Eulalee Thompson

Angry. Happy. Sad. Mad. Glad. Overwhelmed. Confused. Comfortable. Fearful. Do you know how you're really feeling right now? Maybe you think "Oh, I am always fine and I'm always happy".

Some mental health experts now say that one's EQ or emotional intelligence is just as important and sometimes even more powerful a marker of success than one's IQ or intelligence quotient. That is still open to debate.

The term emotional intelligence has made the shift from the world of jargons used by mental health experts to the popular culture, sometimes with varied interpretations. Almost every specialty area now would like their candidates to identify and develop their EQ and what exactly is it? Psychologists Mayer et al in the 1990s defined EQ as 'the capacity to reason with emotion in four areas: to perceive emotion, to integrate it in thought, to understand it and to manage it'.

This four-pronged model was further developed by the psychologists into 12 ability tasks (or scales) that are used to measure an individual's emotional intelligence independent of other variables. (One task for instance would include asking the individual to identify a set of emotions).

Self-awareness

The authors of this more scientific model of emotional intelligence have been concerned about the popular stretch of the term to include a list of personality characteristics, such as empathy, motivation, persistence, warmth and social skills (APA Monitor, Vol. 8 No. 8, Sept. 1999).

However, in practice, there can be little gainsaying that people who possess a high degree of self-awareness and who can identify their changing emotional states in relation to the environment are better able to control and express these emotions in socially acceptable ways. People who are aware of their own emotions are also more aware and sensitive, in practice, to the feelings, thoughts and experiences of others. (This is called empathy).

It would, therefore, appear that Jamaica and the world could do with more people with higher emotional intelligence. Below is a simple, accessible, five-prong model, The BRAVE Technique, created and successfully used by local consultant psychiatrist, Dr. Wendel Abel, to develop people's emotional intelligence.

eulalee.thompson@gleanerjm.com.