emotion regulation
Managing your feelings
Emotion regulation is the ability to manage emotional responses—dampening, intensifying, or redirecting feelings to suit circumstances.
It includes strategies like reframing situations, suppressing outward expression, or removing oneself from triggers.
Children gradually develop emotion regulation skills.
The term appears frequently in psychology, parenting, and mental health contexts, where poor emotion regulation is linked to anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems.
- smilePleased facial expression
- pauseTemporary cessation of activity
- deep breathThorough filling of lungs
- counting to tenDeliberate calming delay
- amygdalaEmotion-processing brain cluster
mindfulness · emotional awareness · breath · cool down · reappraisal · acceptance · inner voice · self talk · rumination · sigh · prefrontal cortex · attachment styles · empathy · vagus nerve · cortisol · oxytocin · limbic system · distraction
- emotionsjoy, anger, fear, sadness, love
- child therapyplay therapy, child psychiatry, child therapy, child counseling, child therapist
- self-control techniquesmeditation, deep breathing, counting to ten, mindfulness, delay tactics
- therapy techniquesCBT, play therapy, art therapy, exposure therapy, group therapy
- DBTDBT, skills training, wise mind, individual therapy, radical acceptance
- emotion scienceaffect, emotional arousal, valence, constructionism, emotional expression
emotion regulationemotional dysregulation
Poor control over feelings
loss of control · emotional volatility · emotional instability · impulsivity · flying off the handle
emotion regulationdenial
Refusal to accept reality
repression · dissociation · emotional detachment · emotional repression · suppression