Practicing psychotherapists are more skilled at downregulating negative emotions than other professionals.
Laypeople and psychotherapists alike tend to assume that psychotherapists are more effective than the average population in regulating negative emotions. Being receptive to patients' distress and being able to downregulate negative emotions are important skills for psychotherapists to provide effective help and sustain their own well-being. We investigated whether psychotherapists react to negative material differently and downregulate emotions more effectively than individuals working in other, nontherapeutic, professions. Practicing psychotherapists (n = 21) and a control group of nontherapists (n = 18) were exposed to pictures designed to elicit negative emotions in varying intensities and were asked to rate their emotional response, first after viewing them naturally and then after choosing and applying one of two given regulation strategies (i.e., distraction and reappraisal). Both groups responded similarly in terms of emotional reactivity and strategy choices, but psychotherapists were more effective than nontherapists in reducing their emotional response after applying emotion regulation strategies. We suggest that psychotherapists' comparable emotional reactivity and more effective emotion regulation make them well prepared to provide effective help to patients and safeguard their own well-being.
Focus Area Diversity, Jacobs University Bremen.
Jan Luca
JL
Pletzer
Department of Medical and Sports Sciences, University of Cumbria.
Xavier
X
Sanchez
Department of Psychology, University of Groningen.
Susanne
S
Scheibe
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011613:Psychotherapy