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Constructive Thinking: The Key to Emotional Intelligence Kindle Edition
This is a book on how to gain control of one's emotions. It is a serious book that contains a theory of automatic processing it presents and its implications for controlling emotions. Epstein is a professor of personality psychology and a highly regarded research psychologist who has supported his theory with extensive research published in the most demanding professional journals. He was motivated to write the book by the success of a course he taught based on his theory. Students reported obtaining an understanding and control of their emotions that they never thought possible and that they said changed the course of their lives.
According to the theory, people operate by two minds, a rational-analytical mind and an intuitive-experiential mind, the latter being intimately associated with emotions. Each mind operates by its own principles and each has its own form of intelligence. The intelligence of the rational-analytical mind is measured by IQ tests and the intelligence of the intuitive-experiential mind (which is related to emotional intelligence) by the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI), a test developed by Epstein that is included in the book. By understanding the principles of operation of the intuitive-experiential mind, it is possible to train it as well as to learn from it, and thereby to improve one's emotional intelligence. The book provides exercises for applying the principles in everyday life and a review of a variety of other procedures for improving emotional intelligence. It is suited for use as a primary or supplementary text in courses on improving emotional intelligence or coping with stress as well as for individual reading.
- ISBN-13978-0275958855
- PublisherPraeger
- Publication dateAugust 27, 1998
- LanguageEnglish
- File size3134 KB
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
As a first step toward understanding the difference between emotional and intellectual intelligence, consider the following two perspectives on the meaning of life. As you read each passage, try to answer the following questions: How intellectually intelligent is the protagonist? How emotionally intelligent is he? On what basis did you distinguish between emotional and intellectual intelligence?
The first passage is from "My Confession" by Leo Tolstoi, the great Russian novelist, who describes his thoughts during a period of depression.
"When I thought of the fame which my works had gained me, I used to say to myself, 'Well, what if I should be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere...well, what then?...Such questions demand an answer, and an immediate one; without one it is impossible to live, but answer there was none... If I wished for something, I knew beforehand, that were I to satisfy the wish, nothing would come of it, I should still be dissatisfied...I knew not what I wanted...
"Such was the condition I had come to, at the time when all the circumstances of my life were pre-eminently happy ones, and when I had not yet reached my fiftieth year. I had a good, a loving, and a well-beloved wife, good children, a fine estate, which, without much trouble on my part, continually increased my income; I was more than ever respected by my friends and acquaintances; I was praised by strangers, and could lay cliam to having made my name famous...
"I could not attribute reasonable motive to any single act, much less to my whole life. I was only astonished that this had not occurred to me before from premises which had so long been known. Illness and death would come..., if not today, then tomorow, to those whom I loved, to myself, and nothing would remain but stench and worms. All my acts, whatever I did, would sooner or later be forgotten, and I myself be nowhere. Why, then, busy one's self with anything? How could men see this and live? It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; as soon as we are sober again we see that it is all a delusion and a stupid one."
Now consider the following tale:
A Buddhist monk, being hotly purused by a vicious tiger, fell off a cliff. By good fortune, he landed on a ledge. He could see the tiger waiting hungrily above him, but even if the tiger departed, he knew that the slope was too steep for him to climb. Since there was no escape from above and a sheer drop below, he realized his fate was sealed. No sooner did he have this thought, then the ledge that was supporting him began to develop cracks in it, and it was apparent that it would shortly fall away and hurtle him to his death. As he looked about, he spied a strawberry plant growing out of a crevice in the rock. He plucked a berry from it, ate it very slowly to savor its taste, and thought, "How delicious!"...
Given the awareness of the limited time we all have to live on earth, it is equally logical to conclude that life is futile, and there is no point therefore in living, as to conclude that one might as well make the best of what time one has. Although the two conclusions are equally logical, one is more constructive in the sense that it leads to a more satisfactory way of leading one's life. Does this mean that one should always think positively? Not necessarily, for thinking positively in some circumstances, such as in the face of danger, can lead to disaster. Thinking constructively is not the same as thinking positively. I have much more to say about constructive thinking later in this book. For now, I only wish to emphasize that specific kinds of thoughts precede and determine emotions, that these thoughts occur automatically, that they vary in constructiveness, and that constructive thinking underlies emotional intelligence. If you automatically think constructively, you will exhibit emotional intelligence, and if you don't, you won't...
In this chapter I tried to give you an intuitive feeling for the difference between intellectual and emotional intelligence and for the preconscious thoughts that underlie the latter. In the next, I discuss intellectual and emotional intelligence in greater detail and consider what each is and is not and what would have to be accomplished in the measurement of emoional intelligence to establish it as a scientifically viable concept comparable to intellectual intelligence.
Product details
- ASIN : B001CD4VMM
- Publisher : Praeger (August 27, 1998)
- Publication date : August 27, 1998
- Language : English
- File size : 3134 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Not enabled
- Enhanced typesetting : Not Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 300 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,807,968 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,009 in Occupational & Organizational Psychology (Kindle Store)
- #2,889 in Occupational & Organizational Popular Psychology
- #3,318 in Emotions & Mental Health
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- Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2014I've read and studied this book several times and continue to refer to it. I highly recommend it to anyone whose thought processes are making them unhappy and/or who are having difficulties with relationships. I've met and studied under the author and would recommend any of his workshops that might be available.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2015You want to control destructive emotions (such as self-pity) potentially paralyzing you from helping yourself and others? Read this book and get the real key to emotional intelligence: (deliberate) constructive thinking.
Reading this book (quite a few times) I learned a lot about myself. So far there are many books to achieve this, but only a very few being so clear in how to make the changes you want.
One of my favorite gifts for friends and colleagues needing support...
- Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2006In a world filled with folks who want to "clutter" up the concept or goal of human thinking, it is so refreshing to find a book that reaches back to the essence of what makes us...well, such cool and complicated creatures--the melding of our emotional and rational minds operating in a purposeful way. One can find many a book on the bestsellers list these days whose authors actually complicate the wolrld of human perception for their own profit. Gardner's books on varying IQ and Goleman's on emotional intelligence offer (or at least imply) the reader what I consider hurtful advice: that you are limited as a human being based on biological forces and that you should accept what you're "good at," doing the best you can with what you've been given. Thankfully, Prof. Epstein puts personal desire and motivation back into the mix; showing the reader that one can achieve, in most cases, what one wants in life if one properly aligns his or her experiential and rational minds to reflect his or her desires and does the work to constructively create the thinking necessary to reach his or her goal. This is a book that should be referenced often by those who seriously believe that, with a bit of guidence from Epstein, they can reorganize their thinking processes; thus freeing themselves from the bounds of thier emotional and irrational prisons.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2009A cogent and well-thought out book with lots of insight as to techniques and suggestions for honing one's ability to constructively think (and thereby function) in order to lead a more enjoyable/fulfilling life, both for yourself and for those around you. What I especially appreciated about the book was the format of presenting an even-handed approach (warning against naive optimism, not professing a miraculous, effortless panacea or anything of the sort, etc) and the logical presentation of actual research data that backs up the observation he makes (the author is a research psychologist/previous professor)(references are cited at the back of the book). It is a well-written, pleasant read; it also contains some of his own personal experiences intermingled with the more objective data.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2002In 1998, when Epstein wanted to update his book "You're Smarter Than You Think: How to Develop Your Practical Intelligence for Successful Living" (1993), he decided to add 2 rather academic chapters discussing Goleman's and others' views on Emotional Intelligence. Epstein's view is that emotions (as opposed to "moods") always occur after thinking, even if the thinking may be "unconcious" at most occasions. This view is the opposite from what others, such as Goleman write: they argue thinking come after emotions. Of course, both parties have "evidence" to back up their claims. My sugestion: the two views are useful!
The previous paragraph indicates that Epstein's book ONLY covers the "constructive thinking" part of developing emotional intelligence, and if you want a book for that, I must say that he did a great job, building on the work of rational-emotive theraphy and cognitive psychology. He includes a very interesting questionnaire which helps you to figure out how constructive your current thinking is and gives you tools to avoid boby traps of automatic thinking and to recognize typical patterns of destructive thoughts. Unfortunately, this book is too limited to be "the" book to increase your EQ in all its aspects.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2005I have dozens of books of this genre and Epstein steals the show. Incredibly well written, Constructive Thinking is extremely well researched and very balanced in its approach. His 'two mind' theory is profound and (as another reviewer mentioned) just makes sense. His theory powerfully advances the premise the we alone are responsible for our emotional reactions to things and people...and are not simply automatic. Thus, we control our destiny far more than others would have us believe. This is an inspiring message, as it suggests we that we can create new experiences and unlearn that which had previouly held us back. This is a 'two highlighter' book which you'll be referring to over and over. Every chapter in my book is marked with not only interesting but truly important insights. I thought so much of Epstein's work that I dedicated a chapter in my upcoming book The Big AHA: Breakthroughs in Resolving and Preventing Workplace Conflict. If you want to put emotional intelligence in proper context, you must read this book.