The Neuroscience of Naming Emotions: A Practical Guide to Emotional Regulation
In this video, Dr Sanil Rege, consultant psychiatrist, explains the foundations of naming emotions for regulation, showing why emotional signals must be understood rather than suppressed. He outlines how the amygdala generates emotional arousal and how the prefrontal cortex engages during labelling, grounding the process in emotional regulation neuroscience.
Dr Rege demonstrates how naming emotions reduces reactivity, enables insight, and shifts patients from automatic responses toward intentional regulation. He explores Gross’s five regulatory levers, emphasises the clinical value of building an emotional vocabulary, and highlights tools such as CBT, DBT, mindfulness, medication, and co-regulation.
This framework offers clinicians a neuroscience-based understanding of emotional processing, enhancing formulation and therapeutic engagement.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Emotions are signals about needs, not flaws – suppressing them fuels dysregulation.
- Naming emotions activates the prefrontal cortex and calms subcortical circuits.
- Gross’s five-lever model (situation, modification, attention, reappraisal, modulation) provides usable regulation strategies.
- Tools, including CBT, DBT, mindfulness, exercise and medications, restore balance when cognition is overwhelmed.
- Co-regulation through safe interpersonal relationships physiologically reduces emotional arousal.
Related Courses
Clinicians seeking a deeper and more structured approach to emotional regulation in practice may find the Advanced Psychiatric Formulation and Strategic Management series on The Academy valuable. This program integrates neurobiological, psychodynamic, cognitive, and developmental perspectives to create mechanism-informed formulations and treatment plans – particularly relevant when emotional dysregulation underpins presentations such as depression, anxiety, trauma, or personality vulnerabilities.
For those wishing to strengthen therapeutic skills, the Psychodynamic Psychotherapy course on The Academy offers a principled and practical framework for understanding affective experience, working with defensive patterns, and facilitating insight. Modules explore key psychodynamic processes such as transference, countertransference, relational meaning, and suitability for therapy – aligning closely with the emotional processing and regulation concepts discussed in this video.
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