In 1959 we had among us Professor Juan Rof Carballowho wrote books such as Inner Brain and Emotional World; Affective Warp and Weft and Illness and Inner Brain and Society. What about Goleman and the rest of the crowd and the enthusiasm of the uninformed about emotional intelligence as an imported and "latest generation" product? Many people think they are modern, because they talk about emotional intelligence, experts in it, and even masters in the subject, all very current and modern, perhaps they do not know how old those of us who have been studying this subject in Spain have been. In fact, I had the privilege of being a disciple of Professor Rof for many years and I can testify to that.
After 36 years, in 1995, Daniel Goleman becomes world famous when he publishes Emotional Intelligence, where nothing is said about everything that has been published since 1910 on this subject, despite the fact that these were years in which it was imposed that the emotional interior should not be the subject of research. We were censored, disqualified for mentioning the non-conscious, the influence of emotions, and even questioned the relationship between emotions, health and illness. This ignorance has made American colonisation possible and now, in addition to Black Friday and absolutely unnecessary words and phrases in English, we have emotional intelligence and coaching, which in my next book I explain as something we already had within the different forms of therapies.
The emotional system is anticipatory and genetically programmed for survival, which takes over because it is much faster and more organised and generally outside of consciousness. We are built so that ancient brain structures subsist with modern ones. The body decides, knows, recognises before consciousness, because emotions have archaic functions of prevention and anticipation that prepare bodies for possible events of danger or reward.
Emotions and feelings are the glue of the mind, its roots, its infrastructure, the foundations of brain functioning. Something close to what could be emotional intelligence would be the capacity of individuals to value, feel and express emotions, to perceive with nuances their fellow human beings, nature and its fragility, what each one contributes in order not to damage it, culture, beauty, moral values, empathy, the value that people have in themselves; what we owe to our ancestors such as Mozart, Goya, Cajal and the thousands who have built civilisation, to our parents, to our grandparents. The global valuation of the personal and collective environment.
It is intelligence and mental health to take care of everything that corresponds to your mind and good living according to natural laws. But this requires a fully developed brain. The prefrontal cortex, the structure of cognition and human anticipation, can be slowed down by the pressure of emotions, anxiety, fear, anger, violence, envy, resentment, defence of territory and short term inducements, overt or latent group pressures. Also excessive optimism or depressive feelings, intense emotions.
Vulnerable and interim mental health
We have emotions that will produce a regression in adult, human brain functioning, disconnecting some cortical structures and activating the archaic subcortical ones, the primitive animals that we have been and that we are at that moment of disconnection. All emotions are going to be the foundation of conscious or unconscious, of decisions and their execution. This is a test of our vulnerability and our provisional mental health.
Emotions require the inhibitory, prospective, anticipatory functions of the prefrontal cortex. Extremists are often described by the people as brainless. This means that they have an immature brain. This lack of control of mood, lack of perception of goals and of the long term is a characteristic of young children. The asocial, psychopaths, narcissists, manipulators, extremists and con artists are united by their lack of development as beings with an adult emotional system; they are children who only care about what is important to them. Take this warning seriously.
"Overloading our beliefs and behaviours with emotionality leaves us deactivating what we have that is slightly different from animals, the prefrontal, returning us to being animals managed by the subcortical structures common to all animals". (Pankseepp, 20011. Damasio, 2000). "If we stick to cognition, we can still see very little in pictures about what it is. It is thinking, reasoning, memory, decisions, and all this at high speed and at an unconscious level". "And in images we can't know what is conscious or unconscious" (The Future of the Brain. Gary Marcus and Jeremy Freeman).
Non-conscious and emotional activities are produced and controlled by the lower regions of the brain, the medulla oblongata, pons, midbrain, hypothalamus, thalamus, cerebellum, basal ganglia and amygdala, structures common to all animals. The cerebral cortexes are also within the emotional system as minority shareholders.
The emotional system is at the service of the preservation of life. The oldest portions of the brain are the engine of decisions, of the basic motivations through which, for the most part, half-finished beings move emotionally... maybe with doctorates, important positions or illiterate, it doesn't matter. The amygdala transmits value to cortical "knowledge", affective value, positive or negative. It has many other functions which are described later.
We have the enormous pressure of the environment and the difficulty of being free because of the strong load of emotional or ideological manipulation in which we are immersed every day and from all sides. Emotional threat and censorship is so present that the real hero today is the one who remains focused, concentrated. And, as if that were not enough, we have the tendency to dismiss dissenting information in order to maintain our opinions, militancy and fanaticism at all costs.
The end does not justify the means
The hierarchy of moral values and behavioural values are gestated in the so-called ancient limbic structures in connection with the medial frontal lobes, which means that these were already there at the beginning of animal life. We can make them conscious and perfect them, but, for many reasons, a large number of humans have these functions impaired.
Ethics and justice are very biological values. They are found in all species; in the animal kingdom there are punishments for those who cheat. A human being who has altered these values of ethics is very sick in the head. You can see examples in the neurological clinic of people who are no longer ethical because of a lesion, a tumour, a brain disease. Therefore, beware that the end justifies dishonest or criminal means: people with brain injuries act in this way. Let's see if we are closing our eyes to the evidence that there are immature, psychopathic, infantile people who occupy large social and leadership spaces, giving them a place in the media and... even votes, people for whom the end justifies the means.
The alterations of common sense, of social behaviour for coexistence, the inability to anticipate or plan personal or collective dangers, to postpone gratifications and a long correlate of symptoms, occur when these structures of the brain are damaged or have not matured: failures of emotional intelligence. When we discuss any idea about religion, sports, economics or politics, most of the time we are defending or attacking a set of emotions little known to the discussants. Look at Parliament these days. This demonstrates the fragility of the controls we possess and of our mental constructs.
We emphasise, someone without moral values, ethics, responsibility for collective life and nature can be a brain patient.. We are also not clear about what needs to be done to preserve and develop a good brain, it is not on the social menu. That development is achieved slowly in the home, there is no other method for the mammals that we are. We already knew 35 years ago that the family womb will determine the degree of emotional development. Don't put any ideology into these biological concepts because you are not going to have any scientific evidence.
"The individual has developed in the brain thanks to education, and the good example of others... some cortical concepts of the highest level containing ethical principles based on which humanity has considered useful and indispensable for social harmony: charity, honour or respect for others and values, rules embedded in the phylogeny (...), the value of goods projected into the future or that their descendants will enjoy. Securing the future of the progeny common to all insects and animals: this is genetics" (Fuster 2018). It is written by one of the great neuroscientists of the moment, although he has no microphones at the table, because he is neither a footballer nor a coach, nor does he protest in the street about anything.
When the prefrontal cortex has not been able to complete its development, the subject is self-seeking, with devaluation - manifest or not - of what surrounds him or does not coincide with his egocentrism; they are egomaniacs, impulsive, or cold calculators, astute in the short term. There are some who are risk-takers, risk-takers, with very little ethical judgement, given that this cortex is the centre of ethical criteria and personal judgement based on empathy and generosity. In general, their contempt for the talents of others leads them to take us for fools.
Now try to understand the system, body, brain, environment as the origin of emotional intelligence with one of the many simplifications on the market. And, apply some short courses to it. Half an hour of television interview from Castilla-La Mancha to a young "expert in emotional management" to promote her book. Her curriculum: having been abused as a child and having finished her baccalaureate.
José Antonio Rodríguez Piedrabuena
Specialist in Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis. Specialist in management training, group and couple therapies.