety sensitivity with hazardous drinking and alcohol consumption only trended towards significance, using the more stringent Type I error cut-off of .01. These findings are consistent with emerging work suggesting that anxiety sensitivity is more strongly associated with alcohol problems relative to alcohol consumption (e.g., Chavarria et al, 2015; Paulus, Vujanovic, et al, 2016) and extend such work to treatment-seeking smokers. After accounting for emotion dysregulation, there were no significant direct effects of anxiety sensitivity with any dependent variable.…”

“…The individual may then be more prone to engage in hazardous drinking, drinking to conform, and drinking to cope with distress in an effort to regulate negative affect. Partial support for this hypothesis comes from past work examining indirect associations of anxiety sensitivity via emotion dysregulation in relation to alcohol consumption and problems among psychiatric inpatients (Paulus, Vujanovic, & Wardle, 2016) and persons living with HIV (Paulus, Jardin, et al, 2016). Importantly, this past work has found non-significant indirect effects of anxiety sensitivity via emotion dysregulation, adding support for the theoretical model posited here.…”

Classification of Helpful Comments on Online Suicide Watch Forums

“…For example, in Figure 2) the comment author is trying to convey the two contrasting actions available to the poster (see blue colored contrast relation node). This correlates well with recent findings that guided contrasting can be an effective means to cope with mental health problems such as depression [11]. …”

The conditional process model of mindfulness and emotion regulation: An empirical test

“…Alternative mediation models were estimated, in which cognitive emotion regulation strategies mediated the effect of symptom measures on observation. This competing model is informed by literature suggesting that anxiety and depression symptoms prospectively predict emotion regulation use and that emotion regulation strategies prospectively predict mindfulness (Garland et al, 2016; Calvete, Orue, & Hankin, 2015). Second, a conditional model was examined, which estimated the direct and interactive effects of observation and nonreactivity on each mediator and on each symptom domain, controlling for reappraisal and suppression.…”