Emotion Regulation Strategies in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Panic Disorder

Asher Y. Strauss, Yogev Kivity*, Jonathan D. Huppert

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER)has been incorporated into many models of psychopathology, but it has not been examined directly in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)for panic disorder with agoraphobia (PD/A). In this study, a preliminary model of ER in CBT for PD/A is proposed based on existing theories, and several propositions of the model are tested. We hypothesized that increases in cognitive reappraisal would precede decreases in biased cognitions, decreases in expressive suppression would follow decreases in biased cognitions, and a reduction in symptom severity would follow decreases in expressive suppression. Twenty-nine patients who received CBT for PD/A completed weekly self-report measures of symptom severity, anxiety sensitivity, reappraisal and expressive suppression. In addition, patients were compared to a matched normal sample. Cross-lagged analyses partially supported the hypotheses. Reappraisal did not change until late stages of therapy and was generally not associated with treatment outcome. Suppression decreased significantly and exhibited a reciprocal relationship with biased cognitions. Symptom reduction followed decreases in suppression as hypothesized. However, patients did not differ in ER from matched controls at either pre- or posttreatment. Results suggest the important distinction between reappraisal and appraisal, and stress the role of session-by-session decreases in suppression as a predictor of symptom reduction.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)659-671
Number of pages13
JournalBehavior Therapy
Volume50
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018

Keywords

  • cognitive behavioral therapy
  • emotion regulation
  • expressive suppression
  • panic disorder and agoraphobia
  • reappraisal

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