The role of maladaptive anger in self-criticism: A quasi-experimental study on emotional processes

Abstract

The present study examines the role of emotion in the self-critical process of individuals with anger problems. Self-criticism is a prevalent intra-personal feature which greatly impacts an individual’s emotion. So far, it is unclear, which emotions individuals with maladaptive anger experience when they work through their self-criticism. Using a quasi-experimental design, the present study compared n = 23 anger-prone under-graduate students to n = 22 controls on process indices of contempt, fear, shame, anger and global distress, as well as on their access to underlying need, as participants were working through personalized self-critical content. This was achieved using a single-session enactment from emotion-focused therapy, augmented with a standardized procedure for priming participants to focus on their unmet needs. Findings suggested that this work on self-criticism reduced for both groups distress, fear and shame, as well as increased assertive anger (McNemar tests significant at p = .05). More centrally, anger-prone individuals expressed more self-contempt (t(1, 44) = 3.65; p < .05), and they had more difficulty in accessing their underlying need (χ² = 5.35; p < .05), when compared to controls. These results have implications for clinical work with anger-prone individuals, and clarify key features in the use of enactment interventions when working towards emotional resolution. The present study also demonstrates the use of personalized stimuli in the context of clinically relevant quasi-experimental research on emotional processes.

Keywords:

• self-criticism
• anger
• emotion processing
• experimental
• contempt
• need

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Société Académique Vaudoise and the 450e Anniversaire of the University of Lausanne grants given to the first author. Also, this research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, through a grant given to the second author. This research was presented as paper in panel at the XXXth conference of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI), 12 April 2014, in Montréal, Canada.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.