JOHNSON CITY (Oct. 30, 2020) – The method by which children learn to share and manage their emotions plays an instrumental role in their mental health as adults. Knowing how children learn about emotions and what they need to learn in order to recognize, understand and respond to the emotions of self and others can help adults understand this better.
Dr. Rachel Miller-Slough will address this topic in “Emotion Socialization: Implications for Youth Psychosocial Adjustment,” a talk in the “Women on Wednesdays” series sponsored by East Tennessee State University’s Women’s Studies Program. This free public talk will be given on Nov. 4 at noon via Zoom; the livestream may be viewed at etsu.zoom.us/j/96401232165.
Youth learn to express and regulate their emotions through interacting with others. This process, known as emotion socialization, has numerous implications for youth psychosocial adjustment. While considering such factors as gender, sociocultural context and developmental timelines, Miller-Slough will present her research on how adolescents are socialized to express their emotions in the context of family relationships and friendships, and how this impacts youth school adjustment, emotional well-being and mental health. She will also discuss implications for clinical practice and directions for future research.
Miller-Slough is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and director of the Developmental Psychopathology Lab at ETSU. She is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in children, adolescents and families. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Virginia Tech and completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University Medical Center.
Miller-Slough’s research focuses on risk and protective factors for youth mental health, with an emphasis on how families communicate about emotion. Her research program also addresses how these findings can translate into clinical practice with youth and families.
The “Women on Wednesdays” series is designed to raise awareness about the research, scholarship and community engagement conducted by women at ETSU; to provide a venue where women on campus and in the community can discuss and support each other’s work; and to give students an opportunity to meet faculty who could become mentors for their studies.
For more information, contact Dr. Phyllis Thompson, ETSU director of Women’s Studies, at 423-439-4125.