Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale – Short Form

What it measures

The 16-item short form of Gratz & Roemer's (2004) foundational Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, capturing six dimensions of emotion regulation difficulty. Non-Acceptance captures failure to accept negative emotional responses. Goal-Directed captures difficulty concentrating when distressed. Impulse captures difficulty controlling behaviour under negative emotion. Awareness captures failure to attend to emotional signals. Strategies captures limited access to effective regulation strategies. Clarity captures uncertainty about one's emotional state. The DERS framework conceptualises emotion dysregulation as multi-dimensional — critical for experimental research distinguishing the specific processes underlying maladaptive behaviour from generalised affect.

Representative items

• When I'm upset, I become out of control. (Impulse)
• When I'm upset, I have difficulty focusing on other things. (Goals)
• When I'm upset, I feel like I am falling apart. (Non-acceptance)
• I am confused about how I feel. (Clarity)
• I pay attention to how I feel. (R, Awareness)

Citation

Bjureberg, J., Ljótsson, B., Tull, M.T., Hedman, E., Sahlin, H., Lundh, L.G., Bjärehed, J., DiLillo, D., Messman-Moore, T., Gumpert, C.H., & Gratz, K.L. (2016). Development and validation of a brief version of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale: The DERS-16. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 38(2), 284–296.