Practicing psychotherapists are more skilled at downregulating negative emotions than other professionals.

Abstract

(2015) Practicing psychotherapists are more skilled at downregulating negative emotions than other professionals. Psychotherapy, 52 (3). pp. 346-350.Downloaded from: http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2051/ Usage of any items from the University of Cumbria's institutional repository 'Insight' must conform to the following fair usage guidelines.Any item and its associated metadata held in the University of Cumbria's institutional repository Insight (unless stated otherwise on the metadata record) may be copied, displayed or performed, and stored in line with the JISC fair dealing guidelines (available here) for educational and not-for-profit activities provided that• the authors, title and full bibliographic details of the item are cited clearly when any part of the work is referred to verbally or in the written form Lay people and psychotherapists alike tend to assume that psychotherapists are more effective than the average population in regulating negative emotions. Being receptive to patients' distress and being able to down-regulate negative emotions are important skills for psychotherapists to provide effective help and sustain their own well-being. We investigated whether psychotherapists react to negative material differently, and down-regulate emotions more effectively, than individuals working in other, non-therapeutic, professions. Practicing psychotherapists (n = 21) and a control group of non-therapists (n = 18) were exposed to pictures designed to elicit negative emotions in varying intensities and were asked to rate their emotional response, first after viewing them naturally and then after choosing, and applying, one of two given regulation strategies (i.e., distraction and reappraisal). Both groups responded similarly in terms of emotional reactivity and strategy choices, but psychotherapists were more effective than non-therapists in reducing their emotional response after applying emotion regulation strategies. We suggest that psychotherapists' comparable emotional reactivity and more effective emotion regulation makes them well-prepared to provide effective help to patients and safeguards their own well-being.

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