There emotional regulation It is one of the primary objectives of many psychotherapeutic treatments and involves numerous clinical aspects related to psychopathology and beyond.
To date it is essential to know regulate especially painful emotional states In order to manage stressful situations, work and family environments and life projects.
In simple words, self -regulation is the ability to control and manage how we feel and behave. This ability is strictly linked to our interior system, which warns us if our internal balance has changed and directs the actions in order to restore it.
The internal stability of these processes can be interrupted due to adverse environmental conditions, alterations due to the scope of development or post-traumatic results. This interruption leads to a deficit in the use of adjustment strategies.
Emotional regulation and discomfort
In the emotional disregulation The person loses his own interceptive capacity. The alteration of the nervous system worsens the ability to recognize internal, emotional, cognitive and sensory states and the consequent management skills.
Studies on the regulation of emotions, conducted mainly thanks to the new neuroimaging tools, have multiplied in recent years. They laid solid foundations for understanding fundamental regulatory processes.
These studies have concentrated almost entirely on strategies that control attention or cognitively transform the meaning of thoughts, stimuli or emotional events (e.g. distraction, reactribution).
These strategies are effective in Regulation of behavioral and cognitive correlates of emotions Negative (Buhle et al., 2014) and are fundamental components of psychological treatments (Beck & Haigh, 2014; Gross, 2014).
However, the cognitive control processes on which they depend may not work effectively for all people or in all situations (for example under stress). For this some studies have focused on the exploration of emotions adjustment strategies that do not depend on the cognitive control of the cortical structures (top-down). Strategies based on the regulation of somatic and subcortical components have been proposed (Bottom-up).
A study on the effects of mindfulness
A recent study was conducted by Yale University researchers. It has investigated, through functional magnetic resonance imaging, the effect of the application of mindfulness by non -meditators on the perception of painful and emotional painful stimuli.
A short session had been explained to the subjects Mindfulness practice based on acceptance. On the non -judgmental contact with the stimulus and on note the nature of what they felt, physically or emotionally, without further assessments.
Without the involvement of cognitive evaluation processes (therefore without the activation of the prefrontal cortex) in the subjects who applied Mindfulness acceptance, the behavioral and neurological markers of the negative emotions associated with the painful emotional and physical stimuli have been reduced.
These results suggest that the Bottom-up adjustment of negative emotions and physical pain can be effective. As much as, or in the absence of, cognitive regulation responsible for superior processes of re -attacking or directing of voluntary attention.
Sensomotor psychotherapy
In sensomotor psychotherapy mindfulness is practiced precisely in this sense, rather than with the formal meditations used in other approaches.
Mindfulness applied in sensomotor psychotherapy stimulates recognition of how discomfort or pain (physical and emotional) manifest themselves in the body. This learning how to participate in the experience present in a acceptant and non -evaluation way.
Through Mindfulness are stimulated and the somatic resources are strengthened, as a decisive element for the mastery of the deregulated emotional reactions that can intervene against a painful stimulus, whether emotional or physical.
Sensomotor psychotherapy through the use of somatic resources helps patients, and not only, in the functional management of their emotional reactions and in the modulation of the Arousal.
Somatic resources include the functions and physical abilities that support self -regulation and provide a feeling of well -being and competence at the somatic and psychological level (Ogden, Minton, Pain 2006) and favor the restoration of the Interceptive ability.
Somatic resources
There are literally thousands of somatic resources most of which have a very personal character. The indicator to measure the effectiveness of any somatic resource is the sense of safety and mastery that generates. If that particular resource brings us back into contact with our internal state in a calm and increasingly regulated way, then it is precisely a resource.
Some of these are used naturally by many of us. Allowing us to notice and become aware of it is already an important source of support, to be used every time we feel the need.
The centering resources
The centering resourcesfor example, concern the ability to regain the sense of being connected to our body. That is, locating and perceiving the physical center, which is found about ten centimeters under the navel.
Putting your hands here, bringing awareness of you is a centering resource, as well as laying one hand in the center of the chest and the other under the navel.
The containment resources
Another group of somatic resources It is that of containment resources. They allow us to contain the emotions and activation connected to them so that what we express is not too much for us or to decide how much and when to express what we feel.
To do this, you can experiment as a support in the back of the body (the back of an armchair or the wall), or the enveloping feeling of a blanket can mitigate explosive emotions and allow you to feel solid and in control.
Movement resources
The same applies to the resources of movement thanks to which, through the activation also of simple movements such as the swing of the back back and forth, walking or rubbing the hands one against the other, a feeling of presence and mastery is regained.
Also the Groundingan exercise of “roots” of the body in the here and now, through the perception of the back, of the pelvis and the feet on the floor allows you to perceive the support that comes from the feeling of having your feet on the ground and promotes a greater presence.
All somatic resources
Various resources help roots. there Mindful awareness Of the bones of the pelvis on which we are sitting, the feeling of the weight of the body and traction towards the bottom favored by the gravity and the focus of attention on the feet help the sense of roots.
Another important somatic resourcewhich actively regulates the nervous system, is the breath. Perceiving the breath, modifying its characteristics such as fluidity or expansion, working with the length of expirations and inspirations, allows you to maintain awareness of the present moment and modulate the nice activation present in the discomfort.
To intervene, always in an attitude of awareness, on postures and alignment, allows you to feel more stable, more present to yourself.
Thanks to the practice and rediscovery, increasingly supported by the research, of the resources that our body can provide us, we discover that we have numerous and accessible tools to learn to manage what happens outside and within us.
Bibliographic references
- Kober H., Buhle J., Weber J., Ochsner Kn., Wager TD (2019). Social cognitive and affective neuroscience1147–1158
- Buhle, JT, Silvers, J., Wager, TD, Lopez, R., Onyemekwu, C., Kober, H., Ochsner, KN (2014). Cognitive Reappraisal of Emotion: A Meta-Analysis of Human Neuroimaging Studies. Cerebral Cortex24 (11), 2981–90.
- Beck, AT, Haigh, EA (2014). Advances in Cognitive Theory and Therapy: The Generic Cognitive Model. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology10, 1–24.
- Gross, JJ (2014). Emotion Regulation: Conceptual and empirical foundations. In: Gross, JJ, Editor. Handbook of Emotion Regulation, 2nd EDNNew York, NY: Guilford Press, pp. 3–20.
- Ogden, P., Minton, K. & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. New York: WW Norton.
