Meta-Emotions in Daily Life: Associations with Emotional Awareness and Depression

Meta-emotions are emotions that occur in response to other emotions (e.g., guilt about anger). Although preliminary evidence indicates that depression is associated with a greater likelihood of meta-emotions, much remains unknown about meta-emotions, including how regularly they are experienced and whether emotional awareness constructs (including attention to and clarity of emotion) influence their occurrence. In the present study, we aim to establish norms for meta-emotions in everyday life, determine whether increased emotional awareness is associated with a greater likelihood of meta-emotions, and examine whether negative emotions about negative emotions (negative-negative meta-emotional experiences) are associated with depressive severity. We recruited an adult community sample (n=79) to complete seven days of experience sampling. At each survey, they indicated current attention to emotion, clarity of emotion, and whether and what kind of meta-emotional experience they were having. Experiences were categorized as negative-negative, negative-positive, positive-positive or negative-negative. Approximately 53% of participants reported at least one meta-emotional experience. Meta-emotional experiences were reported about twice a week; negative-negative experiences were most frequent. Although attention to and clarity of emotion each individually predicted the likelihood of meta-emotional experiences, only attention to emotion contributed unique variance. Using multi-level modeling, we found that higher self-reported depressive severity was associated with the likelihood of meta-emotional experiences and specifically with negative-negative experiences. Findings indicate that most adults experience meta-emotions, especially during moments of high attention to emotion, and that negative-negative experiences are associated with depressive severity. These findings suggest that treatments for depression would benefit from emphasizing acceptance of negative emotions

Fearful Versus Dismissive Beliefs about Emotion: Divergent Pathways to Non-Acceptance of Emotion

High non-acceptance of emotion, or the rejection of one’s own emotional experience as bad or unacceptable, is consistently associated with depressive pathology, including elevated depressive symptoms and past and current major depressive (MDD) diagnoses. To progress toward a fuller understanding of non-acceptance and depressive pathology, it is important to identify other associated constructs that could theoretically contribute to this association. Indirect evidence suggests that negative beliefs about emotion—that is, stable underlying negative beliefs about the meaning, value, or consequences of one’s emotions—could be one such factor, as could negative emotion intensity and emotional clarity (or the degree to which one can identify, distinguish, and describe one\u27s emotions). In the present research, we tested the hypotheses that beliefs about emotions (1) could be best represented by a two-factor model; (2) would have indirect positive associations with non-acceptance of emotion through high negative emotion intensity and low emotional clarity; and (3) would have indirect positive associations with depressive symptoms through high non-acceptance of emotion. Further, we expected that these three indirect associations would be moderated by age, such that the associations would weaken as age increased. Finally, we tested whether mean levels and dynamic associations between variables varied as by depression status. In Study 1, participants included 410 adults (Mage = 44.1, SD = 15.6) recruited from the community who completed self-report measures of negative beliefs about emotions, non-acceptance, negative emotion intensity, emotional clarity, and depressive symptomatology. In Study 2, we used an intensive longitudinal design, in which a subset of 215 participants (Mage = 44.3, SD = 16.1) from Study 1 reported five times a day for two weeks on their emotional experiences. These participants were clinically interviewed and met diagnostic criteria for one of three groups: current depressed (n = 48), remitted depressed (n = 80), and healthy control (n = 87). In Study 1, we found that a single-factor, not a two-factor, hierarchical model was the best fit to the beliefs about emotions data. In both studies, we found support for a positive indirect effect of beliefs about emotions on non-acceptance of emotion through negative emotion intensity, but not through emotional clarity. In Study 1, but not Study 2, we found support for a positive indirect effect of beliefs about emotions on depressive symptoms through non-acceptance of emotion. As expected, we found in Study 2 that mean levels of negative beliefs about emotions, non-acceptance of emotion, and negative emotion intensity varied across diagnostic groups, but the strengths of pathways did not vary, suggesting that elevated levels of these emotional characteristics are just as maladaptive in healthy controls as they are in individuals with a current or past history of depression. The present study is the first to illuminate the association between beliefs about emotions and non-acceptance of emotion in community and clinical samples. Our findings also build on clinical theory to suggest that intensity of emotion mediates this link, such that high negative emotion helps explain the relation between high negative beliefs about emotion and high non-acceptance of emotion. Our findings from Study 1 also implicate non-acceptance of emotion as a mediator of the association between beliefs about emotions and depressive symptoms; however, given that Study 2 did not confirm these findings, future (ideally longitudinal) research is needed to further examine these associations

Positive Regard in Clinical Supervision: Trainee Perspectives

Supervision operates within the tension of a working alliance in which supervisors must juggle multiple responsibilities, including imparting new skills and techniques to trainees, ensuring client welfare, and setting the bar for competence in the profession. Despite the professional nature to this relationship, this is also a relationship in which positive regard is appropriate and critical. The presence or absence of positive regard has the potential to alter the trajectory of a supervision alliance, the trainees’ professional development, and ultimately, the quality of the services delivered to the client. Illustrations from our clinical training demonstrate the practical, day-to-day impact of positive regard in supervision