Emotion Regulation in Depression: An Integrative Review

Objective: In recent years, there has been a rising interest in cognitive behavioral research to explore the role of emotion regulation in the development and maintenance of mental disorders and resiliency against or recovery from them. Particularly, different strategies people use to regulate their emotions may have more important role in emotional disorders including depression. The aim of this article is to review the recent literature focusing on the role of ER in depression.  Methods: In this paper, we present a brief review of the latest studies (in English and Persian) regarding depression and 6 relevant emotion-regulation strategies (i.e. suppression, rumination, experiential avoidance, reappraisal, mindfulness, and acceptance). Then, we attempt to integrate findings of these cognitive-behavioral and neurobiological investigations utilizing the Gross`s process model of emotion regulation.  Results: According to the research results, we can generally conclude that emotion regulation may be an important mediator/moderator mechanism in the pathogenesis of depression that could also be a good target for intervention in psychotherapy.  Conclusion: Some challenging issues in this area are noted and their implications for cognitivebehavioral research and therapies are discussed.