What does emotology?

Answer 1

What is emotology? How is emotional wisdom defined? What does it mean to "culture" something? Emotology is the study and cultivation of emotional life and ultimately the culturing of emotional wisdom. The goal of Emotology is to strengthen and deepen emotional well-being and wisdom at the individual, familial, community, societal and eco-dependent levels. Emotology involves interdisciplinary contributions from psychology, philosophy and life sciences on the nature and nurture of human emotions, to better culture emotional wisdom. In this context, the word culture is used not as a noun but as a verb. Individual artists and groups who live the art spirit, who enjoy being on the creative, healing and growing edge of cultural change and enrichment understand that culture is as much a verb as it is a noun. Bacteriologists culture bacteria in petri dishes. Bakers and brewers culture yeast for their breads and brew. Artists add to culture through their creative efforts. Emotologists culture the conditions that stimulate and sustain emotional wisdom. Culture, the noun, represents the net accumulation of culturing what is deemed good.

Emotology, then, is the study and cultivation of emotional life and emotional wisdom. Emotology provides a holistic response to the question: how do we best nurture human nature to produce not just emotional intelligence but emotional wisdom? The study of human emotions deserves the designation of Emotology, a field of study of its own and not just a sub-branch of psychology, because emotions encompass so much more than psychology. Emotional life and all that contributes to emotional life cannot be reduced to, relegated to nor sufficiently understood by psychology. Culture, family life, music, the weather, age, physical health, international relations and much more are involved in the emotional life of groups and their members. Yet, psychology has a rich history of interest in things emotional.

"We remain on the surface so long as we treat only memories and ideas. The only valuable things in psychic life are, rather, the emotions. All psychic powers are significant only through their fitness to awaken emotions. Ideas are repressed only because they are connected with the liberation of emotions (Freud, 1921, p. 159)."

Human feelings, emotions and passions are of perennial importance to human well-being. From the dawn of human evolution, through its long days and foreseeable future, the fears and joys, the frustrations and hopes, the resentments and loves, the despairs and curiosities mark the meaningful conditions and significant moments of our lives. In what we feel, the emotions of life say something holistic about our well-being and growth in consciousness.

That we are born emotional creatures there can be no doubt. The science fictional Startrek characters of Spock and Data, revealed indirectly our nature were it devoid of emotion. But we are not; we are instead both blessed and cursed by our emotional heritage. Passions can be dangerous. It has been said that the storms of anger and the rivers of hate have taken more lives and destroyed more property than have floods of water, gales or eruptions.

"Emotions are not only the most important factors in the life of the individual human being, but they are also the most powerful forces of nature known to us. Every page in the history of nations testifies to their invincible power. The storm of passions has cost more lives and has destroyed more lands than hurricanes; their floods have wiped out more towns than floods of water (Lange, 1922, p. 34)."

Observing and influencing the emotions of others through their own expression of emotion has been central to the success of salesmen, hunters, soldiers, politicians, business leaders, and especially parents, spouses, family and friends.

"The movements of expression in the face and body … are in themselves of much importance for our welfare. They serve as the first means of communication between the mother and her infant; she smiles approval, and thus encourages her child on the right path, or frowns disapproval. We readily perceive sympathy in others by their expression; our sufferings are thus mitigated and our pleasures increased; and mutual good feeling is thus strengthened (Darwin, 1965, p. 364)."

There is something wonderfully humane, tender and precious about our feelings and sentiments. Mothers, fathers, lovers, friends and family members know well the meaningfulness of emotional ties, as they do the difficult times of emotional distress. The positive emotions have been important to the success of healers, teachers, therapists and religious leaders. Through the energies and power of impassioned involvement and commitment, individuals have plumbed the depths and scaled the heights of human goodness, and made secure the well being of children, families and community. Regarding the need for a humanistic statement on the central significance of our emotional nature, the comments by Plutchik point in the right direction:

"The emotions have always been of central concern to men. In every endeavor, in every major human enterprise, the emotions are somehow involved. Almost every great philosopher from Socrates to Spinoza, from Kant to Dewy, from Bergson to Russell has been concerned with the nature of emotion and has speculated and theorized about its origins, expressions, effects, its place in the economy of human life. Theologians have recognized the significance of certain emotions in connection with religious experience and have made the training of emotions a central, if implicit, part of religious training. Writers, artists, and musicians have always attempted to appeal to the emotions, to affect and move the audience through symbolic communication. And the development in the last half century of psychoanalysis, clinical psychology, and psychosomatic medicine has brought the role of emotion in health and disease sharply to our attention (Plutchik, 1962, pp. 3-4)."

What remains missing from this statement is the role of emotion in humanistic, transpersonal, holistic and organic psychology. What remains missing is the level of understanding that goes deeper than posing the dichotomy of nature versus nurture in the causal analysis of emotional life. What also remains missing is the significance of the full spectrum of emotions, not just the traditional preoccupation of psychology with the negative emotions of anxiety, hostility, depression or despair.

"Emotions play a central role in the significant events of our lives. Even though clinical theories of psychopathology are centered on emotion, the rational emphasis has not been on a broad spectrum of emotions, but mainly on anxiety. Depression and guilt have sometimes been minor exceptions to this almost exclusive concentration on anxiety as the emotion underlying psychopathology. Even less attention has been given to the positive emotions. This de-emphasis of emotion stands in marked contrast to the rich and central place given to the topic by the great dramatists and writers of fiction. Ironically, all but social scientists have recognized that emotions lie at the center of human experience and adaptation (Lazarus, 1991, pp. 3-5)."

"If we are to speak of an organismic concept, one that best expresses the adaptational wholeness or integrity of persons rather than merely separate functions, emotion is surely it. When we react with an emotion, especially a strong one, every fiber of our being is likely to be engaged-our attention and thoughts, our needs and desires, and even our bodies. The reaction tells us that an important value or goal has been engaged and is being harmed, placed at risk, or advanced. From an emotional reaction we can learn much about what a person has at stake in the encounter with the environment or in life in general, how that person interprets self and world, and how harms, threats and challenges are coped with. No other concept in psychology is as richly revealing of the way an individual relates to life and to the specifics of the physical and social environment. (Lazarus, 1991, pp. 6-7)."

From a depth perspective, it must be recognized that those living have not invented the emotions. Rather, we are the heirs who receive at birth the legacy of all the passions and emotions known to history and evolution. What mysteries and hopes lie dormant as seeds in the field of emotion? What excesses of inflamed passions or undermining despair can be brought under control? Is it better to express or is it better to suppress our emotions?

"Anything unexpressed which wants to be expressed can make you feel uncomfortable. And one of the most common unexpressed experiences is resentment. Resentment is the most important expression of an impasse-of being stuck. If you are resentful, you're stuck; you neither can move forward and have it out, express your anger, change the world so that you'll get satisfaction, nor can you let go and forget whatever disturbs you. This is the unfinished situation par excellence (Perls, 1969, pp. 51-52)."

Emotional life developed slowly. It emerges from the roots of our evolution and then again from the beginnings of our personal development. Is it not wise to nurture the nature of emotions, to cultivate their more healthy and beneficent kind? But how do we best nurture these seeds and young saplings, not to poison the hearts of men, women and children, but to heal and nurture their spirits? These are relevant questions for a humanistic, holistic and organic psychology of emotion.