Psychopathology of emotional regulation: the role of emotional deficits in clinical disorders

Emotions have been shown to exert a significant influence on many areas of psychological functioning. However, until recently, research on emotions in clinical psychology – where emotions are a key issue – had been largely neglected. In this paper, a model is proposed to provide a comprehensive understanding of recent literature on how emotional processes, when they become dysfunctional, may lead to difficulties in emotional regulation and, ultimately, to clinical disorders. To evaluate the use and validity of the proposed model, an examination is made of the psychological manifestations that have provided most of the evidence on the existence of deficit in emotional processing: depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and borderline personality disorder. Although altered processes were found in all the disorders examined, only emotional labelling and acceptance were deficient in all cases. Finally, a review is made of more recent treatments whose goals include the rehabilitation of altered emotional processes.