An Experimental Evaluation of the Efficacy of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Depressed Patients

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Matthias Berking; Professor Dr. Wolfgang Hiller; Professor Dr. Clemens Kirschbaum
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2010 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 183380472

The overall goal of the research project is to clarify whether ineffective emotion regulation (ER) is a maintaining factor in depression. For this purpose, the first-time proposal study aimed to (a) assess ER and depression repeatedly in 150 depressed individuals and investigate prospective associations between the two concepts and (b) evaluate the effects of a systematic ER-skills training in these patients. At the end of the approved period of two years about 140 patients will be included in the study and will require another seven months to complete the entire study. Thus, the first goal of the renewal proposal is to ensure that the first-time proposal study is successfully completed. The second goal of the renewal proposal is to evaluate the efficacy of relevant ER strategies in an experimental paradigm, and to clarify (a) to what extend presently depressed individuals can reduce and/or accept dysphoric affect with the help of cognitive reappraisal, acceptance and/or compassionate self-support; (b) whether these patients can enhance a positive affective state with the help of a conscious-appreciation-of-positive-emotions strategy; (c) which factors moderate potential effects of the experimentally assessed strategies; (d) whether the effects differ across presently depressed patients, previously-but-not-presently depressed individuals and healthy controls; and (e) whether a systematic ER skills training facilitates the effective application of the experimentally assessed strategies and whether this leads to a reduction in depressive symptom severity. The third goal of the renewal is to clarify whether ineffective ER is associated with the activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA) assessed through analyses of hair cortisol. To attain these goals, an experimental paradigm has been developed which has already been completed by 55 participants of the first-time proposal study (pretraining only). Additionally, 35 of these patients participated in a feasibility study on hair cortisol assessment (pretraining only). At the end of the proposed renewal, 96 participants of the first-time proposal study shall have completed the experimental evaluation of ER-strategies before and after the ER training (or after the active/inactive control condition, resp.). Findings will be compared with those from 30 individuals who previously but not presently met criteria for depression and with 30 never-depressed individuals. To clarify reciprocal effects of ER, depression and HPAA activity hair cortisol will be assessed in 80 participants before and after the training-vs-control-group phase as well as after subsequent single psychotherapy and related to changes in ER and depressive symptom severity.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Winfried Rief, Ph.D.