Emotion regulation simply refers to how people (both intentionally and automatically) manage their emotions. This is a hot topic in the field of psychotherapy because if you have good emotional regulation, then you’ll be resilient and have good mental health, but if you have poor emotional regulation (also known as dysregulation) then generally speaking, you will have problems. There are different problems people can have in regulating their emotions, but we can loosely break them into two types: emotional underregulation and emotional overregulation (also known as overcontrol).
When emotional underregulation causes problems, they are usually obvious and dramatic, such as crying spells, flying into rages, impulsive behavior, etc. Emotional overcontrol, on the other hand, is often less obvious because it is frequently condoned and encouraged by our culture, especially for men. Emotional overcontrol can look like detachment, hyper-intellectualism, having a “stiff upper lip,” or your friend who tells you about the horrific thing that happened to her but follows it immediately with “but it’s fine.” Problems caused by emotional overcontrol can look much more subtle than those caused by undercontrol, but can include loneliness, subtle depression, free-floating anxiety, somatic symptoms, a vague sense of boredom or lack of excitement about life, and trouble with close relationships.
Disney’s Frozen is a perfect metaphor for emotional overcontrol, how it develops, and how it causes problems. For those of you who have been living in a cave, in this movie, Elsa has special powers related to snow and ice. However, one day, while playing, she accidentally hits her sister in the heart with an ice bolt. In the aftermath, she is told that her powers are dangerous and she must hide them. “Conceal, don’t feel” she is told, and she is even given gloves to help her keep her powers under check. This is very similar to how emotional overcontrol can develop. Somehow, usually in childhood, we get the message that one or more of our emotions are dangerous to those around us who can’t handle them or could be hurt by them (anger is a frequent one here), or are otherwise bad or shameful and must be hidden (sadness and vulnerability often fall in this category, especially for men). So we gradually learn ways to distance from our feelings and hide them from others. Over time, these ways of insulating others and ourselves from our feelings become ingrained and automatic. In Frozen, Elsa’s attempts to hide her powers cause a problem by distancing her from her sister, who begs Elsa to play together with her like they used to. In the same way, overcontrolling our emotions leaves us (and those around us) lonely because it’s impossible to share our whole selves. It also leaves us without our full passion, capacity, and feeling of inner wholeness.
The song Let It Go is the moment where Elsa decides to reclaim her power and stop holding it in. Later in the movie, she learns that she doesn’t have to go off on her own to do this, but can use her powers in relationship with others and for the benefit of others. In a similar way, for those of us who suffer from emotional overcontrol, it can take a while to re-learn how to own all of our feelings and how to use them responsibly in our relationships to both stand up for ourselves and increase our closeness and enjoyment with others. This process, of course, is an area where therapy can help us a lot. Like Elsa, we don’t have to accept a life of hiding, nor do we need to exile ourselves in order to fully be ourselves. We can have the best of both worlds and be able to experience all of our emotions in connection with others, yet in a responsible way where we still have a measure of control.
Thanks for sharing.