Adults
Emotion regulation
Working on intense, sudden waves of emotion and automatic responses such as suppressing feelings or emotional eating.
- Intense anger and sudden mood shifts
- Suppressing emotions
- Emotional eating
Emotion regulation is the ability to notice our emotions, make sense of them and respond to them appropriately. This ability is mostly learned in childhood, through our relationships with our caregivers. My master's thesis was also in this field, on the structure of emotion regulation.
How can you recognise difficulties with it?
- Emotions rising very quickly and very intensely, and taking a long time to calm down
- Angry outbursts you regret afterwards
- Difficulty noticing or naming emotions, “not feeling anything”
- Suppressing emotions, trying to always appear strong
- Escaping emotions through automatic routes such as eating, shopping or screens
What happens in therapy?
First we explore together what kind of relationship you have with your emotions: which ones are easy, which are hard, and what do you do when difficult emotions arise? With mindfulness practices we strengthen your ability to notice an emotion and stay with it, and with cognitive behavioural techniques your ability to soothe it and solve problems. If the patterns go back to childhood, we use schema therapy to look at their roots.
When should you seek support?
If several of these signs have lasted for weeks and are affecting your work, relationships or sleep, seeing a mental health professional can be a good step.
This page was written by Zeynep Hilal Çelik and last reviewed on 27 October 2026.
