Table 4.
Experiential-dynamic techniques to regulate emotions.
| Process | Target and scope | Strategies | Model of therapy and references |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anxiety regulation | Enhancing awareness of the physiological signs of anxiety in the body | Identification, Enhancing bodily awareness, differentiating feeling from anxiety, introducing isolation of affect, changing the pathway of unconscious anxiety discharge | ISTDP (Davanloo, 1990, 2000; Coughlin della Selva, 1996; Frederickson, 2013) |
| Defense restructuring (experiential) | Undo the defense that creates dysregulated affects | Blocking the defense, identifying the defense, clarifying the price of the defense, clarifying the function of the defense, pointing out causality, differentiating reality from fantasy, then focusing on the true feeling that is underneath the defense | ISTDP (Davanloo, 1990, 2000; Coughlin della Selva, 1996; Frederickson, 2013) |
| Defense Restructuring (cognitive) | Promote meta-cognition | Point out cognitive errors | Mentalization (Bateman and Fonagy, 2006); ISTDP (Davanloo, 1990, 2000; Coughlin della Selva, 1996; Frederickson, 2013) |
| Emotion recognition | Enhancing awareness of emotions | - Identification, Labeling - Enhancing bodily awareness - Helping to observe emotions - Differentiating feelings from anxiety and defenses - Differentiating true feelings from defensive affects | Emotion Focused Therapy, EFT (Greenberg and Watson, 2005) AEDP (Fosha, 2000) ISTDP (Davanloo, 1990, 2000; Coughlin della Selva, 1996; Frederickson, 2013) |
| Emotion expression | Enhance capacity to express feelings while feeling them | - Experiencing feeling physically in the body - Experiencing the impulse physically in the body | ISTDP (Davanloo, 1990, 2000; Coughlin della Selva, 1996; Frederickson, 2013) |
| - Building affect tolerance | |||
| - Imaginative portraiting of the impulse | |||