individual differences in handling negative feelings

Someone recently asked me if I thought there were individual differences in how people handle negative affect, or if some people have simply been lucky enough to have experienced fewer negative events. I think it is clear that there are individual differences. Emotional regulation difficulties have been found related to a wide range of psychopathology. It is true that people who have trouble handling negative affect also report more past negative events, but there is evidence that recall is influenced by mood. Additionally, these folks describe events as traumatic that are objectively less so than events experienced by others who cope well. Stress happens when perceived threats exceed perceived resources, as Susan Folkman and Arnold Lazarus noted, and much of the individual differences in handling stress reflect differences in perceived behavioral control.

Although I view individual differences as being more important than past experiences, overall, when it comes to handling negative affect, early negative events may well set the stage for pessimism and depression over the long run. Neuro-anatomy is affected by sustained high levels of stress (e.g., increased sensitivity of limbic neurons and the norephinephrine system as suggested by Goddard’s work). If early stressors were psychologically unmanageable, an inability to handle future stressors may develop. Thus, people who have had substantial negative events in the past become biologically and cognitively different from those who have not. Thus there are individual differences in the ability to tolerate negative affect that correspond to personal history.

James Pennebaker and Susan Lutgendorf’s separate work on journal writing indicates that the key to therapeutic effects in writing about upsetting events is focusing on meaning. That fact bridges the gap between erroneous “boiler-pressure” psychodynamic models and the observed benefits of processing events in psychotherapy: It is not catharsis per se that is helpful; it is coming to understand the events in one’s life in a different way. As in forgiveness work, and cognitive therapy in general, it involves rewriting the narratives of our lives. We have been damaged by our past, and we must reinvent that past to begin to heal.