Interoceptive Awareness Skills for Emotion Regulation: Theory and Approach of Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy (MABT)

Summary & key facts

This paper explains how being aware of internal body signals (called interoceptive awareness) is tied to understanding and managing emotions. It describes a therapy named Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy (MABT) that teaches three core interoceptive skills—identifying, accessing, and appraising bodily signals—using education and hands-on body work. The authors present a theory linking interoceptive awareness to emotion regulation, note research showing MABT is acceptable and safe for some people, and say the science and teaching methods are still evolving.

Key facts:

• Interoception means sensing signals from inside the body, such as heartbeat, breathing, feelings of fullness (satiety), and activity of the autonomic nervous system.
• Interoceptive awareness is the conscious processing of those inner sensations so they become available to awareness; the paper says many interoceptive signals remain unconscious unless processed this way.
• The authors identify three interoceptive capacities that MABT aims to teach: identifying internal signals, accessing those signals, and appraising or understanding them.
• MABT is described as an individualized protocol that uses psychoeducation plus somatic (body-based) approaches to help people who have trouble noticing or using internal body signals, such as those with stress, chronic pain, or trauma histo
• The paper reports that research findings included in the article show MABT has evidence for acceptability, safety, and positive health-related outcomes, and it discusses possible mechanisms for those effects (but does not claim universal or
• The authors say there is empirical evidence linking poor or disrupted interoceptive awareness with difficulties in emotion regulation and with conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance use disorder.
• The paper notes that stress and trauma can change brain and body systems and can lead to both autonomic hyper-arousal and hypo-arousal, which can affect how people sense and interpret internal body signals.
• Publication details: the article was published in Frontiers in Psychology on 28 May 2018 (Volume 9) and, as shown on the article page, had been cited hundreds of times (387 citations) and viewed and downloaded tens of thousands of times (ab

Abstract

Emotion regulation involves a coherent relationship with the self, specifically effective communication between body, mind and feelings. Effective emotion re...

Topics

Action Observation and Synchronization Personality Disorders and Psychopathology Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments

Categories

Health Sciences Medicine Psychiatry and Mental health

Tags

Alexithymia Cognitive psychology Distress Feeling Interoception Mindfulness Neuroscience Perception Psychiatry Psychoeducation Psychological intervention Psychology Psychotherapist Self-awareness Social psychology