Fresco Et Al. (2007) Self

Fresco et al. (2007)

Self -- regulation consists of a number of cognitive and behavioral strategies that an individual engages in an order to maintain homeostasis, direct one's behavior, control one's reactions, or develop and reach goals. These strategies or processes can either be implemented in a conscious directed fashion or unconscious automatic fashion Fresco et al. (2007). In the current study the process of emotional regulation is defined as mental processes that individuals use to fine-tune, moderate, or outright change their emotional responses in accordance with the environment (Fresco et al., 2007). The notion of emotional regulation has been important in the development of understanding of models of abnormal behavior and mental illness including models of understanding substance abuse, eating disorders, depression, anxiety disorders, etc. Past research has associated the ability to regulate one's emotions with positive health, good personal relationships, and better performances and work. Individuals who experience problems regulating their emotions are more likely to develop mental disorders (Fresco et al., 2007).

Decentering is the capacity to be able to conceive the thoughts and feelings that one experiences as being temporary events instead of truths about oneself. Fresco et al. (2007) offer the example of how a person would use decentering as a strategy of emotional regulation. Instead of thinking something like "I am depressed" a person using decentering would alter this automatic thought to "I am thinking that I feel depressed at this moment." When a person uses decentering they become focused on the moment and do not make an overarching statement regarding their feelings. Using decentering as an emotional regulation strategy removes one from making universal, judgmental statements based on their momentary thoughts and feelings and can lead to in a more objective assessment of oneself and the situation. This can be a positive strategy that a counselor can teach to clients during the use of cognitively-based psychotherapeutic techniques.

Learning decentering can also be an important aspect of mindfulness. The counselor would need to assess decentering both before the counseling sessions and afterwards in order to determine the person's initial tendencies and improvement as a result of counseling. This would acquire an empirically -- validated measure of the decentering that counselors could use in their practice. The Experiences Questionnaire (EQ) is a measure of decentering and rumination that was developed to be use in practice. Fresco et al. (2007) performed three different studies to determine if the capital EQ could be empirically -- validated as a useful measure of decentering for counselors.

In the first study Fresco et al. (2007) attempted to validate the two hypothesized subscales of the EQ: a rumination subscale and a wider perspective subscale. The statistical technique of choice for this validation was confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Data was obtained from two samples of students. The CFA was performed on the first sample and did not achieve an overall good fit based on the proposed two factors. The researchers performed an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and subsequent CFA on their second sample of students and found that a unifactorial construct of decentering fit the data. This single factor loaded on 11 of the 16 items of the EQ. The researchers hypothesized that the EQ measures a single decentering construct that is made up of several different aspects of decentering (Fresco et al., 2007).

Next, Fresco et al. (2007) examined the discriminate validity and concurrent validity of the EQ. The researchers examined the EQ in relation to depressive rumination, experiential avoidance, cognitive reappraisal, and emotion suppression. According to Fresco et al. A measure of the decentering should positively correlated with measures of cognitive appraisal and negatively correlated with measures of depressive rumination, depression, avoidance, and emotional suppression. The researchers correlated the EQ with a measure of depression (the Beck Depression Inventory-II), a measure of avoidance (the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire), measures of anhedonic depression and anxiety (two subscales of the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire), rumination (from the Ruminative Responsive subscale of the Response Styles Questionnaire), and appraisal (from the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire). The resulting correlation matrix indicated that the correlations of interest ranged from moderate to high in direction predicted by the researchers.

Finally, Fresco et al. used a sample of patients with depression and other psychiatric issues and performed a CFA on the data to replicate the earlier finding of a single factor in the EQ. Performing a CFA on a clinical sample would help to confirm greater generalizability of the measure. The results indicated that the model fit the clinical sample data and indicated that a unifactorial decentering factor of the EQ could be applied to a clinical population as well as a community sample.