(note: all material is freely downloadable as a PDF)
How Education Is Squashing Critical Thinking and Awareness
Education psychology is failing to address the issue that, to accept today’s literary cognitive-emotional plot-lines of Homer’s 3000-year-old linguistic psychology of emotionally driven behavior, primary, secondary, and collegiate language, literacy, and literary educators are neurolinguistically programming their students into, and reinforcing, a suspension of disbelief and critical thinking as well as sabotaging millions of years of cognitive-emotional evolutionary dynamics to maintain an individual’s health, well-being and successful decision-making prowess.
YouTube Link: How Education is Squashing Critical Thinking (29-min): https://youtu.be/PSjSXXG2zI4
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A Presentation in Emotional Wisdom
Because of the brain’s neuroplastic capacity, more advanced and intricate cognitive-emotional plot-lines in such works as Shakespeare only reinforce habitually used neuro-networks and strengthen even further the literary belief that dangerous emotions drive destructive behavior and therefore, emotions must be actively controlled, regulated, and managed by the mind.
But cognition, not emotion, precipitates the good or bad feeling physiology in the brain and body that drives behavior. Emotion is not causal to these changes and states of neurological, biochemical, and physiological being in the brain and body, cognition is! Cognition is causal and emotion is a perceived effect. Cognition precipitates the physiology that drives destructive behavior and is perceived as emotion. And it is these dangerous cognitive activities of the mind that are being controlled, regulated, and managed by scientifically proven, well researched, documented, and published evidence-based cognitive behavior modification therapies that utilize good or bad feeling emotional awareness to evaluate their effectiveness.
To the determent of the health of our children and our society, psychological academia and language, literacy, and literary primary and secondary school educators are still neurolinguistically programing into their student’s the belief that dangerous emotions can drive destructive behavior and therefore emotions must be controlled, regulated, and managed, even with pharmaceuticals; all the while ignoring cognitive behavior modification therapies’ well documented and evidenced based research and emotions evolutionary role to guide cognitive behavior towards health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess.
YouTube Link: Emotional Wisdom (27-min):https://youtu.be/R9doAw3Y76A
This is a 27-minute presentation in Emotional Wisdom and the next generation and future of cognitive-emotional psychology. Emotional Wisdom is the understanding and application of the evolved symbiotic synergy between mind, body, emotions, and awareness.
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Emotional Wisdom
1.0 Symbiotic Psychology: the evolved symbiotic synergy between mind, body, emotions and awareness
2.0 Cognition: activities of the mind such as thoughts, memories, beliefs, imaginings, reasoning and perception
3.0 Emotions: the good or bad feeling perception of neurological, biochemical, and physiological changes and states of being in the brain and body precipitated by cognition
4.0 Emotions do not drive behavior: Because cognition, not emotion, precipitates the changes and states of neurological, biochemical, and physiological being in the brain and body, cognition drives behavior. Cognition is causal and emotions are a perceptual effect.
5.0 Emotional Evolution: Good feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings must have an evolved correlation with health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and abilities of a healthy and balanced biochemistry, neurology, and physiology. Bad feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings must have an evolved correlation with the absence of health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and abilities of an unhealthy and imbalanced biochemistry, neurology, and physiology. If this were not so, humanity would not have survived the evolutionary mill. The modern equivalent would be a good-feeling drunk, joyfully stumbling into his car to drive across town during rush-hour traffic to buy groceries.
6.0 Cognitive vs Emotional Disorders: Cognition precipitates the physiological changes and states of being that are perceived as good or bad feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings. Cognition is causal, emotions are an effect. Therefore, typical “emotional disorders”, “emotional dysfunction”, or an “emotional illnesses” are actually cognitive disorders, cognitive dysfunction, or a cognitive illness. Cognition, not emotion, must be controlled, regulated, and managed.
7.0 Cognitive-Emotional Therapy: Instead of cognitive behavior modification therapy where cognition is used to control “dangerous emotions” that drive destructive behavior, emotions are used to guide cognitive activities. If a thought doesn’t feel good, it isn’t (physiologically speaking) because emotionally bad-feeling cognitive behavior has an evolved correlation with an unhealthy physiology. Therefore, in cognitive-emotional therapy, negative, destructive, and bad-feeling cognitive activities are re-structured, re-developed, and re-formed into healthy, good-feeling cognitions that correlate with health, well-being, and constructive, successful, and cooperative decision-making prowess and abilities.
8.0 Cognitive-Emotional Dysfunction – Hot-Stove Analogy: The awareness of pain from putting your hand on a hot stove initiates biochemical, neurological, and physiological activities in the brain and body to remove your hand. If this pain is camouflaged, repressed, or ignored, the hand will develop different degrees and biochemical signatures of “burnt-hand disorder”. Typical depression, clinical depression, and suicidal depression (and possibly as well some bi-polar, psychotic, and schizophrenic tendencies) have an equivalent to “burnt-hand disorder.” The biochemical signatures of these “emotional disorders and dysfunctions” are the result of ignoring one’s bad-feeling emotional signals to “get your mind off of the hot-stove”. These bad-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings represent an imbalanced biochemistry and the necessity to re-structure, re-develop, and re-form unhealthy cognitive activities into healthy, good emotional feeling cognitive activities that correlate with health, well-being, and constructive and successful decision-making prowess and abilities within a healthy and balanced biochemistry, neurology, and physiology.
9.0 Pharmaceuticals as a “crutch”: As a burnt hand may need a simple salve to heal if the hand is immediately removed from the hot stove, more severe degree burns may need extensive pharmaceutical therapy, skin grafts, or worse. The same applies to such cognitive disorders as anxiety, depression, clinical depression, and suicidal depression where emotionally negative, bad-feeling cognitions are ignored, suppressed, or camouflaged with pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals may absolutely be necessary. But hopefully the “damage” can be healed and repaired with cognitive-emotional therapy such that a person can naturally respond to their emotional-feeling awareness (without the pharmaceutical crutch) to get their “mind off of the hot-stove” of depressive cognitive activities that precipitate “biochemical imbalances”.
10.0 Cognitive-Emotional Health Education: Our primary and secondary language and literacy educators are neurolinguisticly programing our children with a 3000-year-old psychology of emotionally driven behavior as inscribed in Homer’s “Iliad” and sabotaging millions of years of cognitive-emotional evolution where emotions have evolved to guide cognitive-behavior away from negative, bad-feeling cognitions and towards health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and abilities. That is, negative, bad-feeling emotions have evolved to tell an individual, “Get your mind off of the hot-stove! You are depreciating your biochemical health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess!” A feels-good, is-good (physiologically speaking) cognitive-emotional health education must be off-set with a cognitive-emotional awareness of cultural and society health and well-being. That is, having a new car may feel good, but obtaining one by theft has individual and societal ramifications that must be understood and be part of our educational process.
(Reference: Jackson, A.O. (2025). (Technical Paper with Supplements.) Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Control, Cultivation, and Education: The Linguistic Semantics of Cognitive vs. Emotional Dysregulation. Symbiotic Psychology Press. (15,500-word paper, free PDF download, new tab))
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A nation of peace, harmony, and justice cannot exist in a masculine psychology and linguistics of emotionally driven behavior and control, conflict, and suppression.
Link, new tab: YouTube presentation for a necessary cultural change in language, literacy, and literary education
https://youtu.be/AVrBdNfKAfI
Are a nation’s classrooms a system and structure of oppression for sabotaging their citizens’ natural, evolved, and feminine heart centered psychology of cognitive-emotional reprocessing that is essential for an individual’s health, well-being, and constructive, non-violent, and cooperative decision-making prowess and ability?
This is a presentation in how a masculine, mind centered primary and secondary language, literacy, and literary education is sabotaging an individual’s feminine, natural, and evolved heart centered cognitive-emotional re-processing mechanism that has evolved to guide cognitive behavior towards health, well-being, and a cooperative, harmonious, and constructive decision-making prowess.
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Cognitive-Emotional Health Education in Our Primary and Secondary Schools
YouTube Link: Cognitive-Emotional Health Education:
https://youtu.be/IFGUTx-gLDE
Cognitive-Emotional Health Education is noticeably missing from our primary and secondary schools. This is a presentation to explore humanity’s natural cognitive-emotional reprocessing mechanisms that have evolved (and use good and bad feeling emotions) to guide cognitive behavior (thought, memory, belief, imagining, perception, reasoning, discernment) towards health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and abilities. Parents, teachers, and coaches have a responsibility to develop their own cognitive-emotional re-processing capabilities. They cannot pass on what they themselves do not understand and know.
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What is Missing from the Cognitive Triangle?
(Changes in Physiology that Guide Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing)
What is a person observing when the sun rises in the east, moves across the sky, and sets in the west? The sun is not “moving”, the earth is rotating. What is a person witnessing when a character in a rage, aggressively attacks his oppressor? For 3000 years, since Homer’s “Iliad” humanity has been driven by their emotions. And, dangerous emotions, must be controlled, even with pharmaceuticals, because dangerous emotions can drive destructive behavior. But, might we be observing the sun “moving” or is the earth “rotating”?
Spoiler alert: an individual is driven by highly orchestrated and complex changes and states of neurological, biochemical, and physiological being in the brain and body precipitated by cognition. This is the foundation on which well researched, evidenced based cognitive behavior modification therapies are founded upon. Cognition, not emotion, is causal. Emotions are an effect, the perception of these changes and states of physiological being. Psychology’s “cognitive triangle” model of mind, emotions, and behavior relationships does not integrate changes in physiology. (Reference: Jackson, A.O. (2025). (Technical Paper with Supplements.) Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Control, Cultivation, and Education: The Linguistic Semantics of Cognitive vs. Emotional Dysregulation. Symbiotic Psychology Press. (15,500-word paper, free PDF download, new tab))
Is your school of psychology a science with a universal accepted creed of “whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found”? Does your school embody, in the words of UW-Madison’s late chancellor, Rebecca Blank, “universities are unique places, characterized by their acceptance of people who push the boundaries of perceived truth”? (reference UW, L&S) Or are your schools of psychological dependent studies (literature, sociology, philosophy, law, psychiatry, and medicine) religious institutions with their dogma and academic gate keepers?
Flat Earth Psychology
Is the psychological “science” of emotional regulation, control, and management (that is, “emotions drive behavior” and therefore “dangerous emotions can drive destructive behavior”) based in logic and research? Or are these paradigms of beliefs of “emotionally driven behavior” but an unquestioned and accepted neurolinguistic programing of Homer’s literary linguistics inscribed in his “Iliad” nearly 3000-years-ago? The theory of “emotional dysfunction and disorder” may have a successful scope of understanding… like a flat Earth road map is successful. But, if circumnavigating the globe, flat Earth technology is useless. An investigation into the limiting “science” of literary defined emotionally driven behavior is in order.
A Geocentric Reality
Our primary and secondary school teachers are indoctrinating their students (and future academics) with an geocentric psychology of emotionally driven behavior that sabotages our children’s natural cognitive-emotional re-processing mechanisms that have evolved to guide one’s own cognitive behavior (such as thoughts, imaginings, reasoning, etc.) towards health, well-being and successful and effective decision-making and their actualization (Reference: Jackson, A.O. (2025). (Technical Paper with Supplements.) Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Control, Cultivation, and Education: The Linguistic Semantics of Cognitive vs. Emotional Dysregulation. Symbiotic Psychology Press. (15,500-word paper, free PDF download, new tab))
The geocentric reality of emotionally driven behavior is a fundamental ingredient to the tens thousands of yearly suicides, gun violence, murder, and mass shootings in their own schools, and the human degradation and condition found around America. This past neurolinguistic programing of our children has now come to the possible ruination of American democracy. Flat earth, emotionally driven behavior education sabotages an individual’s natural and evolved cognitive-emotional re-processing mechanism to guide cognitive behavior towards health, well-being, and effective and successful decision-making prowess and abilities and their actualization throughout life’s challenges. The sun does not revolve around a flat Earth.
Abandoning the Geocentric Reality
I like to say I have a PhD in Psychology from the School of Hard Knocks. The difference being that an accredited school requires classes, exams, and a successful defense of one’s own dissertation. I, on the other hand, either realized, developed, and self-prescribed a new psychology of cognitive-emotional behavior more in line with natural evolution and live, or fail and die.
I was in pain, sick, and severely depressed. I had spent the last decade with suicidal depression, psychotic mania, and schizophrenic tendencies, in and out of mental hospitals, strapped to beds, on (and off – my doing) medications (the worst was the “drug of death” haloperidol), while listening to PhD’s and their “therapies.” Over a decade of mental and physical pain, suffering, and torture was too much. As I became conscious from another “black-out” period – with a rope in hand to end it all – a “voice” in my head asked, “can you go on?” “They” wanted me to continue my life in hell. I said “yes” and got myself to a hospital… again.
Years later, while unlocking my apartment door, I had my “eureka” moment! If, when I was at my worst, in pain, feeling down and depressed (or psychotic) and I had a “biochemical imbalance”, does that mean that when I am feeling better and less depressed (and not psychotic)… does that mean my biochemistry is going “into balance”? Can I use my emotional awareness of “feeling-good” or “feeling-bad” to know what is happening with my biochemistry!? I told myself to try it. What did I have to lose… my life? I wasn’t going to make it much longer. I had had enough no matter what “my voices” were telling me.
I developed my own therapy. I used my emotions to guide my cognitive activities to find a better feeling, or less bad-feeling cognitive activity (thought, memory, belief, imagining, perception, reasoning, discernment). My premise was that the better feeling emotions, moods, attitudes and feelings correlated with a healthier biochemical “balance”, and bad feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings correlated with an unhealthy, biochemical imbalance.
Three years later, I saw my last psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist. No more medications. No more hospitals. It has now been nearly 30years and, yes, I have had my ups and downs… “typical” of normal adulthood. For the last 20years I have been on a personal mission, studying “modern” psychology and writing thousands of emails to academics around the world offering a new insight into cognitive-emotional behavior (and therapy): cognition, not emotion, precipitates the changes and states of physiology in the brain and body that drives behavior AND it is these changes and states that are perceived as emotion. Cognition is causal. Emotion is an effect. Therefore, the existence of a natural and evolved cognitive-emotional re-processing mechanism that uses emotional awareness to guide cognitive behavior towards health, well-being and successful decision-making prowess is a necessary understanding in therapy and pharmaceutical therapy. And a change in our primary and secondary language and literary neurolinguistic programing of emotionally driven behavior and control to include the science of humanity’s evolved cognitive-emotional re-processing mechanism is a must. (Reference: “Dark Night of the Full Moon: Surviving the School of Hard Knocks”)
What Is the Purpose of a Technical Paper?
I can rationalize how a paper I wrote outlining the existence of “… a system inherent in all of us that is physiologically geared to process information to a state of mental health” (Shapiro, 2018, p. 14) (and had it professionally edited) was rejected by two peer-review journals…. maybe. I had no empirical evidentiary research. But, my paper was for discussion and to bring up arguments for re-evaluation and research into the concept of emotional dysfunction and emotional control, regulation, and management (even with the use of pharmaceuticals) and how this universally accepted ideology is self-contradictory literary theory with limited scientific discovery inscribed by Homer in his “Iliad” 3000 year ago. I rewrote my technical paper into a broader, more inclusive format and included the “Dangers, Hazards, and Liabilities of Homer’s theory of Emotionally Driven Behavior”: “ (Reference: Jackson, A.O. (2025). (Technical Paper with Supplements.) Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Control, Cultivation, and Education: The Linguistic Semantics of Cognitive vs. Emotional Dysregulation. Symbiotic Psychology Press. (15,500-word paper, free PDF download, new tab))
Shapiro, S, (2018). Eye movement Desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press
Are Research Scientists Seeking Doctoral Students to Advance Science?
When exploring possible doctoral programs where I can develop my supportive research, I felt very hopeful after reading one professor’s requirements:
“Information for Prospective Graduate Students.”
“Currently [xxx] is particularly interested in the development of emotion regulation and decision-making, and the nexus between the two. Some of the research questions we ask questions are ‘how does the brain change to help improve emotion regulation skills with development?’, ‘why are some emotion regulation strategies better or worse at promoting adaptive outcomes?’, ‘why do some individuals make risky decisions more than others when they become teenagers?’, ‘how do our mental models of specific others change with experience, and how does this impact how we spend our time with them?’. Research in the lab will combines traditional psychological methods with emergent neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI) and computational techniques, and will also support original quantitative methods research in service of answering core substantive research questions.”
Communication Prior to Applying:
“I highly suggest prospective students who are planning to apply to my lab contact me via email with their CV and brief description of the research they hope to pursue as a doctoral student. I am also happy to answer questions about my lab’s research via email. If the questions are not easily answered via email, then I may suggest a video call.”
Science or Religion?
I have emailed many such university research labs around the world with an excitement and anticipation of finding an ally… and to actually change and advance psychology’s cognitive triangle of human behavior. As of yet, I have been denied any access to our officially sanctioned university research facilities.
Is Psychology a Science to Be Explored and Developed or a Religion to be Guarded and Protected?
Has psychology and the psychological related “sciences” found in literature, linguistics, sociology, philosophy, law, and religious studies become their own religious edifice? I have spent nearly 20years sending thousands of emails to professors around the world in these academic disciplines with the intent to start an honest debate into the literary and religious linguistical foundation of emotionally driven behavior and emotional dysregulation and dysfunction (vs. cognitive driven behavior and cognitive dysregulaiton and dysfunction). Cognition, not emotion, precipitates the neurological, biochemical, and physiological changes and states of being in the brain and body that drives behavior and is perceived as emotion (Reference: Jackson, A.O. (2025). (Technical Paper with Supplements.) Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Control, Cultivation, and Education: The Linguistic Semantics of Cognitive vs. Emotional Dysregulation. Symbiotic Psychology Press. (15,500-word paper, free PDF download, new tab))
Do you uphold the beliefs of “sifting and winnowing” for truth and “universities are unique places, characterized by their acceptance of people who push the boundaries of perceived truth”? Or, ….
What is your opinion of Homer’s theory of emotionally driven behavior and emotional control, regulation, and management because dangerous emotions can drive destructive behavior? Or could cognition, not emotion, precipitate the physiology that drives behavior and emotions are an effect and the perception of these states and changes of biochemical, neurological, and physiological being in the brain and body? What is the significance of our primary and secondary school language and literary neurolinguistic programing of Homer’s theory of emotionally driven behavior on individual health, well-being, and decision-making prowess?
Andrew O. Jackson
Center for Symbiotic Psychology
P.O. Box 930153
Verona, WI 53593 USA
info@symsyc.com
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Symbiotic Psychology: mind, body, emotions, and awareness are not separate, but interlinked modalities of synergistic being.
Emotions are the perception of changes and states of physiology in the brain and body precipitated by the mind.
or
Emotions are the perception of neurological, biochemical, and physiological changes and states of being in the brain and body precipitated by cognitive activities of the mind.
or
Emotions are the perception of neurological, biochemical, and physiological changes and states of being in the brain and body precipitated by cognitive activities of the mind such as thoughts, memories, beliefs, imaginings, perceptions, and reasoning.
plus
Evolution has dictated that positive, good-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings must have a positive correlation with health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and their actualization. If this were not so, humanity would not have survived the evolutionary mill.
and
Negative, bad-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings must have a positive correlation with the lack and negation of health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and their actualization. If this were not so, humanity would not have survived the evolutionary mill.
therefore
Through cognitive-emotional self-awareness, emotions can be utilized by an individual to guide their own cognitive activities (thought, memory, belief, imagining, perception, reasoning, discernment) towards health, well-being, and successful decision-making as highly researched, evidenced based cognitive behavior modification therapies have demonstrated within hundreds of peer researched journal articles.
and
Psychiatric therapies that use pharmaceuticals to alter changes and states of neurological, biochemical, and physiological being must include, and harmonize with, cognitive behavior modification therapies (modifying thought, memory, belief, imagining, perception, reasoning, discernment) to re-instate an individual’s natural cognitive-emotional re-processing mechanics.
and
Since, biologically speaking, what feels-good is good and what feels-bad is bad, our primary, secondary, and collegiate education must include a morality and ethics (individual and societal) conduct awareness training.
because
What emotionally feels-good in the short term, may or may not, be “good” for the individual in the long term.
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Symbiotic Psychology: Linking Academic and Physical Education
Link (new page) to page 3, menu topic: “Educators, Teachers, and Administrators”
Link (new page) to page 2, menu topic: “Athletes, Coaches, and Athletic Directors”
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Success is a state of being.
An individual’s biology has evolved over millions of years of survival of the fittest, most powerful, strongest, and agile of bodies as well as survival of the most clever, creative, and cunning minds that ever have lived on this planet. An individual’s evolutionary heritage has survived billions upon billions of battles, conflicts, and encounters and is now at the pinnacle, the top, the summit of the highest peaks.
Emotions are the Perception of Physiology Precipitated by Cognition
A character may be emotionally driven in a book, movie, opera, play, song, or video, but in science emotions do not drive behavior. Cognition, not emotion, precipitates the changes and states of neurological, biochemical, and physiological being in the brain and body that drives behavior. Emotions are the perception of these changes and states of physiological being. This is the evolved cognitive-emotional foundation within humanity that allows well researched and evidenced based cognitive behavior modification therapies to work and to be successful. Teachers in academic education (language, literature, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and law) and coaches (athletics and sports) can and must work together in developing a student’s cognitive-emotional dynamics that are in harmony with their evolutionary heritage of strength, speed, stamina, agility, cunning, health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and ability.
The Language of Cooperation vs. the Language of Conflict and Control: The Linguistic Semantics of Cognitive vs. Emotional Dysregulation
Ancient Greek philosophers and today’s academic dissertations of emotional suffering, slavery, and vulnerability exist only when cognitively dwelling upon the lack or absence of that which is wanted, desired, or intended. When these emotionally negative cognitive activities are re-processed, re-structured, and re-developed into emotionally positive cognitions, a being of emotional suffering, slavery, and vulnerability is transformed, transmuted, and renovated into a being of joy, freedom, and power with the imaginative, artistic, and creative mind necessary to fashion and manifest their wanted, desired, and intended world, reality, truth, and favored fortune.
Every writer since Homer reflects the emotional linguistics of his “Iliad” (inscribed nearly 3000 years ago); and millions of years of cognitive-emotional evolution have been (and are being) linguistically redefined and sabotaged by our language and literary institutions (Jackson, 2023). Language and literary artisans are instrumental to the hundreds of thousands yearly suicide deaths, reprehensible mass shootings, and the human degradation and insanity now on exhibit in the Mid-East.
Contrary to writing standards, conventions, and implications, cognition, not emotion, precipitates the changes and states of biochemical, neurological, and physiological being that drives behavior. Emotions are not causal but an effect and the perception of these changes and states of physiology. Teachers within all academic disciplines and authors, poets, journalists, and playwrights must re-learn and re-develop our emotional language to mirror our cognitive-emotional evolutionary, and symbiotic heritage of the heart, mind, and body.
Positive, good-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings have an evolved correlation with health, well-being, and effective and successful decision-making abilities and prowess. Negative, bad feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings have an evolved correlation with their negation. If this were not so, humanity would not have survived the evolutionary mill.
And therefore, contrary to our literary works of science and art, emotions instead of conflicting with, and controlled by, the cognitive mind as professed by psychology (and our psychological institutions of religion, law, politics, and philosophy), have evolved to guide our cognitive and physical acts away from negative, bad feeling destructive behavior and towards positive, good feeling constructive behavior. The solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies within this new linguistics of cognitive-emotional cooperative, instead of conflict and control, behavior and law.
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Evolved Cognitive-Emotional Dynamics: Emotions Are an Awareness of a Physiology Precipitated by Cognition
Extensively researched and evidence based cognitive behavior modification therapies work because emotions are an awareness of changes and states of biochemical and neurological being precipitated by cognition.
Emotions have evolved not to be controlled by cognitive behavior but to guide cognitive behavior because positive, good emotional feeling cognitive behavior has an evolved correlation with health, well-being, and effective decision-making prowess and abilities; and negative, bad emotional feeling cognitive behavior has an evolved correlation with the negation of health, well-being, and effective decision-making prowess and ability. If this were not so, humanity would not have survived the evolutionary mill.
Cognitive-Emotional Health Education in our Schools, Prisons, and Psychological Therapies for the Health, Well-Being, and Success of
Every Individual and the Culture and Society in Which They Live
Literary educators (as well as play writes, authors, and psychotherapists) should all embrace and teach how an individual’s own internal (and external) language precipitates the physiology of positive, good-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings (that have an evolved correlation with health, well-being, and effective and successful decision-making prowess and abilities). Literary educators can also teach how an individual’s internal (and external) language precipitates the physiology of negative, bad-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings (that have an evolved correlation with the lack of health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and abilities).
The Symbiotic Awareness Between Thoughts, Emotions, and Biochemistry
In 1993, while reaching for the key to get into my apartment, I had my “eureka” moment…. “I am aware of a connection between my thoughts and my feelings. Does that mean I am also aware of my biochemistry?” The significance of this question echoes within my nearly 15-years of mental and emotional disorders and dysfunction… from psychotic mania, suicidal depression (with tendencies of schizophrenia) along with the accompanying (and necessary) mental hospitals, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists (and their torturous medications) …. all because I have a “biochemical imbalance.”
“Stop…stop…STOP…. Think! The scientific community once failed to recognize the equivalency between mass and energy… (until a guy named Einstein came along)…. Is there an interdependence between emotions, cognition, and physiology that current psychological science has failed to acknowledge?”
As I put my key into the lock and unbolted the door to my apartment, I again asked myself, “Are thoughts and emotions two separate entities or does biochemistry provide some interconnective link?” That is, by my awareness of my thoughts and feelings, am I also aware of my biochemistry? Do I now have my own key to manipulating my own biochemical makeup other than the pharmaceutical remedies prescribed by my doctors? When I am depressed or manic and I have a “biochemical imbalance” does that mean when I am doing well I have a “biochemical in-balance?” Do good emotional feeling thoughts have a correlation with a healthy biochemistry? And, do bad emotional feeling thoughts have a correlation with an unhealthy biochemistry? My answer was “YES!” … and 3-years later, 17-years after my first psychotic/manic episode, I saw the last of mental hospitals, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapist, and their pharmaceutical therapies.
My internal war was over. I had won my freedom. But another conflict, the re-education of those very same academics who kept me imprisoned within their flawed emotional dynamics based on Homer’s 3000-year-old erroneous emotionally driven behavior linguistics, had just begun. My battle was (and is) to free the current population of mental and emotional inmates who are falsely imprisoned, suffer, and even die within a torturous illusion of cognitive-emotional disorders and dysfunction.
Revitalizing a Failed SEL (Social Emotional Learning) Initiative:
The Role of Primary and Secondary School Language and Literary Educators
As primary and secondary school language and literary teachers establish how an author molds, shapes, and develops the emotional aura that drives a character, scene, and totality of a book to their students, so too can these same educators demonstrate to their students how one’s own cognitive perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, and rationale molds, shapes, and develops one’s own emotional constitution. These educators teach how an author intentionally and purposely designs into a character their cognitive-emotional make-up to drive the author’s story. These same teachers can demonstrate to their own students how they also can intentionally and purposely develop their own cognitive-emotional being within their own life’s story. The question is, how does the student want and desire to feel as they go through their own life’s adventures? (Answer: What cognitive activities (perceptions, thoughts, memories, imaginings, beliefs, and rationale) is the student developing and dwelling upon in their own life’s story? The caveat being that positive, good-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings have an evolved correlation with health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and abilities and negative, bad-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings have an evolved correlation with the negation of health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and abilities.)
Emotions: The Engineering Mechanics vs. The Linguistic Poetry
The imagery, poetry, and metaphoric linguistics of a “sunset” or “sunrise” abound throughout the thousands of years of language and literature. But, from an engineering mechanics viewpoint, the sun is not setting, nor is it rising. The viewer is standing on a sphere that is rotating and it is this rotation that gives the illusion of the sun setting or rising in the distance. But what song would it be to say instead of “Sunrise, sunset; swiftly flow the days…,” but to say “Rotating earth, rotating earth; 400 miles per hour (at our latitude) speed the days……?”
But there is a serious matter within the linguistics of emotional words, such as hate, love, anger, envy, joy, etc. Understanding the emotional beauty, mystery, and depth within the great literary and poetic works of the ages is not the same as understanding emotions engineering mechanics within the physical body and brain to guide cognitive behavior towards health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and ability.
Love, hate, revenge, envy, or joy may “drive” a character in a book, movie, video, or song, but technically, emotions do not drive behavior. Emotions are the conscious awareness of the neurological, biochemical, and physiological changes and states of being that do drive behavior. And, it is our cognitive activities of the mind, such as thoughts, memories, imagery, and reasoning that precipitates the highly orchestrated changes in physiology that drives behavior.
Our language of emotionally driven behavior is a flawed, linguistic shortcut that fails to convey the evolutionary role of negative, bad-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings in guiding our cognitive activities away from destruction and towards positive, good-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feeling of health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and ability.
Our primary and secondary language and literary educators are teaching a flawed psychology of emotionally driven behavior. This poetic, metaphoric, and literary education must be augmented with the awareness and understanding of emotions evolutionary function to re-process, re-structure, and re-organize unhealthy, dis-empowering, negative, and bad feeling cognitive behaviors of failure into healthy empowering, positive, and good-feeling cognitive activities of success. Teaching the skills, abilities, and understandings of our cognitive-emotional health dynamics is especially critical in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities that lack the social capitol of success.
Today’s academic theory of emotionally driven behavior, first linguistically inscribed within Homer’s “Iliad” nearly 3000 years ago, and currently utilized within today’s philosophy, religion, sociology, and law, is flawed and fails to incorporate changes and states of physiology in its cognition-emotions-behavior triangle paradigm.
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“Because cognition precipitates the neurological, biological, and physiological changes and states of being that is perceived as emotion, cognition, not emotion, drives behavior. Emotion is an effect, cognition is cause.”
” Positive, good feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings have an evolved correlation with health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess (and their actualization). Negative, bad feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings have an evolved correlation with their negation. If this were not so, humanity would not have survived the evolutionary mill.
Because joy has an evolved correlation with health, well-being, and successful decision-making prowess and actualization, we have evolved to be joyous beings. Yet a self-centered feels-good-is-good morality must be tempered within a compassionate awareness of the symbiotic connection between all humanity. The success of any educational institution cannot be defined solely by their students’ ability to cognitively achieve; success must be defined by their students’ ability to achieve with the presence of health, vigor, and joy along with the necessary cognitive skills, abilities, and motivation to nurture these learning conditions throughout life by employing one’s own evolved cognitive-emotional bio-feedback mechanisms within a compassionate awareness of the interdependence of all life.
Cognitive-emotional development within an individual is a process of learning, practicing, and utilizing a variety of cognitive-emotional re-processing techniques to where positive good-feeling emotions, moods, and feelings accentuate physical expression and behavior.
The greatness of the human life experience emerges from the flames of individual desire arising out of hell’s fiery conflicts on earth. Intention is forged in these fires. Emotion aligns our journey with these new intentions. Each succeeding generation will have its own mountains to climb and waters to cross with their own stars to navigate towards. Intent is that guiding star; and it is our emotions that perceive its light. The more joyous the feeling, the more harmonious and powerful the wonders revealed through life’s journey.
