Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 41, Issue 4, December 2010, Pages 587-598
Behavior Therapy

Emotion Regulation Difficulties in Trauma Survivors: The Role of Trauma Type and PTSD Symptom Severity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2010.04.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Two different hypotheses regarding the relationship between emotion regulation and PTSD are described in the literature. First, it has been suggested that emotion regulation difficulties are part of the complex sequelae of early-onset chronic interpersonal trauma and less common following late-onset or single-event traumas. Second, PTSD in general has been suggested to be related to emotion regulation difficulties. Bringing these two lines of research together, the current study aimed to investigate the role of trauma type and PTSD symptom severity on emotion regulation difficulties in a large sample of trauma survivors (N = 616). In line with the hypotheses, PTSD symptom severity was significantly associated with all variables assessing emotion regulation difficulties. In addition, survivors of early-onset chronic interpersonal trauma showed higher scores on these measures than survivors of single-event and/or late-onset traumas. However, when controlling for PTSD symptom severity, the group differences only remained significant for 2 out of 9 variables. The most robust findings were found for the variable “lack of clarity of emotions.” Implications for future research, theoretical models of trauma-related disorders, and their treatment will be discussed.

Section snippets

Participants

The study was conducted as a web-based survey. In this way it was hoped to reach a larger and more diverse sample of trauma survivors than when recruiting participants via clinical services. Past studies directly comparing web-based versus paper-and-pencil surveys found both types of research to be equally reliable (e.g., Fortson et al., 2006, Nosek et al., 2002). The final sample consisted of 616 participants (see Table 1 for demographic information). Recruitment took place in two ways. First,

Preliminary Analysis: Group Differences on Demographic Variables

Before testing the hypotheses, we first checked whether the groups differed on any demographic variables. As shown in Table 1, no difference in age, marital status, or employment between the groups emerged. However, the rate of female participants was higher in the interpersonal trauma groups than the noninterpersonal trauma group. As would be expected, the groups also differed regarding the severity of PTSD symptoms assessed with the IES-R. Survivors of early chronic interpersonal trauma

Discussion

The aim of the current study was to investigate the role of trauma type and PTSD symptom severity in emotion regulation difficulties experienced by trauma survivors. In line with the first hypothesis, significant correlations between all emotion regulation variables and PTSD symptom severity were found. Symptom levels of PTSD were related to (a) reduced levels of clarity and awareness of emotion; (b) low levels of acceptance of negative emotions, higher levels of experiential avoidance, and

Author Note

We are grateful to the numerous self-help organizations, mailing lists owners, and website hosts for their invaluable help with recruitment for this study. In addition, we would like to thank Christian Glass for his help with recruitment and data management.

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