Terms and Definitions
It is useful to provide a few terms and definitions: Emotional error, in the present context, is
taken to result from an influence of emotion on a provider’s decision making that adversely
Emotion Cognition
Behaviorimpacts patient management. Emotional dysregulation refers to counterproductive intrapsychic
and interpersonal behaviors that may result in response to emotional upheaval. 25 Cognitive(and
affective) control refers to “…the ability to develop and carry out temporally extended plans of
action, especially novel ones, to do so in the absence of sensory cues, to resist distraction and
interference, and to update goals and sub goals in a flexible manner‟.
21 Two further important
constructs critical to the present discussion require more detailed description:
countertransference and attribution.