Emotional Regulation Strategies in Lynch Syndrome Diagnosis Psychological Adjustment – A Review

The purpose of this article is to investigate the role of emotional regulation (ER) as a process underlying a variety of symptoms associated with Lynch syndrome (depression, anxiety, fear of cancer recurrence (FCR), insomnia, fatigue, pain, and subjective cognitive difficulties in patients with Lynch syndrome. Firstly, we provided an overview of the main psychopathological symptoms found in cancer patients and their impact, and then an overview of emotional regulation strategies and discussed the main impact ER strategies have on cancer patients, especially emotional suppression and experiential avoidance, as found in evidence-based studies. Recent research has shown that two ER strategies generally considered maladaptive, emotional suppression and experiential avoidance were significantly associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, FCR, fatigue, and cognitive difficulties. We propose that experiential avoidance and emotional suppression may be common transdiagnostic mechanisms for a common set of psychological symptoms in Lynch syndrome patients, a hypothesis to be tested in a future study.