Emotion-focused treatments are generally efficacious for improving emotion regulation and consequently, improving clinical symptoms across numerous disorders. However, emotion-focused treatment approaches often contain numerous treatment components, limiting our ability to identify which are most efficacious. As such, the current pilot study sought to isolate three components common across a range of emotion-focused treatments (i.e. emotional awareness, emotion down-regulation, and distress tolerance) and test the impact of each component on (1) emotion regulation and (2) emotional eating behavior. Adults (N = 76) who reported four or more emotional eating episodes in the past month were assigned to attend a one-time, three-hour workshop focused on either awareness, down-regulation or tolerance of emotions, and were subsequently evaluated at one-week and two-weeks follow-up. All groups experienced equivalent improvements in emotional eating at two-weeks follow-up (F [1.47, 85.38 ] = 7.60, p < .01). However, groups showed differential patterns of change across facets of emotion regulation. Improvements in access to healthy emotion regulation strategies was moderately related to improvements in emotional eating in Down-Regulation and Distress Tolerance groups (r [18] = 0.40, r [20] = 0.63, respectively). In the Distress Tolerance group, improvements in emotional eating were moderately related to improvements in acceptance of emotions (r[20] = 0.33) and ability to refrain from impulses (r[20] = 0.41). In the Emotional Awareness group, improvements in emotional acceptance (r[20] = 0.30), awareness (r[20] = 0.38) and clarity (r[20] = 0.39) were moderately related to improvements in emotional eating. While several components of emotion-focused treatments may improve outcomes, each component may demonstrate a unique mechanism of action. Further study is needed to isolate these treatment components in fully powered clinical trials to better understand the mechanisms of action for emotion-focused treatments and ultimately develop more efficient and effective treatment approaches.

中文翻译：

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改善情绪调节和情绪进食的情绪调节策略的探索性成分分析

以情绪为中心的治疗通常可有效改善情绪调节，从而改善多种疾病的临床症状。然而，以情绪为中心的治疗方法通常包含许多治疗成分，限制了我们确定哪些最有效的能力。因此，当前的试点研究试图分离出一系列以情绪为中心的治疗中常见的三个组成部分（即情绪意识、情绪下调和痛苦容忍度），并测试每个组成部分对（1）情绪调节和（ 2）情绪化饮食行为。在过去一个月内报告四次或更多情绪性饮食发作的成年人（N = 76）被分配参加一次为期三小时的研讨会，重点是意识、下调或情绪容忍度，并随后在一周和两周的随访中进行评估。在两周的随访中，所有组在情绪化进食方面都有相同的改善（F [1.47, 85.38 ] = 7.60，p < .01）。然而，各组在情绪调节的各个方面表现出不同的变化模式。获得健康情绪调节策略的改善与下调和痛苦耐受组中情绪饮食的改善中等相关（分别为 r [18] = 0.40，r [20] = 0.63）。在苦恼耐受组中，情绪化饮食的改善与情绪接受度的改善 (r[20] = 0.33) 和抑制冲动的能力 (r[20] = 0.41) 中度相关。在情绪意识组中，情绪接受度 (r[20] = 0.30)、意识 (r[20] = 0.38) 和清晰度 (r[20] = 0. 39）与情绪化饮食的改善有中度相关。虽然以情绪为中心的治疗的几个组成部分可能会改善结果，但每个组成部分都可能表现出独特的作用机制。需要进一步研究以在全功率临床试验中分离这些治疗成分，以更好地了解以情绪为中心的治疗的作用机制，并最终开发出更有效的治疗方法。