Emotion regulation among individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Abstract

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with brain abnormalities in

the areas that regulate emotions, and it is postulated that people with OCD have

difficulty downregulating ( = reducing) their negative emotions. This study

recruited 20 participants with OCD and 20 controls to rate 294 emotional photos

(emotional stimuli not related to OCD) for emotional valence. Participants were

then asked to downregulate while they saw the 20 photos with the highest negative

ratings and 20 photos with the highest positive ratings. Participants with OCD had

more difficulty downregulating their negative emotions than controls. Evidence for

that is that (1) participants with OCD gave significantly higher ratings to the

affectively negative photos in the postregulation phase, after adjusting for their

preregulation ratings and (2) participants with OCD took significantly more time to

regulate both their negative and positive emotions. The findings suggest that

individuals with OCD not only present with the symptoms that are specified in the

OCD diagnostic criteria of DSM-IV TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000),

but also with difficulty downregulating their negative emotions to non

obsessive-compulsive (nonOC) affectively negative stimuli. Clinicians may

consider adding emotion regulation skills to psychological treatments of OCD.