Emotional Health, Emotional Intelligence,
and Physical Health

Abstract

Subjects (N=1000+) showed three distinct patterns of attention to "somats" (a new coinage), the minute and subtle changes of bodily sensations that constitute the prompts to emotions. Those who displayed a rapid, integrated and effortless awareness of somats were found to enjoy greater mental health, contentment and social warmth than those who ruminated ineffectually about their somats or who interposed logic and reasoning between somats and response. Integrated and effortless attention to "somats" correlated with past therapeutic experience, especially when these encourage the therapisand to attend to subtle somatic cues. It is speculated that rapid, integrated awareness of somats permits rapid, effortless and appropriate correction of values, beliefs and behaviors, leading to optimal intra-personal and inter-personal functioning, hallmarks of "emotional health" and "emotional intelligence." It is further speculated that impediments in the inability to attend rapidly and effortlessly to the somats impede the body's natural abilities to respond rapidly and correctively to changes that mark the onset of physical dis-order and dis-ease; it would therefore appear possible to train patients to be more resistant to diseases and to show improved healing and recovery.

I shall put out a comprehensive theory, backed only in part by research that will deal, in part, with the mind-body interface, the nature of emotions, the triggers to the immune system, the Unconscious, and associations. To this end, I coin two expressions. The first is "the survival brain." The second is a "somat." Both are labels for easily identifiable processes. You will not agree with everything that I postulate, but I hope it will start you thinking. I’d like you to criticize it—we probably won’t have the time, here, but please write to me or send an e-mail.

By "the survival brain," I refer to a functional brain system that largely overlaps with what is variously called the mammalian brain, the limbic system, or more recently the emotional brain (LeDoux, 1996). I call it the "survival brain" because its function is to ensure survival. It is rapid but primitive. It is capable of one-shot learning especially when the cognitive brain cannot be properly engaged—in early childhood, and in infancy (and in uteri!); under intense stress, pain or arousal; and during altered states of consciousness (including anesthesia, drugs and loss of consciousness. It memorizes the potent event of that moment, and with it the corresponding physical response. And its memories, both of the events and of the responses, are highly resistant to unlearning.

The survival brain constantly scans the environment via the senses. When it encounters an event that resembles an earlier event it has memorized, it triggers the execution of the earlier response to the new event. This trigger may or may not set off a response, but it will initiate an action tendency, readying the appropriate parts of the body to execute the proposed task: a fist waiting to be clenched, eyes waiting to be filled with tears, jaws tightening to suppress a scream, changes in the ANDS in anticipation of fight or flight, of love or hate, of fear or joy. The trigger is learned, as is the action tendency; the changing sensations within the body are likely to be autonomous responses.

Each of these is a physical sensation within the body. Whether expressed or suppressed, it is a call to action. The existing words in the English language for these fleeting sensations within the body are too vague; neither feeling nor emotion nor sensation adequately covers what I mean. I therefore call each of these physical sensations a "somat," defined as "the smallest potentially perceptible unit of sensation or change of sensation within the body." Generally, a variety of somats is activated at any given time by any given event.

The survival brain, scanning its environment, also senses each somat as another stimulus and instantly "associates" to it, that is, it responds to each somat with an earlier "memory" of a similar event, thus prompting new somats. Within seconds—within a fraction of a second—we may have a vast, complicated and confusing agglomeration of somats that invites response, often with great urgency. The invited responses are often beneficial, often totally inappropriate. When the cognitive brain finally processes the awareness of the somats, and interprets them in temporal, personal and social context we obtain what is called an emotion.

Call me old-fashioned if you like. William James said more or less the same thing over a century ago when he asked "What is an Emotion?" (1884): "Bodily disturbances are the 'manifestation,' ... 'expression,' or 'natural language' of emotions... the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact ... our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion" (emphases in the original).

That theory was ridiculed by many, and few shed a tear when it was shot down forty-three years later by Cannon (1927) who confused emotion-prompting stimuli with emotion, and contended that measurable visceral response was too slow to account for emotion. As Panksepp notes with obvious regret (1986): "the classic James-Lange theory of emotions could have been modified a long time ago to assimilate developing knowledge concerning the existence of a visceral-emotional [i.e. hypothalamic-limbic] nervous system." When the constructs "somat" and "survival brain" are introduced into James’s paper, his theories easily withstand the onslaught of his critics.

Somats and Mental Health

Somats are in-body physical responses to the environment as it is primitively but rapidly perceived by the survival brain, and evaluated through the early memory-patterns. To take the classic example offered by James, I see a bear and experience the desire to run. If I am an infant, or if I am intoxicated, the desire to run will occasion intense fear. Since I am aware, mature and sensible, I can evaluate these prompts in light of the reality of the environment and the situation: the bear is behind bars, or it is in the form of a rug, or it is just an image on my TV. Immediately the prompt to respond to the survival-brain message "bear" is turned off, the ANS response is turned off, and my entire body returns to a pre-bear state. Of course, if I am in a hypnotic trance (induced, say, by a movie house environment or in front of the idiot tube—a trance is literally how we interpret the screen-images as real), the ANS response will not be turned off as readily. But it doesn’t require a huge and threatening bear to trigger somats; a hundred times a day, perhaps a thousand, the way that the face and voice of a friend or stranger respond to my overtures will also trigger somats.

If I am in the habit of attending to the somats, to the physical sequelae of the perceptions as interpreted by the survival brain, I will be able rapidly to assess these somats for their current relevance and either act on them rapidly and appropriately, or dismiss them as truly irrelevant. My somats will fade and my ANS will return to rest. If, on the other hand, I am uncomfortable about the somats, those pesky sensations in the body and their urge to action, I may just sit there, confused, puzzled, fearsome, while each somat provokes other somats through the mediation of the survival brain. Or, if I’m smart or experienced, I can refuse to be confused by my somats: I will simply create a response based on logic and reason—and all the while, my somats (which are impervious to reason) build up and multiply.

Thus, if I am rapidly and comfortably alert to my somats, if I am, as the popular expression goes, "in touch with my feelings," I will be able to respond rapidly, appropriately and without effort to my shifting somats, at the moment they emerge and before they have grown warts and legs and antennas, and my emotional and behavioral response will be optimal and ego-enhancing. If, on the other hand, I cannot or will not respond rapidly to the shifting somats, my somats will act as stimuli for the survival brain to prompt more and more somats based on early-learned memories that have not been un-learned. My behavioral and emotional responses will therefore be delayed, sub-optimal and potentially harmful.

What is mental health? Few people would argue with the definition: "The ability to go through life, responding optimally to the prompts of the self and of the environment, avoiding all irrelevant stress." And mental dis-ease? "Responding inappropriately and with delays to the prompts of the self and of the environment, and experiencing inappropriate stress." In other words, rapid, effortless and accurate response to the somats equates with mental health.

Similarly, the "unconscious" of psychodynamic theory can be understood as largely equivalent to the survival brain, both stocked with correct or incorrect memories and with responses (often inordinately compelling) that were learned by this relatively primitive part of the brain before and after birth, in infancy, in altered states of consciousness or under great stress.

BB, EE and LL: the three styles

Following a number of pilot projects, I started off my research into the perception of the components of emotions (Bernet, 1995, 1996), with an a priori division into three styles. I called one "BB" for Based on Body—a natural, effortless awareness of the subtly changing sensations within the body (i.e. of somats). In popular parlance, high-BB’s are "in touch with their feelings." The next style is "EE" for Emphasis on Evaluation—a ruminative style in which these sensations (somats) are ill understood and there is an anxious striving to give them meaning. In popular parlance, high-EE’s are "confused by their feelings." The third style is "LL" for Looking to Logic—the interposition of logic and reason between the unruly body sensations (somats) and the ultimate response. In popular parlance, high-LL’s are "not concerned with their feelings."

To this end, a pencil-and-paper measure was developed, the Style In Perception Of Affect Scale (SIPOAS). In it, subjects were asked to indicate the strength of their preference for each of the three "styles," given a variety of hypothetical circumstances. A total of 1016 valid protocols was analyzed. For purpose of validation, each protocol had

bound in it between two and nine other tests or sub-tests. Correlational studies confirmed that these were three different styles, that there are two entirely different groups—not one homogenous group—of those who are "not in touch with their feelings." The differences between EE and LL, between those who are confused about their bodily sensations and those who wish to keep them under control are important, consistent, and significant.

BB correlates highly with mental health, with awareness of small bodily changes, with social skills, contentment and creativity, and with reported past experience in therapies. EE correlates highly with neuroticism and its components (especially anxiety, depression, self-consciousness, vulnerability, tension and apprehension), and with self-doubt and discontent. LL does not correlate with mental health but correlates with social reserve, and with emphasis on intellect over social skills and emotions. There is a strong correlation between BB and therapeutic experience; high-LL people, on the other hand, rarely seek out psychotherapy.

An attempt was made, in the development of SIPOAS, to cover disparate ages and disparate "styles" insofar as could be predicted by folk psychology. No attempt has been made so far toward standardizing SIPOAS on a random sample, and in fact the selection of the subjects and the language of the measure itself virtually assure that those who responded to the study have a college-level command of English.

Not surprisingly, members of Mensa—the society for those scoring among the top two percent in IQ—scored highest on LL and near the bottom on BB and EE; those from the mail lists of the Association for Humanistic Psychology and the International Primal Association, scored highest in BB and near the bottom on EE and LL. Those who obtained their questionnaires in a therapist’s waiting room, or through postings on electronic bulletin boards that were dedicated to "problems in daily living," scored highest on EE: that is, they tended to be unhappy, anxious or uncomfortable and were looking for others to help them respond to their feelings.

Gender was only a minor factor, women scoring lower means than men on LL and therefore slightly higher means on both BB and EE. Age was the big surprise: those aged 16 to 25 had by far the highest mean raw EE score, 66 percent higher than those of the over-65’s, with a rapid, straight line drop. In other words the subjects at around college age had the least confidence and the greatest confusion about the fine nuances of their bodily sensations. As EE (i.e. doubt and confusion) decreased with age, so LL—the use of logic to deal with the components of emotions—increased. LL, it appears, can be learned with maturation. ("I don’t know what I feel but I don’t care because I can use my intellect instead.")

On the other hand, among those who had had experience in therapies—psycho-therapies, body therapies (e.g. dance therapy), spiritual disciplines (e.g. meditation)—the change with age was in the direction of BB, strongly supporting a belief that experience in therapies, in virtually any therapy, tends to increase the BB scores, to make patients or clients or adherents more "in touch with their feelings," to have an integrated and effortless ability to attend to the emerging somats.

I said "virtually any therapy." You may be interested to know which therapies appear to be most closely related to the change to BB. In the description, above, of the survival brain, reference was made to the specific circumstances under which memories, virtually ineradicable memories, are stored in the survival brain. Altered states of consciousness was one of these, and altered states of consciousness (especially in catharsis and abreaction) turns out to be an important component of the therapies that were related to high BB scores. So is learning to attend to the fine nuances of body sensations, and reenacting the physical components of emotional states and memories. Learning to take responsibility for oneself ensures a diminution of the EE style.

The specific styles that related highly with BB were the abreactive therapies (Reichian, bioenergetics, primal therapy), gestalt, Jungian, existential therapies, psychodrama and encounter groups. Dance therapy, yoga, tai-chi and meditation were related to high BB scores, as were spiritual modalities such as meditation; each modality in its own way virtually force the client or patient to pay attention to the fleeting events in the body, to make him or her "somat-conscious." The combination of physical and spiritual disciplines with psychotherapies, appears to have a synergistic effect for higher BB.

A word of caution is in order. This was a cross-sectional study, not a longitudinal one. There is no way to determine whether experience in therapy causes the change to BB or whether high-BB subjects tend to gravitate to certain therapies and modalities. Both directions are most probably at work. It appears from the data that high-EE subjects seek out therapies and therapists "that have answers"; it is hard to imagine a high-EE person feeling reassured in an "anything goes" or "you are the master of your own therapy" setting. And high-LL people are unlikely to put much trust into dance therapy, primal screams, or guided imagery. The effectiveness of therapy likely varies with the personality style. I would offer somat-consciousness psychotherapy to someone with an adequate BB score, but I would be more likely to use cognitive and behavioral techniques with a high-EE person. High-LL’s don’t usually go into therapy unless their own survival or that of someone near depends on it; they may come to a few sessions of marital therapy or sex therapy—and then drop out. For them, Rational Emotive Therapy is ideal, the underlying logic giving reassurance and gently coaching them to pay more attention to the emotions—or to the underlying somats, as I might say.

Somat-consciousness enhancement will probably be useful in treating a variety of disorders. In depression, by moving away from the self-fulfilling thought "I’m depressed" and into an awareness of the accompanying physical sensations, and of the physical postures and attitudes that are amenable to the patient’s control. In eating disorders (as also, for instance, in aggressive behaviors) the patient learns to become aware of the subtle somats that "trigger" the undesirable behavior. In post-traumatic stress disorder, in anxiety and in phobias, the patient comes to discover the earlier onset of the physical prompts and to break the response link that is engraved in the survival brain. Training in somat consciousness works with intelligent adults. It works at least as well with children, with the retarded, and with the psychotic patient.

Social Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence was defined by the coiners of that term (Salovey & Mayer, 1990) as "the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions." Social intelligence had earlier been defined as "the ability to understand others ... to act wisely in human relations" (Thorndike, 1920). Writing of the many "intelligences" that we possess, Howard Gardner (1983) referred to an essential "internal aspect" of a person, having "access to one’s own feeling life—one’s range of affects or emotions: the capacity instantly to effect discriminations among

these feelings and, eventually, to label them, to enmesh them in symbolic codes, to draw upon them as a means of understanding and guiding one’s behavior... . At its most advanced level, intrapersonal knowledge allows one to detect and to symbolize complex and highly differentiated sets of feelings." Gardner also spoke of "interpersonal intelligence" which permits "a skilled adult to read the intentions and desires ... of many other individuals and, potentially, to act upon this knowledge."

I hold that these multifarious skills are all functions of the ability to attend to one’s somats and thus will vary directly with scores on BB. One of the most important functions of the survival brain is to scan the environment: friend-or-foe, food-or-predator, mate-or-enemy. It is not simply a skill for mature and intelligent humans; animals and infants often appear much more adept than adult humans (who have learned to rely on intellect and to ignore their somats) at spontaneously responding to the emotional states and the impending behaviors of others,

By attending to our somats, we can recognize in our own bodies our own responses to the responses we have evoked in others. As I permit myself to respond spontaneously to the somats evoked in our interaction, I will subtly (and spontaneously) change my responses so as to continue the desired quality of the relationship. I will adjust my behaviors to appease you or continue to please you, to ease off when you display signs of stress, to simplify my words when you are puzzled, to stimulate you if you appear bored. In other words, I will effortlessly utilize the awareness of my somats, adjusting my response to keep myself comfortable. Our interchange becomes optimized. You and I form a feedback loop. We steer our interactions much as we drive along a highway with one hand lightly on the wheel and one foot on the pedal, adjusting automatically to the slight variations in the road surface. We don’t even have to be friends to do this; my somats, when accepted, will lead me to respond optimally even to the traffic cop and the tax collector. All this, of course, assumes rapid and accurate access to my changing somats. If I do not trust my perception of my somats, I will be confused in my interaction with you. If I interpose logic and intellect ("the rules") I will be stiff , formal and distant.

The BB style thus equates with social intelligence; as our data indicate, subjects scoring high on EE and LL have reduced interpersonal skills. Social intelligence appears to be just one component of emotional intelligence, of skill in attending to the somats.

Immune System and Somats

I have referred to somats as the bodily responses to environmental events. What about those bodily sensations that are occasioned by the body proceeding on its appointed tasks, as the blood flows, the stomach digests, the lungs reoxygenate, the kidneys excrete? Most of these are, fortunately, beyond our awareness or we would be totally inundated with their background "noise." A few processes, such as our breathing or the beating of the heart, can be selectively sensed when we wish to. Usually, we become aware of changes in the processes of the body only as they deviate from the quotidian: the heart pounds, the lungs lose their capacity, the adrenaline elevates our mood or alertness, and so on ... These sensations, too, are scanned by the survival brain and they, too, have the potential to contribute to the current emotional state. These body sensations, too, can be considered as somats if they are potentially perceptible.

Most of the somats that are evoked by the body’s functioning—as most of the somats evoked by the survival-brain—are generally ignored. I do not know I have developed an infection until I cough or experience a fever or a sore throat. Similarly, I do not know I am overstraining my wrist until the pain sets in next day, I do not know I am chafing my heel until the blister forms. The more rapidly I allow myself to be aware of changes within the body as they are barely emerging, the less likely that I will continue to cause injury, and the more likely that I will spontaneously initiate healing, before the disease has developed further. Attention to somats is good not just for the mind, but also for the body.

Today, we have bountiful, laboratory-quantifiable proof that relaxation, therapeutic techniques, imagery, and especially meditation, enhance the immune system and are conducive to physical health. It’s great to get confirmation for what we have "known" decades but there is still a missing link: how can we explain why sitting a certain way and conducting the mind a certain way would cause hormones or platelets to undergo physical change?

Alistair Cunningham who has done much extensive writing in this area states (1986) "health depends on ... an optimal passage of information between the levels of the organism and between many levels of the organism and its environment." I submit that the somat is a unit of information. It can be the first informant of pending injury or disease. If we block this information from our system the injury or the disease will develop further. If we attend to it, our system will engage the appropriate healing processes, rapidly, accurately and effectively. Attention to the somats is important not just for emotional health but also for physical health.

I predict that a person who is rapidly and comfortably aware of the somats—who, by definition, has a high BB score—would be less vulnerable to disease and injury (and more able to effect a recovery) than one with a high EE score who has only a confused awareness of the somats, or a high-LL person who filters somats through the dense screen of logic and reasoning.

This can be valuably put to the test: how do the SIPOAS scores of those who succumb to a disease compare with those who resist it, and those that overcome it? Are HIV+ patients with high BB scores more resistant to developing AIDS than those with low scores? Are high-BB women more likely than others to regain or maintain their health after treatments for breast cancer? These are both keen areas of research, with easily definable diseases and with, unfortunately, more subjects than we need for any research study. Both diseases can be studied retroactively as well as predictively.

If my proposition about the healthful aspect of heightened attention to the somats proves correct, we may expect that training patients to score higher on BB will improve their resistance to disease and enhance their recovery. Fortunately, we already have a pretty shrewd idea about which therapeutic and learning modalities are likely to increase BB skills. Incidentally, I am developing a new test, similar in structure to the SIPOAS, that will more specifically measure the medical aspects of attention to somats. I call the new measure the "Sickness And You: Attitudes About Healing" scale— "SAY-AAH!" for short.

I hope many others will join me in exploring how learning to attend to the body’s somats will enhance happiness and health, and fight disease.

References

Bernet, M. (1995). Style and the Perception of Affect and its Relation to Mental Health. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms.

Bernet, M. (1996). Emotional intelligence: Components and correlates. Presentation at the 104^th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Chicago. (available from author).

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books

James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9, 188-205.

LeDoux, J. E. (1994b). Emotion, memory and the brain. Scientific American; June 1994, 50-57

Panksepp, J. (1986). The anatomy of emotion. In R. Plutchik & H. Kellerman (Eds.), Emotion: Theory, research and experience. Vol 3, Biological foundations of emotion. New York: Academic Press

Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition & Personality; 9 (3), 185-211.