When I was a pupil at primary school, the head teacher angrily told me that I was stupid and un-teachable.
I felt so ashamed and wished that I didn’t exist! Years later, I realised that he and I lacked emotional intelligence. He shouted at me, because of his incapacity to use his emotions intelligently. I was not able to use my emotions intelligently and so I did not speak up for myself.
So, what do I mean by being emotionally intelligent? Although there are various definitions, the one which is consensually agreed is this: When you can experience feeling your own emotions and sense what others are feeling, and manage those emotions in an appropriate way, while keeping yourself and those around you content.
Research and theory point to the proposal that emotional intelligence is the scaffolding for successful relationships. It was Darwin, in ‘The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals’, who initially documented that emotions are central to our survival as a species. From that publication until the last century, when Edward Thorndike suggested that they were in fact important, psychologists put emotions on the back-burner. He named the skill of understanding others as well as one’s own self as ‘social intelligence’.
In the 21st Century, there is growing research and theorising in this area, illustrating that emotional intelligence can ward off mental disorders and physical illness (for more about this see publications by, for example, Deepak Chopra and William Bloom – as well my own work). Unless emotions are dealt with appropriately, negative ones such as anger can actually cause our immune systems to weaken!
What about positive emotions such as happiness and love? What effect do these have on our minds, bodies and souls? Well, the fact is that these types of emotions promote mental and physical health. Remarkably, Dr. Dean Ornsish, a medic in the USA, has discovered a way of reversing heart disease. A major component of the heart disease reversal package is emotional disclosure. His work shows repeatedly that disclosing the emotions that are the most difficult to share, is a major factor in prolonging life.
This skill can be nurtured in children, and it is never too late for adults to learn how to do it to. Intriguingly, we also know from research such as that undertaken by Sue Gerhardt* that the beginnings of emotional intelligence can start in the womb. A stressed pregnant mother, for example, can result in a premature birth or diminished fetal brain development.
If only we lived in an ideal world. But we don’t. Yet we can get closer to it by growing our emotional intelligence. To do this, we can socialise with emotionally intelligent individuals, and read and watch movies where we follow characters who are emotionally literate (whether fictional or not). We can also start to share our profoundest emotions, show kindness to others and last but not least, show compassion to ourselves.
* Sue Gerhardt co-founded the Oxford Parent Infant Project (OXPIP) in the UK. She is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and author of ‘Why Love Matters’ and 'The Selfish Society’.
Betty Rudd is the author of Help Your Child Develop Emotional Literacy. You can read more about Betty and her work at: www.emotionalliteracy.eu
Melanie Wilson
Commissioning Editor (Professional Education)
