El rol de mindfulness en la regulación emocional de la depresión

Abstract

Clinical depression is a mental disorder that often results in emotion dysregulation. This affective instability is one of the central issues of depression and is observed through a significant number of symptoms and behaviours, including suicide. Emotion dysregulation is a trans-diagnostic dimension that requires psychological intervention to provide skills that help the depressed individual to regulate their negative emotional responses. Currently, there is growing scientific evidence in the literature indicating that positive emotions can buffer against the negative effects of emotion dysregulation in clinical depression through the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness based cognitive therapy is an intervention for people who are at risk of experiencing depressive relapses. This model of intervention helps participants to develop awareness of their experience in the present time, a reduction of self-judgement, and an increase of acceptance and self-compassion, as well as the self-regulation of their care. The purpose of this article is to review the conceptual model of emotion regulation of depression, based on the practice of mindfulness. The current review explores the role of mindfulness in the emotion regulation of clinical depression, based on the scientific literature available. Based on our research experience and the reports of several other laboratories, we examined the modes of actions and how the practice of mindfulness and positive emotions contribute to the ability for depressed individuals to recover from negative emotions.