Affective labelling and emotion regulation research

[socialcog]

I am stumped and I need someone to spell this out for me...

In the event you are not familiar with this research (I am sure most of you are)...

There is a 'meaty' literature out there on the use of assigning language in the mitigation of autonomic arousal. Coined 'affective labelling', the findings of the effect of affective words have on emotional responses has been fairly robust across many labs. Specifically, affective labels have been shown to dampen autonomic reactivity; which has important implications in the realm of exposure therapy and like-clinical interventions.

My point and question(s)....

1. Can someone please explain to me how and why this works? It is unclear to me the mechanisms involved that makes this causal relationship. Cognition/meaning does not seem to factor in here.

2. Can anyone recommend a paper that might explain this?

thanks!🙂

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[socialcog]

Seriously? Is there no one that can comment on this? Please help because I am totally clueless here.

thanks.

 

[edieb]

While I don't know the biological mechanism of action, I can explain the phenomenon from a psychopathological point of view: Let's take someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, which has the hallmark features of rapidly shifitng emotions/emotional dysregulation and a gut feeling that the person cannot trust his/her own perceptions of the world (i.e., doesn't know how to feel about things or who they are as a person). Part of Dialectical Bx Therapy (DBT), an evidence based treatment for the disorder, is to help people learn to lable their emotions with the effect of dampening the intensity/modulating those emotions. In other words, when the person knows what they are feeling (fearful, angry, et cetera), those emotions abate.. This is probably because they no long have to feel the emotion + not know what that emotion is. Rather, they only have to experience the emotion but can also label it

I hope this helps

 

[socialcog]

While I don't know the biological mechanism of action, I can explain the phenomenon from a psychopathological point of view: Let's take someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, which has the hallmark features of rapidly shifitng emotions/emotional dysregulation and a gut feeling that the person cannot trust his/her own perceptions of the world (i.e., doesn't know how to feel about things or who they are as a person). Part of Dialectical Bx Therapy (DBT), an evidence based treatment for the disorder, is to help people learn to lable their emotions with the effect of dampening the intensity/modulating those emotions. In other words, when the person knows what they are feeling (fearful, angry, et cetera), those emotions abate.. This is probably because they no long have to feel the emotion + not know what that emotion is. Rather, they only have to experience the emotion but can also label it

I hope this helps

Thank you! This is helpful. Linehan's work, specifically the efficacy of DBT in BPD populations, has been cited in the papers I've read, along with many mindfulness and meditation papers. Although I have no experience with DBT in it's practical application, it is my understanding that there are fundamental similarities with DBT and mindfulness; and affect labelling may be one of them.

In terms of biology, the neuroimaging studies on mindfulness (and now some affect labelling) have been fairly robust across labs in it's emphasis on the inverse relationship between the PFC and the amygdala. Which is really quite amazing to see. My problem is that I DO NOT GET WHY!! aaarrrgh!

Is it cognition? Is it attention to one's affective state? Is it that simple?

 

[socialcog]

This is a heavy neuroscience/psychophysiological research area. . .

Check out the following for some ideas:

Werner Wittling (laterality of the autonomic nervous system)

Stephen Porges (social engagment)

Ken Heilman, Wendy Heller, Eddie Harmon-Jones, Richard Davidson, Nathan Fox, John Cacioppo, etc. . . (laterality of emotions)

Don Tucker may also be interesting.

Thank you so much! I am on a mission!!!!

 

[Anon15]

In terms of biology, the neuroimaging studies on mindfulness (and now some affect labelling) have been fairly robust across labs in it's emphasis on the inverse relationship between the PFC and the amygdala. Which is really quite amazing to see. My problem is that I DO NOT GET WHY!! aaarrrgh!

Is it cognition? Is it attention to one's affective state? Is it that simple?

The "emotion" portion of our brain is called the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex or (DLPFC). Check out any paper by Richie Davison at UWics Madison. Go to pubmed and type in Davidson RJ.

To be simplistic, the amygdala is part of the limbic system. The amygdala is responsible of sending messages to the PFC (i.e. fight or flight) For example, if it is Halloween and someone is walking around dresses like a serial killer your amygdala sends a message to the PFC like this is OK, it's not threatening, it's Halloween. On a Tuesday night in January if you see someone dresses like a serial killer your amaygdala might send a message to the PFC like run, get out of here, it's not safe.

This loop can be disrupted by a number of different factors with the result being psychopathology.