After talking about emotional regulation in class I started to think about exactly how important this is. Emotional regulation defined as “intrinsic and extrinsic processes responsible for indentifying, supervising, evaluating, and altering emotional actions” (Thompson,1994)
Now if you think about that definition for a minute its almost scary. Children who do not learn emotional regulation would find themselves in a lonely world. Not having the ability to control their emotions could cause these children to produce socially in appropriate behaviors, and in the majority of their personal relationships would be complete disarray. As adults this could very well develop into BPD, borderline personality disorder, which is defined as “ a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects, as well as marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a varity of contexts” (DSM-IV-TR) This disorder calls for a lot of ‘self searching’ throughout adulthood. Leaving adults in and out of therapy most of their lives, learning such things as dialectic behavior therapy to cope themselves through their overwhelming flood of emotions and mishaps.
In my opinion, the development of emotional regulation within a child is so important it could literally mean the difference between a life of chaos and inner struggle or happiness and inner peace.
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I absolutely agree that emotion regulation is very important. A good point is made in that failure to teach/understand emotion regulation may lead to borderline personality disorder along with possibilities of later issues of chemical dependency disorders, anxiety disorders, and other emotional disorders.
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