Emotion Regulation Strategy Use and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract

A growing literature suggests that use of ER (ER) strategies, or efforts to affect the intensity, duration, or likelihood of experiencing a particular emotion is associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the existing literature is characterized by several important limitations, including examination of the association between individual strategies (e.g., thought suppression) in isolation rather than multiple strategies simultaneously, examination of PTSD at the syndrome level, and not controlling for negative affect, which has been hypothesized to inflate this association. This study sought to advance this literature by using latent variable modeling to examine the associations between use of seven ER strategies and five PTSD symptom clusters. Each strategy examined was associated with at least one PTSD symptom cluster. However, after controlling for negative affect, only experiential avoidance was associated with all PTSD symptom clusters. A number of measurement limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.