Emotions and emotion regulation in posttraumatic stress disorder

•The relationships between PTSD, negative emotions, and emotion regulation (ER) are reviewed.•Shame, guilt, anger, disgust and ER difficulties are associated with greater PTSD severity.•Few longitudinal studies have examined the temporal link between PTSD and these features.•PTSD treatment typically reduces negative emotions and ER difficulties.•It is unclear how negative emotions and ER difficulties impact PTSD treatment efficacy.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been associated with negative emotions such as shame, guilt, anger, and disgust, as well as impairments in the ability to effectively regulate these emotional states. There is evidence showing that each of these negative emotions and emotion regulation difficulties are related to the severity of PTSD stemming from various trauma types. In contrast, much less is known about the temporal relationship between these features and PTSD. Studies have found that treatments for PTSD often lead to improvements in these negative emotions and in emotion regulation difficulties, but how these features impact the efficacy of various PTSD treatments is less clear.