diagram emotional process
22 March 2010
Emotions are generated out of met and or unmet basic human needs. Needs are universal (Maslow, Heron, Rosenberg), the way of reacting is personal. Scientists suggest that there are at least 8 primary human emotions. Basic needs calls John Heron: to love and to be loved, to understand and to be understood, and to be self-direted and to belong to a greater whole.
Our society has tended to see emotions as 'irrational', and to favour rational intelligence over emotional intelligence. It is true that recent advances in brain science (for example, Joseph LeDoux's work, The Emotional Brain) have discovered that our brains house two centres of knowledge: the rational and the emotional ways of knowing, and of memory. (This is most clearly seen when we are under the influence of very strong 'survival' emotions – for example, when we are panicking we tend not to behave very rationally!) However, strong connections exist between the two centres and they normally work together. CCI is interested in the phenomenon of emotional memory (our earliest memories are stored emotionally, not rationally), and in exploring ways to co-ordinate emotions and rationality in healthy ways.
Candace B. Pert is another scientist with something to add here. She believes that memories and emotions are mediated via receptors on cell surfaces and the signalling substances that interact with them, used to communicate between cells and systems. These receptors and substances are found both in the brain and throughout the whole body, linking them. This makes sense of terms like 'gut feeling' and intuition - ways of knowing that are not necessarily 'logical' or 'rational'. Pert talks of the 'body mind', she urges us to think holistically: 'Your body is your subconscious mind, and you can't heal it by talk alone.' (See Molecules of Emotion, Candace B. Pert, chapter 7).
Emotions are real and have a powerful impact on everyday realities on our feelings, our minds, our bodies. They need to be accepted and expressed in a healthy way for the positive contribution they can bring to our lives. CCI offers a respectful format for doing this.
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