How Schizophrenics Regulate Their Emotions

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How Schizophrenics Regulate Their Emotions     

Jim Windell

             If you suffer from schizophrenia, you will experience more negative emotions. And you will have more stressors than the average person.  

            But if you are that average person, you typically work at regulating your emotions. That is, if you are experiencing negative emotions, say, you are feeling irritated, sad or angry, you will regulate your feelings to go from negative to more positive emotions.

            Relatively healthy people are more or loess adept at regulating their emotions. They particularly work at managing their emotions when stressed and when negative feelings are increasing.       

           But what if you have schizophrenia?

           A new study by University of Georgia researchers suggests that people with schizophrenia are relatively capable of managing low-level negative emotions. However, they struggle to effectively deal with increasing negative emotions.

           Researchers from the University of Georgia, using clinical data from outpatients diagnosed with psychotic disorders as well as a control group, focused on the identification stage of emotion regulation and how the process differs for healthy individuals and for those with psychotic disorders.

           The results are revealing. People diagnosed with schizophrenia did not ramp up their efforts to manage their emotions as negative feelings increased. When stress levels are high, people with schizophrenia cannot – or will not – work to manage their feelings.

           According to Ian Raugh, lead author of the study, those individuals with schizophrenia are less likely to employ coping strategies, or emotional regulation, to make themselves feel better. And as situations escalate in a negative direction, they become less likely to change the situation for the better.

           Why is this? No one knows for sure, although some speculate that a person with schizophrenia may give up or may have less energy available to deal with increasing stress and more negative emotions. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Raugh and his colleagues hope to learn in future studies more about why those with psychotic disorders are less able to regulate at higher levels of negative feelings.          

           Perhaps helping people learn to regulate their stress responses will be a promising treatment for preventing or lessening the effects of schizophrenia.

           To read the original article, find it with this reference:

Ian M. Raugh, Gregory P. Strauss. Deconstructing emotion regulation in schizophrenia: the nature and consequences of abnormalities at the identification stageEuropean Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 2021; DOI: 10.1007/s00406-021-01350-z

 

 

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