Abstract
The concept of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) refers to a variety of processes in which emotion regulation occurs as part of live social interactions and includes, among others, also those interpersonal interactions in which individuals turn to others to be helped or to help the others in managing emotions. Although IER may be a concept of interest in group therapy, specific theoretical insights in this field appear to be missed. In this article, we firstly provide a review of IER definitions, of classifications of IER strategies, and of IER clinical conceptualizations. Afterwards, we discuss the relevance of considering IER for group therapy, both in terms of non-specific group therapeutic factors and of group therapy techniques promoting adaptive emotion regulation, underlining the potentially relevant role of IER behaviors as intrinsically involved in group experience.
Highlights
When emotions arise, individuals may use a number of processes to “influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions” (Gross, 1998, p. 271)
Individuals often turn to others both to be helped and to reciprocally help the others in understanding and managing emotions that arise from everyday life and that involve interpersonal communication and social interaction as part of individuals’ emotion regulation processes
According to Rimé, Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) works as an interpersonal regulatory signal that people use as emotion regulation attempts in the aftermath of an emotional experience
Summary
Individuals may use a number of processes to “influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions” (Gross, 1998, p. 271). Research has mainly focused on emotion regulation considering the individual as a single isolated person, emotion regulation involves interactive processes. Individuals often turn to others both to be helped and to reciprocally help the others in understanding and managing emotions that arise from everyday life and that involve interpersonal communication and social interaction as part of individuals’ emotion regulation processes. Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) was first mentioned by Rimé (2007), who focused on individuals’ social sharing following emotional experiences. From Rimé’s work, several interactive interpersonal processes involved in emotional management, such as social coping, social support, altruisms, and prosocial behaviors have been brought together within the IER framework; this has led to the theoretical configuration of IER as an umbrella concept including a variety of phenomena, conceptualizations, and research currents. We reviewed IER definitions, classifications of IER strategies and clinical conceptualizations of IER as a potentially relevant concept for mental health, with the specific aim of providing theoretical insights on the clinical implications of IER in group therapy
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