EmotionalHealth.us - Emotional Healthcare

Emotional Maturity

At a birthday celebration some years ago, a friend of ours raised a glass and said, “I never grew up and I never stopped growing.”

What is emotional maturity? DJ Chuang writes, “Emotional maturity isn’t something that necessarily grows with chronological age… Emotional maturity is being responsible for one’s behaviors. Emotional maturity recognizes it’s okay to feel. Emotional maturity doesn’t mean every person will feel the same way about a situation.”

Ken Helfant is the author of Questions to Grow By: A Path to Emotional Maturity (iUniverse, 2005). Helfant has a PhD in Educational and Social Psychology from Columbia University and is a graduate of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. He is currently in part-time private practice in Oceano, California.

In an editorial review of Helfant’s book, Ronald E. Fox, former president of the American Psychological Association, wrote, “Questions to Grow By presents a very practical and engaging way for readers to move toward increased happiness through increased emotional maturity.”

See: http://books.google.com/books?id=OHrihQZjkGAC

Jerome L. Murray has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He headed a mental health clinic in California for 15 years and was honored by the California State Senate for his contributions to the field of self-esteem. He is a consultant, speaker, and author, including a program for TrafficSchoolOnline.com in Napa and Sonoma counties (California).

Murray’s book, From Uptight to All Right, published in 1987, was endorsed by Dr. Karl Menninger of the Menninger Foundation and made required reading by the Heart Research Foundation.

In an often quoted article on emotional maturity, Are You Growing Up or Just Getting Older?, published in 1992, Murray wrote:

“We have no control over chronological age, and only minimal control over intellectual and physiological age; however, we can choose our social and emotional age… A person may be chronologically mature, but emotionally immature. A person may also be intellectually mature, but emotionally immature… Just because someone is “grown-up” by age doesn’t mean they are “grown-up” emotionally… Your relationships are dependent upon your total emotional development.”

Murray lists four symptoms of emotional immaturity, eight characteristics of emotional maturity, and five ways to grow more emotionally mature.

See: http://www.sonic.net/~drmurray/maturity.htm

Searching the Internet, we found several quizzes and tests for emotional maturity, including one by Dorothy McCoy, published in September 2008.

Dorothy McCoy is a psychiatrist, licensed professional counselor, and author of several books, including The Ultimate Book Of Personality Tests (2005), From Shyness to Social Butterfly (2002), and The Manipulative Man: Identify His Behavior, Counter the Abuse, Regain Control (2006).

In her article, Understanding Emotional Maturity, McCoy wrote, “Extended, mutually satisfying relationships are the product of two emotionally mature individuals.”

Emotional Maturity Quizzes and Tests:

1) http://www.personalityone.com/emotional-maturity-test.html

2) http://www.mysticgames.com/mysticgames_cfmfiles/tests/showtest.cfm?TestID=24

3) http://www.bookofmatches.com/Emotional_Maturity_Personality.html

There are also a number of Emotional Intelligence tests on the Internet. Perhaps we’ll list some of them in another blog post.

Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman

In one of our first blog posts (October 2008), we shared news from Jamaica about a training manual, Raising Emotionally Smart Children. We explained at the time that “Emotional intelligence involves Self-awareness, Emotional management, Empathy, and Managing Relationships.”

Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., is a psychologist, author, and lecturer whose 1995 book (updated in 2005), Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (Bantam Books) is an international bestseller with more than 5 million copies in print worldwide in 30 languages.

Goleman argues that our emotions play a much greater role in thought, decision making and individual success than is commonly acknowledged. He defines “emotional intelligence” – a trait not measured by IQ tests – as a set of skills, including control of one’s impulses, self-motivation, empathy and social competence in interpersonal relationships.

In our most recent blog post, we shared about a new study from the field of neuroscience that relates to moods and perception.

The connection between neuroscience and emotions has been studied by Daniel Goleman whose book, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships (2006), explains how the rational and emotional work together to shape intelligence, using new information from neuroscience and psychology of the brain. He writes, “Social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence, can now be understood in terms of recent findings from neuroscience.”

Goleman’s latest book is Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. (See Daniel Goleman’s related interview with Bill Moyers of PBS.)

Goleman is also the author of Healing Emotions: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health (1997), Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (2003), Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self Deception (1985), and other books.

Daniel Goleman was a science writer for the The New York Times for 12 years and has taught at Harvard where he received his doctorate.

For more info: http://www.danielgoleman.info/

Mood & Perception – Feel Good See More, Feel Bad See Less

“Good and bad moods literally change the way our visual cortex operates and how we see,” says Adam Anderson, a University of Toronto professor of psychology, based on a study appearing in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, as reported by Science Daily.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine how our visual cortex processes sensory information when in good, bad, and neutral moods.

The study, supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canada Research Chairs program, concluded that “when in a positive mood, our visual cortex takes in more information, while negative moods result in tunnel vision.”

“Under positive moods, people may process a greater number of objects in their environment, which sounds like a good thing, but it also can result in distraction,” says Taylor Schmitz, a graduate student of Anderson’s and lead author of the study. “Bad moods, on the other hand, may keep us more narrowly focused, preventing us from integrating information outside of our direct attentional focus.”

‘Retail Therapy’ for Emotional Boost?

According to a HealthDay report published this week by IndyStar, a poll of 700 women “found that 79 percent said they’d go on a shopping spree to give themselves an emotional boost.”

The survey author, Karen Pine, refers to it as “compensatory consumption,” and says, “it serves as a way of regulating intense emotions.”

The poll, conducted by the University of Hertfordshire (England), found “about 40 percent listed “depression” and 60 percent listed “feeling a bit low” as reasons to go shopping and overspend. Many of the women said shopping has the power to make them feel better.”

Yeah, until the bill arrives and “buyer’s remorse” sets in.

What might begin as “retail therapy” can become problematic if/when we don’t take care of our emotional and financial well being. The best emotional boosts are the ones that are sustainable and nourish our core.

Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating: What is it? How does it apply to you? How do we overcome it?

“April is Emotional Overeating Awareness Month,” proclaims Dr. Denise Lamothe, an emotional eating expert, clinical psychologist, speaker, and author.

“Emotional eating is eating for reasons other than hunger,” says Jane Jakubczak, a registered dietitian at the University of Maryland. “Instead of the physical symptom of hunger initiating the eating, an emotion triggers the eating.”

According to the WebMD network, “experts estimate that 75% of overeating is caused by emotions.” In its section about emotional eating, Medicine.Net addresses how we can identify eating triggers and break ourselves of this habit. It concludes, “By identifying what triggers our eating, we can substitute more appropriate techniques to manage our emotional problems and take food and weight gain out of the equation.”

Psychology Today offers an “Eating Disorders and Emotional Eating Test” (62 questions, 30-35 minutes) that will assess your eating habits to determine whether your relationship to food is healthy or damaging. It will also assess whether you have tendencies towards certain documented eating disorders.

The web site for Prevention Magazine features a section devoted to “Overcoming Emotional Eating” that includes over thirty articles.

Geneen Roth, author of Breaking Free from Emotional Eating, says “our relationship to food is a perfect reflection of our relationship to life itself.” She believes “the way to transform our relationship with food is to be open, curious and kind with ourselves instead of punishing, impatient and harsh.”

Emotional Fitness – Barton Goldsmith

Emotional Fitness is a weekly newspaper column that appears in more than two hundred newspapers. Its author, Barton Goldsmith, has more than twenty years of experience as a therapist and has been named one of the country’s top relationship experts by Cosmopolitan magazine. He also hosts a weekly radio show on KCLU/NPR, broadcast in the Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara areas.

Goldsmith’s first book, Emotional Fitness for Couples, was published in 2006. His new book, Emotional Fitness for Intimacy, will be published this week by New Harbinger Publications.

About his first book, New Harbinger wrote, “Peak athletic performance requires regular exercise, and a great relationship depends on regular emotional practice to stay in top form. Don’t wait for a crisis to make you scramble to save your relationship. Start building emotional fitness today! Emotional Fitness for Couples is a collection of simple tips that will energize you and hone your relationship skills to championship levels-in just ten minutes a day.”

For more about Barton Goldsmith: www.bartongoldsmith.com

For more about New Harbinger Publications, publisher of scientifically sound self-help books that deal with a range of topics in psychology, health, and personal growth: www.newharbinger.com

Emotional Resilience

Our January 3 blog entry, “The Road to Resilience” was inspired by a seven page brochure from the American Psychological Association and the Discovery Health Channel that includes a series of questions to ask yourself and describes ten ways to build resilience.

An article published this week by McClatchy (the third-largest newspaper company in the USA) about “the emotional underside” or “emotional underpinning” of our current economic crisis asks, “What do we need in our emotional repertoire to not only survive but perhaps even triumph?”

Under the headline, “An emotional stimulus plan,” the article says our brain’s ability to adapt is the key to emotional resilience. It describes resilience as “an all-purpose booster” and “emotional ace in the hole” added to five key dynamics – anxiety, depression, shame, flexibility, and creativity. The article describes each of these and suggests ways to train our brain for adapting to stress.

Original Link: gilroydispatch.com/lifestyles/254642-an-emotional-stimulus-plan

Human Emotions and Physical Health

In January, we posted an item, “Linking Emotional and Physical Health.” On March 4, 2009, the University of Kansas (KU) announced that the results of a joint study with the Gallup World Poll into the connection between emotions and health were to be presented that day at the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society.

The study includes data from more than 150,000 adults in over 140 countries providing a representative sample of 95 percent of the world’s population. Participants reported emotions such as happiness, enjoyment, worry and sadness. They also described their physical health problems such as pain and fatigue.

According to Sarah Pressman, assistant professor of psychology at KU and a Gallup senior research associate, positive emotions unmistakably are linked to better health. The inverse holds true as well: Negative emotions were a reliable predator of worse health.

KU reports, “Most strikingly, the association between emotion and physical health was more powerful than the connection between health and basic human physical requirements, like adequate nourishment. Even without shelter or food, positive emotions were shown to boost health.”

Original Link: www.news.ku.edu/2009/march/4/emotion.shtml

In June 2008, the Gallup World Poll reported findings that underscore the crucial role of spending time with friends and family in determining the daily emotional well-being of the American public.

See: “Social Time Crucial to Daily Emotional Well-Being in U.S.“