Emotional dysregulation (ED) is a term used in the mental health

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

 community to refer to an emotion

Emotion

Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...

al response that is poorly modulated, and does not fall within the conventionally accepted range of emotive response. ED may be referred to as labile mood or mood swings.

Possible manifestations of emotional dysregulation include angry outbursts or behavior outbursts such as destroying or throwing objects, aggression towards self or others, and threats to kill oneself. These variations usually occur in seconds to minutes or hours. Emotional dysregulation can lead to behavioral problems and can interfere with a person's social interactions and relationships at home, in school, or at place of employment.

Emotional dysregulation can be associated with an experience of early psychological trauma

Psychological trauma

Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...

, brain injury, or chronic maltreatment (such as child abuse

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

, child neglect

Child neglect

Child neglect is defined as:# "the failure of a person responsible for a child’s care and upbringing to safeguard the child’s emotional and physical health and general well-being"...

, or institutional neglect/abuse

Institutional abuse

Institutional abuse can typically occur in a care home, nursing home, acute hospital or in-patient setting and can be any of the following:Institutional abuse also refers to child abuse in institutions where children were placed for their education, welfare, rehabilitation, or even protection...

), and associated disorders such as reactive attachment disorder

Reactive attachment disorder

Reactive attachment disorder is described in clinical literature as a severe and relatively uncommon disorder that can affect children. RAD is characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate ways of relating socially in most contexts...

. Emotional dysregulation may present in people with psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

, borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder is a personality disorder described as a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person , characterized by depth and variability of moods.The disorder typically involves unusual levels of instability in mood; black and white thinking, or splitting; the...

, and Complex post-traumatic stress disorder

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychological injury that results from protracted exposure to prolonged social and/or interpersonal trauma with lack or loss of control, disempowerment, and in the context of either captivity or entrapment, i.e. the lack of a viable escape route for the...

. ED is also found among those with autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger syndrome

Asperger syndrome

Asperger's syndrome that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development...

.

Etymology

The word dysregulation is a neologism created by combining the prefix "dys" to "regulation" According to Webster's, dys has various roots. With Latin and Greek roots, it is akin to Old English tō-, te- apart and in Sanskrit dus- bad, difficult.

See also

• Attachment theory
  Attachment theory
  Attachment theory describes the dynamics of long-term relationships between humans. Its most important tenet is that an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally. Attachment theory is an interdisciplinary study...
  
  
• Emotional self-regulation
  Emotional self-regulation
  Emotional self-regulation, also known as Emotion Regulation or simply ER, is being able to properly regulate one's emotions. It is a complex process that involves the initiating, inhibiting, or modulating the following aspects of functioning:...
  
  
• Labile affect
• Spiritual crisis
  Spiritual crisis
  Spiritual crisis is a form of identity crisis where an individual experiences drastic changes to their meaning system typically because of a spontaneous spiritual experience...
  
  
• The WAVE Trust