Emotion regulation strategies vary in depth of processing. For instance, reappraisal requires greater engagement than distraction. This affects short-term and long-term response to stimuli. The engagement-disengagement dimension provides a useful framework for understanding the outcomes of emotion regulation in normative contexts and in internalizing psychopathology. First, I show how disengaged emotion regulation strategies such as distraction may have short-term benefits (e.g., faster implementation), but may come with long-term costs (e.g., increased electrocortical processing of stimuli at subsequent encounter). Therefore, the adaptive selection of an emotion regulation strategy should include consideration of emotional engagement-disengagement. Second, I describe how individuals with more comorbid internalizing psychopathology (e.g., multiple anxiety and depressive diagnoses) and those with lower functioning are characterized by disengagement from negative stimuli as measured by the late positive potential (LPP). Therefore, chronic disengagement from negative stimuli may contribute to worse outcomes in the internalizing disorders. Moreover, patients with emotional disengagement appear to benefit less from negative-emotion focused therapies. Positive emotion focused treatments may be well-suited to these patients because they do not rely on extinction of negative emotional responses. Overall, emotional disengagement has benefits in the short-term but may be poorly suited to emotional coping in the longer term.