The book is divided into seven sections:  Foundations; Biological Bases; Cognitive Foundations; Developmental Approaches; Personality Processes and Individual Differences; Social Approaches; and Clinical Applications. 

The first section, “Foundations”, has one chapter: “Emotion Regulation: Conceptual Foundations”.  The second section, “Biological Bases”, has five chapters: “Prefrontal-Amygdala Interactions in the Regulation of Fear”; “Neural Bases of Emotion Regulation from Neuropsychology”; “The Neural Architecture of Emotion Regulation”; and “Genetics of Emotion Regulation”.

The third section, “Cognitive Foundations”, has four chapters: “Executive Function: Mechanisms Underlying Emotion Regulation”; “Explanatory Style and Emotion Regulation”; “Affect Regulation and Affective Forecasting”; and “Conflict Monitoring in Cognition-Emotion Competition”.

The fourth section, “Developmental Approaches”, has five chapters: “Caregiver Influences on Emerging Emotion Regulation: Biological and Environmental Transactions in Early Development”; “Socialization on Emotion Regulation in the Family”; “Awareness and Regulation of Emotion in Typical and Atypical Development”; “Effortful Control and Its Socioemotional Consequences”; and “Emotion Regulation and Aging”. 

The fifth section, “Personality Processes and Individual Differences”, has five chapters: “Temperament and Emotion Regulation”; “Individual Differences in Emotion Regulation”; “A Clinical-Empirical Model of Emotion Regulation:  From Defense and Motivated Reasoning to Emotional Constraint Satisfaction”; “Intelligent Emotion Regulation: Is Knowledge Power?”; and “How Emotions Facilitate and Impair Self-Regulation”. 

The sixth section, “Social Approaches”, has five chapters: “The Nonconscious Regulation of Emotion”; “Adult Attachment Strategies and the Regulation of Emotion”; “Interpersonal Emotion Regulation”; “The Cultural Regulation of Emotion”; and “Emotion Regulation and Religion”. 

The seventh section, “Clinical Applications”, has five chapters: “Emotion Regulation and Externalizing Disorders in Children and Adolescents”; “Incorporating Emotion Regulation into Conceptualizations and Treatments of Anxiety and Mood Disorders”; “Alcohol and Affect Regulation”; “Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Pervasive Emotion Dysregulation: Theoretical and Practical Underpinnings”; and “Stress, Stress-Related Disease, and Emotional Regulation”. 

Chapter 6, “Genetics of Emotion Regulation” by A.R. Hariri Ph.D. and E.E. Forbes PhD, is well-organized and written in such a way that even a clinician that is not familiar with genetics could understand the material.  The authors write, “Genes represent the ‘go square’ on the monopoly (sic) board of life” (p. 111).  The chapter contains a section titled “Imaging Genetics: Three Basic Principles”: Selection of candidate gene; Control for nongenetic factors; and task selection (p. 116-117). 

In Chapter 7, “Executive Function: Mechanisms Underlying Emotion Regulation”, P.D. Zelazo Ph.D. and W.A. Cunningham Ph.D. have a section titled “Hot Versus Cool Executive Function: Toward a New Model of Emotion Regulation as Executive Function”.  The authors write that the “relatively ‘hot’ motivationally significant aspects” of executive function (EF) are associated with the ventral pre-frontal cortex, while the “more motivationally independent” “cool” executive function is associated with the lateral pre-frontal cortex (p. 142).  The authors write that cool EF is more involved with abstract problems, while hot EF is “prominent when people really care about the problems they are attempting to solve” (p. 142).  The authors also write that emotion regulation involves both hot and cool EF.  The chapter continues to detail a new model of emotion regulation.  The authors provide diagrams throughout the chapter.

In Chapter 11, “Caregiver Influences on Emerging Emotion Regulation”, the authors (S.D. Calkins Ph.D. and A. Hill Ph.D.) there is a section on the intrinsic and extrinsic influences on the development of emotion regulation.  Intrinsic factors include emotionality (temperament) and physiological processes (biology), while extrinsic factors include parenting (caregiving) and attachment.  The authors also give detailed information on the impact of mothers’ caregiving on their infants’ behavioral development, particularly in the area of developing emotion regulation processes. 

Chapter 19, “Intelligent Emotion Regulation: Is Knowledge Power?” by T. Wranik Ph.D, L.F. Barrett Ph.D., and P. Salovey Ph.D. discusses the concept of emotional intelligence (EI).  The authors write that EI involves four skill sets.  The first “involves accurately perceiving emotional episodes in others and in the self” (p. 394).   The second skill set “involves using emotion-related information to facilitate thought and make better decisions” (p. 394).  The third skill set “involves the capacity to understand what emotions are and how they work” (p. 394).  The fourth EI skill set “involves efficient emotion regulation in both self and others” (p. 394).  The authors then detail how emotional intelligence influences emotion regulation, and how working-memory capacity is related to “intelligent emotion regulation” (p. 401). 

The Handbook of emotion regulation provides an all-encompassing view of the brain process of emotion regulation, including recommendations and theoretical bases to be used in clinical practice.  The book is a particularly useful tool for any clinician working with patients with impulse-control disorders or frontal-lobe traumatic brain injury. 

© 2010 Stephanie Sarkis

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis is the author of four books: 10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD: How to Overcome Chronic Distraction & Accomplish Your Goals (2006); Making the Grade with ADD: A Student’s Guide to Succeeding in College with Attention Deficit Disorder (2008); ADD and Your Money: A Guide to Personal Finance for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (2009); and Adult ADD: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed (2011).  Dr. Sarkis is a National Certified Counselor (NCC) and Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) based in Boca Raton, Florida.  Her website is www.stephaniesarkis.com.