Emotional regulation dysfunction

Emotional regulation dysfunction is not a "bad personality" or "bad temper". It is a state of impaired neurocognitive and behavioral functions in which individuals are unable to perceive, adjust, and respond to emotional fluctuations in an adaptive manner. When severe, it will significantly affect social interactions, occupational functions, and the quality of daily life.

Xiao Xia, a 28-year-old Internet operator who came to my consulting room last week, is a typical situation. At the weekly department meeting, the leader just pointed out that there was a data logic error in the activity plan she submitted. Before she could finish her words, tears fell down her eyes, and her knuckles holding the pen turned white. She held it in until the meeting ended, ran to the fire escape, slapped herself twice, and scolded herself "useless" more than ten times. She herself knew that the leader did not criticize her, and it would be a small matter that would be fine if she changed it. But at that time, the grievance and irritability rushed up, and her mind went blank, and she could not suppress it at all.

When people around you encounter this kind of situation, most people will advise you, "You are just too emotional, control your temper." To be honest, this kind of advice is no different from saying to someone with a broken bone, "It won't hurt if you take two more steps." Psychoanalytically oriented counselors will trace this behavior back to early nurturing interactions. If you were crying in pain as a child, adults would either yell, "Don't cry anymore and I won't let you go anymore." ”, Emotions that have not been properly reflected will turn into headless flies, rushing into the wall as soon as they grow up. Researchers in the cognitive behavioral school pay more attention to the current thinking mode. Many people with this kind of trouble have deep-rooted automatic thinking. A small negative feedback will be automatically amplified into "I can't do anything well" and "everyone dislikes me", and their emotions will naturally increase several times. If you go for a brain function scan, you can also see solid evidence in the field of neuroscience: the activity of the connection pathway between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala in most patients is lower than that of ordinary people. The amygdala is a small sentinel responsible for emotional alarm. It will sound the siren whenever there is any trouble. The prefrontal lobe is originally the commander-in-chief responsible for comforting it and judging the level of risk. If the pathway is broken, the commander-in-chief cannot receive the alarm, and naturally the emotions will run wild.

There has been ongoing debate on intervention methods in the academic community. Most psychiatrists will recommend that patients with severe anxiety, bipolar disorder, or borderline personality disorder first take mood stabilizers as prescribed by their doctor to suppress overly excited neural activity to avoid mood swings that may cause more serious self-harm.； However, many clinical psychologists believe that if the functional impairment is only mild to moderate and has not yet reached the level of clinical diagnosis, there is no need to take medicine as soon as it starts. Behavioral interventions such as mindfulness, emotion labeling, and writing therapy will have more stable long-term effects. After all, medicine can help you suppress your emotions, but repairing pathways still requires repeated practice.

In my own case, there was a boy who was doing design. He used to drop his keyboard and mouse because of clients revising drafts, and lost several projects. Later, he did not take any medicine, so he practiced the "10-second annotation method" with me for 3 months. Whenever he got emotional, he would stop what he was doing and spend 10 seconds to clarify in his mind, "What emotion am I feeling now?" What triggers this emotion? ”, with such a simple little action, the frequency of his emotional outbursts dropped by 60%. Last time, he told me with a smile that the client asked him to change 8 pages of the manuscript last week, and he actually joked, "If you had said you wanted the first version, I would have saved a lot of trouble." Before that, he would have thrown the computer and left.

Oh, yes, many people on the Internet now equate emotional regulation dysfunction with highly sensitive personality. In fact, they are really not the same thing. Highly sensitive people only have a low threshold for emotional perception and can capture details that others cannot notice, but they have the ability to adjust their emotions to an appropriate level, just like the volume buttons on a mobile phone are good, but they can adjust more gears than others. ； Emotional regulation dysfunction is caused by the volume button being broken directly. Either the volume button is muted and nothing is felt, or when it is turned on, the loudest volume makes the user have a headache and cannot be adjusted at all.

Speaking of which, the academic community has not yet figured out which one has a higher weight, genetics or acquired environment. Different intervention methods have their own applicable groups. The only thing that is certain is that this is never a "character flaw" or a "moral issue". There is no need to blame yourself for "Why can't I manage my emotions well?" When you really feel that you can't adjust, it's much more useful to talk to a professional counselor or go to a psychiatric department for a checkup first than to just carry on. After all, being able to stay comfortably with your emotions is more important than being labeled an "emotionally stable" adult, right?