Mood dysregulation across developmental psychopathology - general concepts and disorder specific expressions

Mood regulation problems are a common source of concern for clinicians, parents and young people alike. Some forms of mood dysregulation - in particular, perhaps, those involving depressed and elated mood - have received extensive research attention across the years. By contrast, there is vanishingly little research on irritable mood, anger and touchiness, even though these problems are among the most prominent that any clinician is likely to encounter.
The aim of this Special Issue (SI) is to help build an evidence base on mood regulation problems of this kind, and to stimulate further research in the field. The guest editors of the SI are extremely grateful to the contributing authors, who responded with enthusiasm to the invitation for contributions addressing this key issue in psychopathology. Each article went through JCPP's standard rigorous process of external review. The contributions are important not least because they challenge a number of long-held views, highlight the clinical relevance of mood regulation problems, and identify areas where there is a pressing need for further research. We hope that the SI will provide clinicians (who often feel ill-equipped to deal with such forms of mood dysregulation), with some practically translatable knowledge. We also hope it will offer researchers a framework for approaching outstanding questions about aetiology, and for exploring the mechanisms that underlie the problems many children and young people face in regulating their moods.