What is and is not emotional regulation
Emotional regulation is NOT about trying not to experience emotion. It is not even about the magnitude with which we feel.
Emotional regulation is about being able to experience the appropriate level of emotion without being overwhelmed by it for any prolonged period of time.
Why is this the definition? Well, it is important to understand why we have emotions to get this one. Emotions are signals to us about how our experience is interacting with our needs. They help to motivate us to act in a certain way to stimulus. This means that we must experience our emotions in order to meet our needs and to live regulated and fulfilled lives. What we want is for these messages to be helpful, to guide us, and not to make us unable to live or act.
A well regulated emotion
A regulated emotion is one that is experienced, noticed, and acted upon (or not) consciously.
In order to achieve this we need to be able to experience a feeling without it sending us into our threat system (unless this is appropriate). We need to understand what we are feeling and why we might be feeling it. We need to understand what that emotion is trying to tell us about our needs and how that means it might be worth acting (or not acting).
Many people think that they understand their emotions but they don’t realise that each emotion has a specific purpose or message that it is telling us. To understand this better, please read my post about understanding emotions, which describes the functions of emotions inmate detail and the purpose of each of the core emotions.
We may need external help to regulate our emotions. Humans are a community species whose brains are wired for co-regulation.
A regulated response
Emotional regulation is not a matter of inhibiting the feelings that we experience, but about having control, and choice, around the actions or behaviours that we take in response to our emotions, including, in adults, our thought processes that stem from our emotional experience.
Emotional regulation involves three main components:
Initiating actions triggered by emotions – Choosing what we do next
Inhibiting actions triggered by emotions – Choosing what we do not do next
Modulating responses triggered by emotions – Choosing the level of response
Emotional regulation development
We can all agree that we are all often emotionally dysregulated. Part of regulating our emotions is being able to bring ourselves back from our initial response that takes us out of regulation. Most creatures on earth do not have the ability to regulate their responses, as this happens in the pre-frontal cortex that is not present in other animals. In other words, it takes cognition to self-regulate our emotions.
Children do not have the brain connections to do this without support. They are unable, due to their incomplete neurological development to properly emotionally self-regulate until they are in their twenties. Their abilities develop gradually from about 5-7 years old at the earliest. Many adults find it very difficult to emotionally self-regulate too, mostly because they were not modelled this behaviour in childhood and so they did not build the neural pathways early enough to build a solid foundation.
Without the brain connectivity to use the frontal cortex, and use their own soothing system, toddlers are unable to regulate themselves or “self-soothe”. This means that when emotions are felt strongly, it is likely that the threat system will be activated.
