343 SelfWork: What's Emotional Regulation? It's Both Self-Control and Self-Protection

There are a lot of mental illnesses that are characterized by intense emotion which then governs behavior, such as in bipolar disorder, major depression, or several personality disorders. But even it it’s a pattern, and not an actual mental illness, it may mean that you don’t have the skill to regulate your emotions – to have control over them instead of them over you. What does this look like? You get angry at a friend and you text them impulsively about your feelings instead of taking a minute to cool down. You get dumped by someone you're dating and you immediately head to the nearest bar or pub to work on getting picked up.

That’s what we’re going to focus on today. How do you learn to more self-control emotionally or how to “self-regulate” those emotions? We’ll also talk about when intense control over emotions is highly self-protective.

The listener email follows this subject line as well, but is more about the listener’s recognition and identification with perfectly hidden depression. But they put a bit of a different spin on it – and are asking how I might suggest they “explain” PHD to a new therapist.

Vital Links:

Link to sign up for CE training on June 27th at 9:00 – noon CT.

Psychology Today article on self-regulation

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You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life. And it's available in paperback, eBook or as an audiobook!

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