Emotion Regulation

The processes by which a person monitors, evaluates, and modifies emotional reactions to achieve goals or meet situational demands — including selecting or changing situations, directing attention, reframing meaning (cognitive reappraisal), and adjusting outward expression. Emotion regulation develops across childhood and adolescence and is often more difficult for autistic people, people with ADHD, people with alexithymia, and people with trauma histories, in part because identifying the emotion itself can be harder. It is a routine target of cognitive-behavioural therapy, dialectical-behaviour therapy, and school-based social-emotional learning, and is increasingly a design consideration for accessibility technology — particularly AI companions, journaling apps, and mental-health tools, where sycophantic validation or aggressive confrontation can both undermine healthy regulation.