Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Attention, Clarity and Intensity of Emotion: Three Factors That Distinguish Between Depressed and Anxious

Attention, clarity and intensity of emotion: three factors that distinguish between depressed and anxious - Attention to emotion, emotional clarity and intensity of emotion are three important aspects of emotional experience that can help you better understand the psychological suffering.

The first relate to the ability that an individual has to pay attention and think about their emotional experiences ( attention to emotion ) and to understand, recognize and discriminate between them ( emotional clarity ).

As we tend to believe these two functional capacity as the well-being of the individual, can actually help to promote the so-called emotional dysregulation : the difficulty to manage their emotions, which prevents an adaptive reaction to the events that have aroused.
In people who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder ( GAD, generalized anxiety disorder) were often found high levels of emotional intensity and low in clarity of emotion. GAD is a main feature of the repetitive thinking about the possibility that an event considered unpleasant to occur and, therefore, not desired. This is known as worry ( brooding ).

Low levels of clarity and attention on the one hand, and high emotional intensity on the other hand, are found instead in individuals who suffer from depressive anhedonia, frequent symptom of depression in which there is a drop of pleasure and motivation in performing daily activities and pleasant.

The authors, luminaries in the field of brooding, they found that intensity, focus and clarity are associated in a peculiar emotional intensity with which people anxious and depressed brood suffer from anhedonia.

People who tend to brood (but do not suffer from anhedonia ) live more easily and with high intensity emotions, you turn a lot of attention and have a high capacity in identifying them.

Less clarity, focus and intensity of emotion are typical of people suffering from depression but do not brood.

How many suffer from both depression is instead of brooding could be defined as " emotionally confused " : they have high levels of emotional intensity as well as pay a lot of attention to emotion while trying to avoid experiences and information that can enable them in those same emotions.

Finally, many enjoy a satisfying psychological well-being show a greater emotional awareness levels and have little intense on an emotional level.

Every anxious or depressed would therefore create its own peculiar pattern of intensity, focus and emotional clarity.

Different emotional styles not only can make people vulnerable to stress, but associated with different levels of brooding and anhedonia, may be important for understanding different patterns of psychological distress.


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