Archive for the ‘emotional maturity’ Category

Emotional resilience, emotional maturity, emotion regulation and impulse control

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

I have been doing a lot of research around the subject of emotional resilience, particularly from a medical / neurological perspective.
There are a couple of terms that are emerging from the literature which are very useful and really need to enter the public lexicon; emotion regulation and impulse control.

Emotional resilience is largely becoming seen as the ability to bounce back after some negative emotional event.

Emotion regulation is somewhat of a bigger concept than emotional resilience and includes the idea of ’state control’ or the ability to consciously change emotional state at will and is used extensively in the medical literature.

Both ‘emotional resilience’ and ‘emotion regulation’ are frequently used interchangeably in the literature.

Impulse control is an interesting concept that is often linked to emotional regulation. Reading the literature researchers are clearly seeing impulse control as separate (but linked) from emotion regulation. When you think about it impulses are more of a ‘knee jerk’ habit than a pure emotion. Impulses are drives towards a certain behaviour, they have an emotional basis and are either a direct response to an emotion or are behavioural or cognitive habit that has become associated to an emotion.

Emotional maturity is a catchall judgment / description or measurement of the level of emotional acuity a person has in comparison to others. Maturity is a comparative concept. It tends to be used to incorporate all of the above terms and more.

Just doing a quick literature search I found the following:

In the management / leadership literature the term emotional resilience is the most frequently used term. There is very little reference to impulse control.

In the medical literature ‘emotional resilience’ is a growing phrase used and has recently overtaken ‘emotion regulation’ and ‘impulse control’ in terms of popularity. Neurological papers tend to talk more about emotion regulation than other types of medical research articles. In total there are more articles about emotion regulation its just that the idea of emotional resilience has recently overtaken emotion regulation in terms of use.

Emotional resilience is most often used in psychological research journals with emotion regulation and impulse control following close behind.

Psychiatry journals tend to refer to emotion regulation above all other terms.

Reading the articles I do get the sense that the terms emotional resilience and emotion regulation are being used interchangeably even though they do have different meanings. In the public especially the realm of the internet when you put the terms in parenthesis the following falls out:

“Emotional Resilience” 72,000 hits

“Emotion Regulation” returns 165,000 hits

“Impulse control” brings back a whopping 603,000 hits

“Emotional maturity” has 253,000 results.

But what about terms searched for? These figures are terms searched for globally per month.

Emotional resilience has approx 1,900 searches per month

Emotion regulation has 6,600 searches per month

Emotional maturity also has about 6,600 searches per month

Impulse control has approximately 22,200 searches per month.

Interesting…

Posted in Definitions in Emotional Resilience, Emotional Resilience Research, emotion regulation, emotional maturity, emotional resilience, impulse control | No Comments »

Emotional resilience v emotional maturity III: Attributes of emotional maturity

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Think about a person who is emotionally immature. What are they like?

Now think about a person who is emotionally mature. What are they like?

What is the difference between the two?

Chances are you will probably include some of the following attributes:

  • Accurate self confidence
  • A good level of self esteem
  • The ability to express the full range of emotions appropriately - this includes anger, joy, love and fear
  • Respect for your own and others emotional states
  • The ability to experience and enjoy intimacy and solitude
  • Be able to be emotionally balanced in emotionally charged situations
  • The ability to make balanced decisions in difficult situations
  • Can make independent decisions and not be swayed by group or peer pressure
  • Able to work on your own and as a constructive part of a group
  • Mood stability, not prone to ‘downers’, negative or overly positive or unrealistic pessimistic or optimistic thinking
  • Seeks reality regardless of the personal consequences
  • Ability to nurture others and self
  • Ability to deal with own inappropriate fears and not catch those of others (emotional resilience)
  • Not prone to panic / calm in the face of adversity
  • Healthy self image
  • Assertive as opposed to aggressive, submissive, passive aggressive or manipulative.
  • Compassionate to self and others
  • Seeks to understand own responses and those of others
  • Accurately reflect on own performance - not prone to over or under estimating the situation
  • Can give and actively seek accurate and honest feedback
  • Can be honest even in situations where this might be challenged
  • Aware of own biases and actively looks to find others.

All of the above are attributes of emotional maturity. Stay tuned for Emotional Maturity and Emotional Resilience questionnaires - coming soon to this site.

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Emotional Resilience v’s Emotional Maturity: an internal suit of armour - article II

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Jeremy was waiting to go up to the stage to do his presentation. He knew these feelings so well. They were like old friends, only the type of friends who you hide from when they turn up on your doorstep.  Very familiar but unwelcome, especially when you need to impress.
The symptoms were so familiar. His hands were sweating, he was having problems hearing things, his stomach was tightening and his mouth and throat were dry. He was starting to feel sick as his moment got closer and closer.

How did the others manage to go up there without any nerves? They just looked so calm and composed, even laughing and joking. This was no joke. He hoped that someone would just call it all off, the roof to collapse, anything.
Bev, who was sat next to him on the front row could feel Jeremy’s discomfort. Not that Jeremy would have called it discomfort. Discomfort is like trapped wind or a sore elbow, this was more like total collapse, during an earthquake complete with falling masonry and trees.
“Jerry, You OK?” Bev whispered
“Yes” he managed weakly
“I can help” Bev offered
“It’s ok thanks”
“No really I can help – I will stand up and take off all my cloths then you won’t have to go on.”
Jeremy laughed.
“My nakedness isn’t that funny” she remonstrated in a playfully
“I didn’t mean…” Jeremy stammered
“Wow you have got this bad haven’t you?” She turned to look at her colleague.  Jeremy turned to face her and she could see the look of someone who had just seen their first live nightmare.
“Listen” she said gently, try this…
A few moments later Jeremy’s face had gained colour, looked more animated and his posture was straighter and positive. “Wow that’s amazing, I feel a lot calmer. How did you do that?”
“Just a little trick I picked up on a course.” Bev replied. “When you go up try this. You’ll find it makes all the difference. All you need to do is…”
Jeremy calmed down and went up, not to his death but to deliver a calm and composed presentation.
Afterwards he saw Bev smiling at him. “What was that you do to me? It felt really odd being up there and being calm and able to think.”
“They are just a couple of tools I have learnt to help me be more emotionally resilient.”
“Emotionally resilient?”
“Yes it’s a bit like having your own internal suit of armour, you can put it on when you need it.”
“So does this mean that you never feel scared?” Jeremy asked

“Not at all, it just means that when you start to feel something you can control it rather than having you feelings and emotions control your mind and actions.”

Bev continued “You see we often end up just reacting to our fears, like you were just before you went up to speak. Emotional resilience is just about knowing where you are emotionally at any time, and then being able to deal with your emotions in a positive way, so they don’t adversely affect your actions, reactions, thinking and decisions. So that you do what you need to and perform like you can.”

“My anxiety was certainly changing the way I was thinking and reacting, that’s for sure. That is until you er… did what you did with me, it really helped me overcome my fear”
Bev smiled.

“So is that the same as emotional maturity?” Jeremy enquired
“No not all being emotionally resilient is just part of being emotionally mature. Being emotionally mature means you are resilient. Being emotionally resilient does not necessarily mean you are emotionally mature. Resilience is a subset of maturity.”

In the third article of this series I will look at just what the attributes of emotional maturity are, compared to emotional resilience.

Posted in Decision making, Definitions in Emotional Resilience, emotional maturity, overcome fear | No Comments »

Emotional maturity / emotional resilience and the dog with one spot.

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Emotional maturity and emotional resilience are funny things. Spot the difference:

Jay (insert any other name here) wakes up and his (add your own gender) head starts to clear. Today is the day he has to xxxxx (fill in your own ugh thought here).

Breakfast is largely a silent affair. Jay’s wife, a financial consultant, and his three children know not to puncture into Jay’s world on mornings like this. They can just sense the tension and over the years they have learnt the consequences of trying to engage Jay when he is in one of his ‘moods’.

The last time Jay was in a ‘mood’ and his daughter tried to cheer him up xxxx (add your own observed response of a person in a mood when people were trying to reach out to them / you) happened. As a result they now know not to even try but to just stay quiet and make sure he doesn’t see the silent face pulling and eye rolling they amuse each other with at times like this. It is their way of breaking the tension without the consequences.

On the way to work another driver, Sally, miscalculates a junction. The Sally, who was hitherto quite happy going about her daily business ends up in one of those random events and accidentally pulls out in front of Jay, causing Jay to have to break sharply to avoid a collision. Jay swears at the other driver and blows his horn, keeping his fist on the horn for what appears to be ages. Other drivers start to look.  Then the traffic slows. Jay is immediately behind the luckless Sally in the now stationary queue of traffic.

Jay cannot contain himself anymore. Sally glances in her mirror to see the tall man  open his car door and stride towards her. Sally locks her doors as her pupils open wide as she looks too see if there is anyway she can move the car forward. She starts to shake. Jay reaches Sally’s door and motions for the window to be opened. Sally just stares ahead, wishing and praying for the traffic to move. She doesn’t acknowledge Jay’s gesticulations and shouting.

Suddenly there is a loud bang. Sally jumps but keeps looking ahead, her shaking becoming visible now. Keeping he head pointing forward she quickly glances sideways with just her eyes. Jay has kicked the door and is still shouting and gesticulating when finally the traffic moves forward. Sally pulls away.

It is Jay’s turn to have horns blown at him as he quickly walks back to his car.

Sally is quiet at work as she reflects on the events of the morning. She wonders what she did wrong to deserve this. As she sits in her office, Dan who has been a bit of a problem recently knocks on her door. “Sally can I just ask you about this account?”

Sally shouts back “No Dan you can’t. For crying out loud just get on with your work. Why are you only one in this office that has to keep asking stupid questions. Everyone else can do their job.” Sally is shocked at her outburst but feels justified. Dan does not appear able to learn. He keeps asking the same questions. Argh.

Dan sits quietly, aware of all the eyes in the open plan office boring into the back of his head. “What did I do to deserve that? he asks himself. He keeps himself quietly to himself for the rest of the day. When he gets home that evening, late because he had to finish his work without the help he needed, his dinner is somewhat cool. “Yuk this is cold I can’t eat cold dinner.” he complains to his partner Zoey.

“Listen buster your dinner will be warm next time alright because it will be in the dog.” Zoey marches into the kitchen muttering ‘ungrateful git’ under her breath just loud enough for Dan to hear, of course. “What did I do? I just made him dinner and he complains.” again with just enough voice that she hopes it will carry through to Dan. The dog is sleeping peacefully, curled up on the kitchen floor only. She kicks him “GETOUTOFTHEKITCHENYOUONESPOTTEDFREAK. YOUSHOULDN’TBEINHERE.” Spot yelps and runs thinking “What the hell did I do to deserve that?” when he sees a cat…

The endemic continues.

In my next post we will have a look at emotional maturity v’s emotional resilience. What they are and how they relate to each other.

Posted in Definitions in Emotional Resilience, emotional maturity | No Comments »

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Thursday, 18 March 2010 08:23
currently in Abu Dhabi - bit s'warm.
Saturday, 13 March 2010 21:23
heading for Nizwa in Oman. Dx
Saturday, 13 March 2010 02:55
38C in Muscat Oman, yesterday. Work today - nice to see the sun.

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