Emotional Dysregulation: The Clinical Intervention of Psychodynamic University Counselling

Abstract

The present work aims to discuss the psychodynamic treatment provided in a Counselling Centre for University Students. We present the methodology and procedure of Counselling University Services psychodynamically oriented: the treatment consists of four weekly sessions and a fifth session three months later (follow-up). We will focus on a very frequent clinical topic reported by university students: emotional dysregulation. We will provide two clinical vignettes and report the main effects obtained by psychodynamic counselling on developing adaptive psychological functioning related to an increase in socialization and behavioural autonomy, as well as a greater definition of identity. Finally, in the light of the reflections illustrated, we underline the importance of promoting university counselling services to help students find more functional strategies in their emotion regulation process: from the capacity to read one’s emotional states and to give them meaning, to the development of the more adaptive behavioural responses to cope with the developmental tasks and the inevitably linked academic performance.

Keywords

• adaptive functioning
• clinical vignettes
• emotional dysregulation
• university counselling
• university students