Page 65 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

34 Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilence

impact on the person he became, in his own eyes. That “rageful” little boy
is likely to grow up to be a rageful big boy, partially on the basis of inborn
temperament but also because of how others have responded to him and
how he has come to think of himself. “Studies have found that even in
infancy, emotion expression styles have considerable stability over time,
and that toddler’s expression styles predict behavioral outcomes in later
years.” (Izard, 2001, p. 251).
As I have suggested above, I think of this emotional identity as a very
significant aspect of who we each are to ourselves. This emotional profile
can contribute to or detract from self-confidence, self-esteem, and expec-
tations from interpersonal life. In a sense, we each develop a certain “repu-
tation” with each other and with ourselves that can become an inflexible
prejudice. Do I see myself as unable to change how I act when I am angry
(or anxious, sad, ashamed, and so on)? Do I see my teenager or husband as
hopelessly unable to maintain emotional equilibrium when provoked?
It can be particularly troublesome when we develop hardened stereo-
types about the emotional capacities of those to whom we are the clos-
est. It is so easy to fall into: “he always blows up” or “she is always too
emotional.” Thinking we know each other well has its advantages and dis-
advantages. We are probably each only aware of a portion of our assump-
tions about each other. When we work in the mental health field, I think
it is especially important that we actively question our own assumptions
about “healthy” or “normal” emotional reactions to stress. It is vital that
we become conscious of any rigid stereotypes we might hold about our
own typical stress reactions or how we imagine others usually respond.
The last theory-based assumption I consider here is that the relation-
ship between emotion and cognition is not unidirectional. That is, some-
times emotions shape cognitions, and sometimes cognitions are primary.
A voluminous literature passionately advocates various conceptions of
the relationship between cognition and emotion. Some authors provoca-
tively advance notions that deny importance to one or the other, but most
are more balanced in their appreciation of the importance of cognition
and emotion in human experience. An important tenet of Izard’s dif-
ferential emotions theory (1971, 1977, 2001) is that “… emotions do not
always depend on knowledge or cognitive mediation, (that) emotions
make independent contributions to individual and social functioning …”
(2001, p. 250). The topic of the roles of cognition and emotion in human
functioning is, of course, complex, and I will not attempt to summarize it.
However, I do suggest that it is consonant with discrete emotions theory to
view insight as most often following, rather than creating, emotional and