The impact of imagery rescripting (ImRs) on state-based emotion regulation is unclear, limiting our understanding of potential mechanisms of change. To address this gap in the literature, the current study used an experimental paradigm to test whether ImRs, compared to a control condition, changed state-based emotional clarity, awareness, acceptance, and modulation abilities. Participants ( N = 157) were undergraduate students from three institutions who reported an influential childhood memory involving guilt. Following random assignment, participants were administered an automated intervention – ImRs or the control – and distress and state-based emotion regulation were assessed pre-intervention, post-intervention, and one week later. Repeated measures ANOVAs indicated that ImRs led to greater reductions in distress and improvements in emotional awareness, acceptance, and modulation compared to the control condition, with effects mostly persisting at follow-up. The analogue sample and automated protocol limits generalizability and ecological validity. The current study demonstrated that ImRs led to immediate changes in key facets of state-based emotion regulation, which were mostly maintained after one week. These findings can inform targets for future research evaluating how change unfolds in ImRs.
Berman et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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