Calling on clinicians to get social and emotional

Abstract

Objective

Disorders of social cognition, such as difficulties with emotion perception, alexithymia, Theory of Mind (ToM), empathy and disorders of emotion regulation, are prevalent and pervasive problems across many neurological, neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions. Clinicians are familiar with how these difficulties present but assessment and treatment has lagged behind other traditional cognitive domains, such as memory, language and executive functioning.

Method

In this paper, we review the prevalence and degree of impairment associated with disorders of social cognition and emotion regulation across a range of clinical conditions, with particular emphasis on their relationship to cognitive deficits and also real-world functioning. We reported effects sizes from published meta-analyses for a range of clinical disorders and also review test usage and available tests.

Results

In general, many clinical conditions are associated with impairments in social cognition and emotion regulation. Effect sizes range from small to very large and are comparable to effect sizes for impairments in nonsocial cognition. Socio-emotional impairments are also associated with social and adaptive functioning. In reviewing prior research, it is apparent that the standardized assessment of social cognition, in particular, is not routine in clinical practice. This is despite the fact that there are a range of tools available and accruing evidence for the efficacy of interventions for social cognitive impairments.

Conclusion

We are using this information to urge and call for clinicians to factor social cognition into their clinical assessments and treatment planning, as to provide rigorous, holistic and comprehensive person-centred care.

Keywords:

• Social cognition
• empathy
• emotion perception
• emotion regulation
• alexithymia

Disclosure statement

Skye McDonald is the author of TASIT which is sold by a not-for profit company. She donates the royalties for sales back to the organization.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.