By: Carolina Gutierrez and Lorette Mourra

1. Emotion By: Carolina Gutierrez and Lorette Mourra

2. Description * A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.

3. History • The history of emotions is a complicated topic for history has focused its attention on relevant topics (i.e. politics) rather than the mysteries of emotions. However, this does not mean emotions have not been studied in history. • It is argued that emotions have not been treated by historians; despite numerous calls for their study, starting at least as far back as 1941 with a famous article by Lucien Febvre, most historians have shied away from the topic. • Febvre believed it was important to study emotions because "the emotional life [is] always ready to overflow the intellectual life . . . [You might say:] The history of hate, the history of fear, the history of cruelty, the history of love; stop bothering us with this idle chatter. But that idle chatter . . . will tomorrow have turned the universe into a fetid pit of corpses." • In Gross’s historical analysis of emotion, Aristotle and Hobbes’s rhetoric show that our passions do not stem from some inherent, universal nature of men and women, but rather are conditioned by power relations and social hierarchies.

4. “Hidden” recordings of emotion in history • Emotionshavebeen a bigpart of historyeversincehistory has beenknown; however, this factor isfoundtobe “hidden” in historyregardless of themajor role theyplay. • Forexample, whentheymentionthespartans and howtheyfought and describe famouswars, theysaytheywere “belicoseand angry” to describe thegravity of thesituation. Thesefactors are as important as thewaritselfforifitwasntfortheseemotions and way of being, thereprobablywouldhavebeen no war at all. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY4-DSF6qM0

5. MORE emotions in history • Philosophers are probablythefirsttostudyemotionsreferringtoitbydevelopingtheoriesonfeelings and thoughts. Through time theydividedemotionsintocategoriessuch as thesoul and intelligence. Thetheoriescreateddescribedemotionsbycreatingcorrellationssuch as “thesoulcreatesfeelingscapturedbyintelligence”. • Emotionsdealswith a variety of topics in historyrangingfromwartoimportantdiscoveries. Peoplewithemotionalproblems in historyhavecontributedgreatly in theworldwenowlive in. • John Nash sufferedanemotionaldisordercalledparanoidschizophrenia. He isan American mathematicianwhose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations have provided insight into the forces that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life. His theories are still used today in market economics, computing, artificial intelligence, accounting and military theory.

6. Importance in Emotion • Emotions play an extremely important role in human mental life – many problems in human psychology and society are caused by emotions run amok in various ways. • Emotions represent a critical part of mental process. • Emotions have the potential to serve us today as a delicate and sophisticated internal guidance system. Our emotions alert us when natural human need is not being met; emotions help us make decisions. • Emotions help us communicate with others. • Overall, emotions have to be understood by human beings for it is in our nature to experience emotions daily. There is not a moment in our lives in which there is no emotion felt at all.

7. Importance in emotionsselfanalysis • It is Friday afternoon (around 6 pm) and you realize you have an essay due that day before midnight. You are sick of school, your friends are going out, you want to have fun and relax for a while. Do you go back home and do your essay or go out for a little while? • Which ever one you choose, your decision comes down to your emotions.

8. ProblemswithEmotion • Emotions are so complex they may become distorded and result with what is known as emotional disorders. • There is a great variety of emotional disorders varying from depression to schizophrenia. • People with emotional disorders require treatment from proffesionals in order to achieve stability. Sometimes drugs and medicines are required to control these disorders. • Another problem with emotions is their method of study. The study of emotions is biased since some argue its main source is the soul while others base themselves on a biological perspective and state emotions are controlled by the brain and chemicals.

9. EthicsArticles • Article: Healthy Emotion - by Kevin RobertsMuch can be, and has been, said on the subject of emotion. The word emotion itself means to express or get out. Yet often times emotion leads to unsatisfactory results. We feel drained instead of invigorated. Surely this natural function of the bodymind has a possible healthy purpose. Here we shall examine what that purpose, or function, is, where we went wrong, and how to remedy the situation; this will lead us to healthy emotion. Emotional expression is something we are born with, in that we are capable of it without instruction. This expression settles in when we are primarily involved in learning how to move (see Language of Movement). Movement is learned by imitation, so we naturally have some crossover in emotional imitation. Since people in general do not have healthy emotion, and we imitate people - namely our parents, siblings, and other caregivers - we imitate this deviation from healthy emotion right from the start. (Let us not put blame on these folks, for they are in the same boat with us.)A few basic examples are useful to ponder as we consider where we strayed. One easy illustration is 'controlling' emotion - which really means stopping it. Of course we need control, just as with bowel movements, which we also learn at this time. However, with our bowels we are allowed relief at a proper time; emotions are postponed indefinitely. This is evident in common phrases like "There's nothing to be scared of . . ." or "It's going to be alright," etc. If we learned also an appropriate time and place for expression of emotion, this control could become useful. There would be a lot fewer temper tantrums as well.Another example is 'labeling' emotions, generally as good or bad, acceptable and not acceptable. When this happens - say, when a little girl is allowed to cry but nothing else - then all expression is funneled into one outward manifestation. This is not a satisfying expression and drains the system of energy. Both of these examples are forms of my third example, 'denial' of emotion. This includes any attempt to discount emotion, such as "I'll give you something to whine about!" which basically says our emotion is wrong, or should not exist. When emotion is met by this kind of violent reaction, it gradually shuts down, or is denied. This repression of emotion takes a great energetic toll on the bodymind. These three examples should suffice to make a beginning in our journey.

10. One of my favorite sayings is "The only negative emotion is an unresolved emotion." Truly resolution defines emotion. Until it 'comes out,' it is not yet emoted. This strange energy of unexpressed emotion is a poison to us. The way to relief is to lance the boil, so to speak. There are many methods for getting 'caught up' with old emotions; I will not detail them here, but bodywork is fundamental to most of these methods. They must be resolved because any current expression will be tainted by them. The key in this, and please read this carefully, is not to analyze during emotion. Many lines of esoteric teaching tell us that thought opposes emotion, and you will find this is true. The emotion must be allowed to run its course. Then, if you wish, you may analyze (you will find things much clearer then as well). In reality, analysis is usually an attempt to abort expression, albeit unconsciously (that is, by imitation).So now we have covered, in basic formulations, where we went wrong and how to fix it. We now come to the why: Why have emotion at all? What good is it? Since we know that emotion is part of our machinery, we will look for its normal, or healthy, function. I will begin with Five Element Theory, which provides a simple, yet complete understanding of emotional integration. The five basic emotions are fear, anger, joy, compassion, and grief. If we see each 'element' as being in relationship to the others (and not as good or bad), and needing balance in this relation, we are moving in the right direction. Each element can be 'symptomatic,' or have too much energy, as when anger becomes rage. Each element can be depleted, as when joy becomes sadness. Or they can be in balance, in which we could call fear 'respect' (this gives a new meaning to 'fear of God'). If we look carefully, we can distill every emotion to one of these five and then seek balance. Five Element Theory has much to say about this balance.Where would we be without healthy anger? We would have no boundaries. Without fear we have no sense of scale. Without joy we are depressed (this topic will be addressed in another paper). These emotions are as necessary as the air we breathe; in fact they are related to and are in the air. Without them we are choked off (yes, there is a direct correlation with asthma and other diseases). This leads into our final point: What does healthy emotion look like? Here we must be clear by using objective results. In the last paper we spoke of "expression of negative emotions" (see Identifying Stress) as a leak in the bodymind. Let's explore what this means in the context of healthy emotion. We all have experience of two basic modes of expression: one kind gives energy, the other drains us. Notice that I didn't say "feels good" - this is because expression of negative emotions often seems to feel good. There is a movement of energy with negative emotion, but it is energy moving out of us. So it is important not to look for results during expression, but afterward. After crying, for example, are you exhausted or refreshed? Healthy emotion always refreshes us. This is an objective result.After practice, careful observation, and a tabulating of results, you will begin to notice a definite 'taste' to both healthy emotion and negative emotion. We need to use this taste because of the speed of emotion (see Somatics and the Unconscious), which is infinitely faster than ordinary thought. In this way we will develop an ability to emote in a healthy way and control our leaks. The effects of this on our physical health will be quickly and clearly evident. http://www.naturalhealthweb.com/articles/roberts1.html

11. Multimedia • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oENcwNxm90 • FEAR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-4f_NMUxcY&feature=related • SADNESS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j4nJtgbmSk • HAPPINESS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR2S_oHOYPc

13. Works cited: • http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=175345 • http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/107.3/ah0302000821.html • http://meltaylor.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/300-movie-400a0309.jpg • http://dhex.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/john_nash1.jpg • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash,_Jr. • http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2004/Emotions.htm • http://eqi.org/emotions.htm