Despite the pivotal role that emotion regulation is thought to occupy for individual and relational wellbeing, emotion regulation in couples has been surprisingly understudied. With a clinical sample consisting of 275 couples starting therapy from 2017 to 2022, this study sought to clarify the actor and partner effects of clinical couples' emotion dysregulation on relationship satisfaction. Our results showed that, for partners' emotion dysregulation dimensions, while impulse control difficulties, lack of emotional awareness, and limited emotion regulation strategies were negatively predictive of couple relationship satisfaction, nonacceptance of negative emotions had a positive association with relationship satisfaction. Further, compared with other dimensions of emotion dysregulation, female limited emotion regulation strategies were greater predictors of decreased female relationship satisfaction. We also found significant gender differences in partners' emotion dysregulation dimensions and relationship satisfaction. These results show the significance of addressing emotion dysregulation for both partners at intra- and inter-personal levels simultaneously in couple therapy. Notably, the 275 couples in our sample did not report a clinically distressed relationship, though they attended at least one couple therapy session. Clinical implications and directions for future study are discussed.
尽管情绪调节被认为对个人和关系都起着关键作用，但有关伴侣情绪调节的研究，却令人惊讶的不足。本研究以 275 对在 2017 到 2022 年间参与治疗的伴侣为样本，试图阐明临床伴侣情绪失调对关系满意度的主体和客体效应。我们的研究结果表明，在伴侣的情绪失调维度上，虽然冲动控制困难、缺乏情绪意识和有限情绪调节策略对伴侣关系满意度有负向预测作用，但不接受负面情绪与关系满意度呈正相关。此外，与情绪失调的其他维度相比，女性的有限情绪调节策略是女性关系满意度下降的最大预测因素。我们还发现伴侣双方的情绪失调维度与关系满意度存在显着的性别差异。这些结果表明，在伴侣治疗中，同时处理伴侣双方内在和人际层面情绪失调的重要性。值得注意的是，我们样本中的 275 对伴侣，并没有显示临床困扰程度的关系，尽管他们至少参加了一次伴侣治疗。本文还讨论了研究结果的临床意义与未来研究方向。.
Keywords: actor-partner interdependence model; couple therapy; emotion dysregulation; emotion regulation dimensions; relationship satisfaction; 主客体互倚模型; 伴侣治疗; 关系满意度; 情绪失调; 情绪调节维度.
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