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Emotions drive (if allowed) thoughts; thoughts drive (if allowed) physiology; physiology drives behavior and is perceived emotionally.
To control emotions and behavior is to manage thoughts.
And who, may I ask, is managing your thoughts?
Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Therapy
Emotions don’t drive behavior per se. We must understand the brain as a highly evolved biological neural networking processor that orchestrates changes and states of physiology (precipitated by cognition) that drives behavior. Emotions are the perception of these changes and states of physiology in the brain and body. Emotions can drive the mental activities that precipitate these changes and states of neurology, biochemistry, and physiology in the brain and body. Emotional awareness has evolved to drive cognitive-emotional re-processing activities from unhealthy, bio-chemically imbalanced, and emotionally bad-feeling mental activities towards healthy, bio-chemically balanced, and emotionally good-feeling mental activities. This is the foundational basis of well-researched and evidenced based cognitive behavior modification therapies.
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Understanding cognitive-emotional evolution: For humanity to have survived the evolutionary mill….
1a) Emotional good-feelings must correlate with a strong, empowered, and balanced neurological, biochemical, physiological genetic construct conducive to health, well-being, critical analysis, and successful decision-making prowess.
1b) Emotional bad-feelings must correlate with a weak, dis-empowered, and unbalanced neurological, biochemical, physiological genetic construct vulnerable to illness, accidents, injury, and poor decision-making prowess.
2a) Emotional good-feelings must correlate with a cognitive dwelling and focus upon what is wanted, desired, and intended within one’s own life experience.
2b) Emotional bad-feelings must correlate with a cognitive dwelling and focus upon what is NOT wanted, desired, and intended within one’s own life experience.
A very important THEREFORE:
Psychological depression is not a mood disorder but a natural evolved order of genetic behavior! Depression and it’s neurological, biochemical, and physiological genetic constructs are supposed to exist when a person’s cognitive activities are dwelling and focused upon what is not wanted, desired, nor intended within one’s own life’s experience.
The longer and more intensely a person cognitively dwells and focuses upon what is not wanted and ignores, suppresses, or camouflages (with drugs and medications) their emotional bad-feelings, the more severe, abnormal, and imbalanced their neurology, biochemistry, and physiology and resulting behavior become resulting in other disorders such as major depressive disorder (MDD), psychotic mania, and even schizophrenic tendencies.
Emotions have evolved to guide cognitive behavior away from an unhealthy, emotionally bad-feeling physiology when focused and dwelling upon what is not wanted and towards a healthy, emotionally good-feeling, empowered, and balanced physiology when dwelling and focused upon what is wanted, desired, and intended.
Cognitive-emotional behavior modification therapy teaches a student the evolutionary meaning of emotional awareness (vs. today’s “science” of emotional behavior and control based in a 3000-year-old language and literary linguistics) and how to use their emotional awareness to guide their mental activities (and resulting thoughts, memories, beliefs, imaginings, perceptions, and reasoning) towards a healthy, empowered, and balanced physiology conducive to critical analysis and successful decision-making prowess. Pharmaceutical therapies should act as a temporary crutch and their intrusion be reduced as cognitive self-control based on emotional awareness increases. But as in a severely burnt hand, therapeutic intervention may be life long.
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Emotional Wisdom
1.0 There exists a symbiotic synergy between mind, body, emotions and awareness: instead of the masculine mind controlling feminine emotional body, emotions have evolved to empathically guide the mind’s activities towards individual and societal health, well-being, and success.
2.0 Cognition, activities of the mind: the processes of awareness and knowing, such as perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem-solving (APA, cognition), where understanding and comprehension can project future consequences and events. Cognitive activities of the mind include their product such as thoughts, memories, beliefs, perceptions, conceptions, imaginings, evaluations, discernment, and reasoning.
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: cognition, not emotion, precipitates the changes and states of neurological, biochemical, and physiological being in the brain and body that drives behavior. Emotions are a perceptual effect of these changes and states of physiology. Cognition is causal and emotions are an effect. Although, with the cognitive perception and evaluation of emotions, emotions will then drive cognitive activities (which precipitates the physiology that drives behavior).
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 Dysfunction: 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. As vision accurately perceives “red” and not “green” as a true reflection of the seeing process, an accurate emotional perception of unhealthy physiology of the brain and body, even though extreme, is not a dysfunction. The linguistics of “emotional disorder”, “emotional dysfunction”, or an “emotional illness” are cognitive disorders, cognitive dysfunction, or a cognitive illness. Cognition, not emotion, must be controlled, regulated, and managed. But, the actual dysfunction is an individual’s inability to naturally re-processes unhealthy emotionally bad-feeling cognitions into healthy emotionally good-feeling cognitions.
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.
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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 students 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.
Reference: Jackson, A.O. (2026). (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)
Contrary to psychological research, literacy linguistics, and literary educational standards, conventions, and implications……, cognition, not emotion, precipitates the changes and states of biochemical, neurological, and physiological being in the brain and body that drives behavior (as demonstrated within the success of well researched and evidenced based cognitive behavior modification therapies). Emotions are the perception of these changes and states of physiological being.
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Language and literacy education have corrupted how good and bad feeling emotions (moods, attitudes, and feelings) have evolved as a natural operate conditioning mechanism, similar to pain and pleasure, to sustain life enhancing healthy and good-feeling cognitive behaviors and dissuade life degenerating unhealthy and emotionally bad-feeling cognitive behaviors.
When will literary artisans and academic professors review, analyze, and question the dangerous psychological linguistic environments that language itself fosters because they are oblivious to emotions’ evolutionary design?
NEW REWRITE FOR GREATER CLARITY AND EASE OF UNDERSTANDING
Can Academia Escape the Allegory of Plato’s Cave? (rev2026-05-21d)
Rewrite: (free PDF download, 6600-words, new tab)
How long will the academic institutions of language, literary, and linguistic education condone the current psychology, research, and instruction into human mental and physical health and well-being while ignoring its erroneous and dangerous cognitive-emotional-physiological dynamic regulatory language based in a 3000-year-old literary and religious linguistics?
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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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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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Cognitive-Emotional Health Education: A Primary and Secondary School Overview (58,800 words)
Andrew O. Jackson
LINK: free downloadable PDF, new tab (rev2026-05-01a)
Published by: Symbiotic Psychology Press · P.O. Box 930153 · Verona, WI
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.)
Reference: Jackson, A.O. (2026). Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Control, Cultivation, and Education: The Linguistic Semantics of Cognitive vs. Emotional Dysregulation in Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Control Paper with Supplements. Symbiotic Psychology Press. (15,500-word paper, free PDF download, new tab)
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 has unintended consequences and fails to incorporate changes and states of physiology in its cognition-emotions-behavior triangle paradigm.
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