People regulate their emotions to get from one feeling to a more preferred state, whether that is a return to calm, a move toward happiness, not feeling quite as angry, or leveraging a different emotion entirely. New research sheds light on how people with schizophrenia handle their emotions differently. Scientists found that while most of us try to manage our feelings as they worsen, those with schizophrenia struggle to do so. This means they might not attempt to improve their mood or cope when emotions become intense. Understanding these differences could lead to better ways to support individuals with schizophrenia in handling their emotions.
Schizophrenia patients often have higher than average levels of stress and unpleasant feeling. A startling discovery from a recent study by psychologists at the University of Georgia may be helpful to those who battle the illness: While individuals with schizophrenia are often able to control low-level unpleasant feelings, when those emotions rise, they become more difficult to control.
Based on clinical data from outpatients with psychotic illnesses and a control group, the research examined differences in the identification stage of emotion regulation. The researchers employed a scale for measuring negative emotion levels that ranges from 1 to 10, where 10 is the maximum possible level of anxiety or emotional distress.
Emotion regulation doesn’t ramp up as fast for people suffering from schizophrenia
“The idea of identification in a healthy person tracks as you would expect: as negative emotion increases, they’re more likely to manage that,” said Ian Raugh, doctoral candidate and lead author on the new study. “At lower levels, say 1 or 2, you’re probably not going to do anything to change it. But as the level of negative emotion goes up, a healthy person is much more likely to engage in efforts to change how they are feeling.”
But the researchers also discovered that individuals with schizophrenia do not see an increase in emotion regulation in the same manner.
A healthy individual tries to control their emotions when under stress, but a person suffering from schizophrenia is unable or unwilling to do so.
Patients with schizophrenia are less likely to employ coping strategies
“They’re actually less likely. That’s really the abnormality, that people with schizophrenia don’t seem to be trying to manage their emotions as much when their emotions are high,” he said.
According to Raugh, people with schizophrenia are less likely to use coping mechanisms or emotion control techniques to improve their own feelings. Additionally, people are less inclined to strive to make things better when things go south.
“The terms we use in psychology are ‘learned helplessness’ or ‘defeatist beliefs,’ where people think ‘Oh it’s not going to work even if I try so why bother,’ which is common in depression as well. And so, there’s that aspect probably driving less attempts at higher levels.”
Regulating stress response may help people with schizophrenia
Researchers have considered the idea that fatigue is a factor in schizophrenia. They may be exerting effort at the least beneficial times or when it is least effective since they are also regulating at periods of low negative emotion. Therefore, it’s much more difficult when their emotions are strong.
“A lot of that comes down to not regulating as much when it would be most advantageous to do so,” Raugh said. “Our future studies will try to understand more about why they would regulate less at higher levels.”
“Our next goal is to determine whether the same abnormality exists in youth at risk for schizophrenia,” said Gregory Strauss, associate professor of psychology, director of the UGA Clinical Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, and senior author on the study. “Heightened stress reactivity has long been seen as a key risk factor, but these results suggest that regulating that stress response must also be considered. If the same problems are also present years before the illness onset, tailored psychological treatments may have promise for preventing schizophrenia.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by the University of Georgia. Original written by Alan Flurry. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Ian M. Raugh, Gregory P. Strauss. Deconstructing emotion regulation in schizophrenia: the nature and consequences of abnormalities at the identification stage. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 2021; DOI: 10.1007/s00406-021-01350-z
Page citation:
University of Georgia. “Coping with schizophrenia, when emotions can be too much.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 December 2021. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211208123410.htm>.
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