Affect Labeling - Experimental Evaluation and Behavioral Intervention

Main study: AFFECT LABELING - DAILY EXERCISE IN PUTTING WORDS ON EMOTIONS DESIGN AND PROCEDURE This clinical study is a randomized, wait-list controlled design with repeated measurements. Participants are randomized at inclusion between being directly offered a 14-day course to train AL and waiting two weeks before beginning the intervention. Participants are blind to this randomization and do not know that they are in the waitlist condition, in order to avoid nocebo effects. The randomization is done 1: 1, and stratified by clinical categorization (participants with or without a psychiatric diagnosis). The course is given via a secure web platform (BASS4) in which the participant also makes all their assessments, and interacts with the study material and their course leader (clinical psychologist or master level psychology students). Intervention - web course in affect labeling The intervention is given as a two week internet-delivered course in using AL with the guidance of a course leader (licensed psychologist or psychologist assistant under supervision). The course is divided into two modules where module 1 contains a) Psychoeducation about different emotions and its function, b) Information about AL and its potential emotion-regulating effect, c) Instruction on how to use AL in everyday life and d) Planning of daily short exercises in naming emotions. Daily registration with multiple choice answers is introduced to help the practice of AL. All assessments are web-based and reminders are sent to the participants' cellphone. The course leader is active in providing feedback on the exercises and planning. Module 2 is largely a continuation of module 1 where any obstacles and other difficulties are discussed in order to increase the chance of active practice in AL, and continued daily practice. Module 3 is a brief summary of what has been taught and is made available to the participant after post-assessment. Laboratory sub-study: Participants will also participate in a laboratory-based study where the emotion regulating effect of AL will be compared with distraction or passive viewing while being exposed to emotionally provocative visual stimuli. Participants are exposed to 3 blocks of 8 images and questions about the images ("trials") with equal numbers of negative and neutral valence in three conditions: instruction to "Watch", instruction to use AL and instruction to use Distraction. The instructions and pictures are given in a randomized, balanced order. Before each block, a 3-second instruction is displayed that indicates whether the participant should use "Watch", "AL" or "Distraction" for all 8 images in the block. All participants will carry out the laboratory sub-study on two occasions: before and after the 14 day period it takes for the individuals who directly receives the web-based course in AL to complete it.