The ideas on emotion presented on this website are the same as the ones on my main psychology websites, but split into smaller pages. They are the result of personal experience : a deep enquiry into the hidden reaches of the mind over a period of many years.

I use a traditional model of consciousness, which I bring up to date in order to enable me to define what an emotion is. Then I show how to identify emotions once a sufficient level of awareness has been developed.

Everyone experiences emotions, but few people can accurately identify them, except for some intense ones such as fear and anger. This inability to identify them has several effects :

• It results in a lack of self-awareness and so inhibits the full development of self-consciousness.

• It creates confusion in our relationships and hinders the achievements of our aims and ideals.

• It is a major source of self-deception in theories of human nature, especially in theories that centre on understanding morality and sources of conflict and violence.

I point out that the ability to identify accurately our emotions enables us to directly explore questions concerning truth and falsehood and questions concerning ethics. Then we can derive realistic answers from our experience instead of resorting to speculation.

What needs to be accepted is that emotions are not good or bad in themselves, but that the goodness or the badness lies within the context that we experience them and view them. However, since it is common practice to value things rather than contexts, I prefer to label emotions as either positive or negative, rather than as either good or bad.

Understanding the nature of emotion enables a person to handle better the problems of everyday life.
In addition, this understanding has profound implications for psycho-therapy.

The best way to approach my ideas is to study the ideas that interest you and let yourself be open to where they lead you. This may take months. It is a process of discovery and it needs to proceed at its own pace.

Copyright @2002  Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine and the articles are free to use. They can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.