Emotional Intelligence and Positive Psychology: discovering the keys to success
Emotions are perhaps one of those spheres of personality that we rarely value and that in western culture tend to continue to be considered something like irrational : mere outbursts of our animality that take us away from the ideal of logical, quasi-machine men.
Although it is also very true that this vision is no longer as strong as it was in the times of the Enlightenment, The truth is that it continues to exist and continues to permeate a dualistic vision that separates reason from the heart" or rather, of emotions.
Two essential concepts: Positive Psychology and Emotional Intelligence
This conception of the human person that falls more within the scope of philosophical study and discussion has had repercussions beyond the merely theoretical. Indeed, in its moment the enlightened vision led to important political and social changes attested in any history book and together with them a huge scientific and industrial advance that in a few decades advanced by leaps and bounds and whose benefits and consequences we continue living today.
Suffice it to observe life always fast and moving in any big city, especially in industrialized countries; the need for efficiency and effectiveness as well as success both personally and socially, the transformation of social relationships from new technologies and social networks where a deep thought does not have more than 140 characters or lasts more than a few hours how much or where the vision that a person has changes according to their Facebook status ; the need to overcome separativity[i] by entering into the game of the supply and demand market in love based more on sentimentality and, unfortunately, on sex appeal; the change in the way of understanding the term traditional equality that held the Christian view of the world to one where equality it is no longer being the same in nature but with intrinsic differences that made us different and we looked for unity, but where equality it has become synonymous with identity [ii]. Numerous authors have studied and written about the consequences of contemporary society: Frankl, Fromm, Goleman, among others.
"Know yourself"
Now, faced with this reality facing the world in which we live, Psychology has chosen to return, in fact, to a very basic principle: Know yourself . As old as the oracle of Delphi from where the legend says that it arose and always important because man is always the same beyond the change of his social and historical circumstances. This old and always new saying has been translated today in the so-called emotional intelligence that could be broadly defined as "the ability or ability to know how to perceive, understand and manage one's emotions" [iii].
Emotions are thus conceived not as something extrinsic to be of the human person, but as an integral part of the whole capable of entering the realm of reason and, consequently, of being channeled for the good of the person and society. This means that emotions are not enemies to be oppressed or controlled, but rather a way to develop, capable of being trained and apprehended so that the person can use them to their full potential, not only having one more life. healthy and harmonious, but also the ability to face the adversities that arise in it.
The road to emotional intelligence
Getting the best out of the human being is perhaps one of the most praiseworthy and noble things that Psychology is doing today. Since psychological science began to conform as such, special emphasis was always given to what was wrong with the human being: Mental disorders, the unconscious and the Freudian theory . The vision that one still has of psychology is still that of a kind of madman in many places and in some way promoted by the mass media.
Emotional Intelligence is just one of those new trends in which the focus, without forgetting the weak side of Man, looks more to what we do in fact: The positive evaluation of emotions, the search for happiness and its achievement, love, strengths and virtues, Being able to achieve the goals set are some of the new areas as psychology wants to help the human being.
Positive Psychology: the foundations of the perfectible being
This new approach is what we call Positive Psychology . It is not just about accusing man of a fatalistic determinism (psychoanalysis and classical behaviorism), but of seeing him as a s er perfectible , always open to improve and, above all, not as a sick being to be diagnosed.
This is perhaps one of the most indispensable things in this century full of noise, ever changing information, social and electronic networks, and a market eager to have professionals who fit in their molds on the one hand, and, on the other, consumers of increasingly perishable items.
What Emotional Intelligence and Positive Psychology give to the world is the ability to be a person: Not losing my self in front of everything that surrounds me (reification) and, above all, giving the tools to be able to live fully .
Bibiliographic references:
- Coon, D. and Mitterer, J. (2010) Introduction to psychology: Access to mind and behavior. Mexico D. F .: Cengage learning
- Fromm, E. (2000) The art of Loving. Mexico D. F .: Paidós
- Goleman, D. (1995) Intelligence thrillsl. Mexico D. F .: Javier Vergara Editor
- Pretelín, F. (2012) Referendum Twitter. Mexico D. F .: Coyoacán
- Rojas, E. (1992) The Light man, a life without values. Mexico D. F .: Booke
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- [i] Fromm, E. (2000) The art of love. Mexico D. F .: Paidós, p. 19
- [ii] Cf. FROMM, E. Ob. Cit., P. 24-25
