1. EQ is integrative.
Rather than looking at function and dysfunction in isolated aspects of people (or even aspects of systems), the EQ perspective says people and relationships are complex living and changing interplays; there are ongoing feedback cycles, and we can not meaningfully separate thought from feeling from action.
Where other approaches try to separate people into compartments, EQ helps us see people as whole, complete beings. Current EQ research documents the connections between the brain and body and between thought and feeling. While it is convenient to divide and analyze, transformational learning comes when we explore the messy, complex, frustrating, and fabulous whole person.
2. EQ is well.
People have learned what they've learned, some of it is problematic, and some of it is gold... and we've experienced life along that continuum as well. We are not broken, ill, or dysfunctional because we haven't got it figured out. In fact, we are good -- and we are learning.
Again, it is tempting to just say someone is sick, or broken. While an EQ approach does not deny the importance of mental illness, it holds dear the notion that people are not all supposed to fit one standard. For example, while depression is an illness that changes the chemical structure of the brain, for the vast majority of people suffering from depression, the "antidote" could also be created by the brain by learning how to understand and transform emotions.
3. With EQ, people matter.
While we are not individually accountable for other people's feelings and growth, at a fundamental level, these affect us, and affect the outcomes we seek. So if we want optimal results (whatever those may be), people and their feelings will be critical to that success. The corrolary here is that feelings are real, even when the source is not -- the emotional brain does not distinguish between "logical fear" and "irrational fear."
Perhaps it seems preposterous, but many psychological models discard emotion and a person's individual experience as irrational baggage. From an EQ perspective, my feelings matter and they effect you. So your feelings better matter to me too! While each of us is independent, and we each make our own choices, we can not deny that we share a world -- and so we are bound together.
As you work to learn and teach emotional intelligence, hold onto the idea that these concepts grow from a rich tradition of human development. And, know that as an EQ practitioner, you are working to bring a new capacity to the world.
