Emotion regulation during looking in the mirror in patients with eating disorders

Abstract

Emotion regulation is complex ability involving many emotional processes. One of the main assumptions of adaptive emotion regulation is emotional awareness, or the ability to identify and interpret own emotions. The absence of these fractional skills at patients with eating disorders can lead to rigid maladaptive control strategies that are underlying etiological factor of eating disorders. Sixteen patients underwent a psychological diagnostic focused on work with emotions. In the experimental part, patients were exposed to their own image through the mirror, during which were supposed to regulate their emotions, according to specific instructions. While patients were looking into the mirror, we monitored psychophysiological activity. Latest results based on the data processing of averages excitation of skin conductance describe the course of the experiment as we expected. Calming phases alternated with mirror exposure were clearly noticeable and consistent during changes in skin conductance and varies almost significantly [F(3,6) = 2.5, P = 0.068, η2 = 0.22], which supports the suitability of the selected eliciting material. The difference between mirror exposures with instructions on how to regulate emotions and without them is not statistically significant, but the continuance of the skin conductance describes the phases of the experiment consistently. The most striking response was detected at the first exposure to the mirror, which may suggest a lack of internal resources to regulate such an important stimulus as their own body. The results indicate that exposure to mirror is a negative emotional stimulus, with whom the patient can hardly cope.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.