ACHIEVING EMOTIONAL LITERACY --- A PERSONAL PROGRAM TO INCREASE
YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE by Claude Steiner with Paul Perry. Avon Books, 1997
    INTRODUCTION --- This book demonstrates the importance of acknowledging and apologizing for your past mistakes.

      In addition, it shows you how important it is to be sensitive to your own "emotional needs" on a daily basis! The ideas are based on a practical version of Transactional Analysis! (p1-10)

    1) What is "Emotional Literacy?" (p11-27)

      "Emotional Literacy" consists of three abilities:

        (1) The ability to understand your emotions...
        (2) The ability to empathize with the emotions of others...
        (3) The ability to express your emotions in a productive way...

      What is "Emotional Literacy Training?"

        Emotional Literacy Training consists of guided learning exercises which can give you the information you need to express your feelings in better ways. It maximizes YOUR personal power and improves the quality of your life and your relationships with others.

        Your Emotional Quotient or Emotional Intelligence can be improved through training. A major "emotional skill that can be learned is the postponement of gratification.

        (1) Knowing your own feelings...
        (2) Having a sense of empathy for other people's feelings...
        (3) Repairing "emotional damage"...
        (4) Learning to manage your own emotions...

      The promise of Emotional Literacy Training is that you will learn "empathy skills" or "emotional skills" and how you can take responsibility for the way you express your most important feelings to others! Thus, you can become better at everything you do, whether it is:

        (1) Parenting
        (2) Partnering
        (3) Working
        (4) Playing
        (5) Teaching
        (6) Loving
    2) Becoming aware of your emotions --- Why do "smart" people act in emotionally "stupid" ways?

      Because they have "lost touch" with their own feelings!

        [1] Roots of Emotional Awareness (p29-30)

        [2] Emotional Awaremness Questionnaire (p30-36)

        [3] Emotional Awareness Scale (p36-49)

      Your "defense mechanisms" or protective "psychological walls" may collapse, leaving you in a state of emotional chaos which causes pain and emotional numbness.

      Thus, due to the severe emotional traumas that everybody experience growing up, destructive patterns of personal awareness and/or relationships can develop unconsciously.

        (1) The lowest level is when you feel "numbness or coldness" since YOUR EMOTIONS are unavailable to YOUR AWARENESS, they are "frozen."

        (2) The next higher level is when you experience the "physical sensations" or painful feelings in your chest or stomach but you are not consciously aware of the emotions themselves ("somatization").

        (3) The next higher level is the primal experience of "emotional chaos" or "uncontrolled emotions" when you are most vulnerable and responsive to YOUR OWN EMOTIONS but are unable to comprehend or control the "feelings" since you experience them as disturbing energy that cannot be put into words.

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        THE LINGUISTIC BARRIER --- "VERBAL WALL"

        Crossing this verbal wall requires an emotional environment that is "friendly" to "emotional information" and is crossed when you can talk about YOUR EMOTIONS in a way that develops an increasing awareness of your "feelings." For example, it is easier to sit down and watch television than to have a meaningful discussion with a family member. Few people realize how such a choice can "insulate" them from their own emotions and those of others. Therefore, without analyzing your feelings, you can never hope to escape from a state of "numbness," "physical turmoil" or "emotional chaos." Without such an analysis, you can never hope to have fulfilling relationships with others!

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        (4) The next higher level of "emotional literacy" is differentiation, which requires the ability to speak about your different kinds of emotion and their different intensities with your significant others such as with good friends or with relatives or in therapy. The problem of experiencing "mixed feelings" and the need to understand them and reconcile the differences is challenging but crucial at this level.

        (5) The next level is causality (the "alchemy" of emotions), which requires an understanding of the causes of your feelings and the events that "triggered" your emotional responses to them. In short, it is HOW your emotional tendencies and behavior combine with the emotional tendencies and behavior of others. At best, it is "why we feel what we feel!"

        (6) The next to highest level is empathy, which is a form of intuition about emotions. Empathy, like all intuition, is imprecise and of little value to you until you develop ways of objectively confirming the accuracy of your perceptions. You can develop your powers of empathy by ASKING QUESTIONS of others. Progress depends upon HONEST and TRUTHFUL "feedback" from others and the process of having honest discussion. Getting accurate feedback improves the accuracy of all subsequent "empathic" or "emotional" perceptions.

        Empathy is not the same as sympathy since sympathy is only the intellectual awareness of other people's behavior and feelings. To be true "empathy", FEELINGS MUST CONNECT more directly. This is HOW you learn to trust your own feelings and perceptions and become more open about them. This transformation of your awareness is achieved through your continually CHOOSING to be CONSCIOUS of your perceptions, your feedback and your willingness to correct your misinterpretations. You can "construct" a new "reality" to fit your new analysis!

        (7) The highest or most sophisticated level of emotional literacy is "interactivity", which is the ability to realize what YOU are feeling and what OTHERS are feeling, and to anticipate HOW YOUR EMOTIONS will interact with those of others. It is "intelligent" interaction instead of "passive" acceptance. Emotional interactivity enables you to understand the emotions within and around you and to be creative with your feelings instead of denying them or letting them go uncontrolled. Thus, you can use this highest level of emotional awareness to have easier, more positive and more productive interactions with others.

    3) Training to be "emotionally literate" (p54-62)

    4) STAGE ONE --- Opening your "heart" (p63-88)

    5) STAGE TWO --- Surveying your "emotional landscape" (p89-119)

    6) STAGE THREE --- Taking "responsibility" (p120-158)

    7) Loving, parenting and working (p159-187)

    8) The "emotional warrior"(p188-204)

    9) One last word (p205-206)

    NOTES FOR PHILOSOPHERS (p207-218)

    GLOSSARY (p219-222)

    REFERENCES (p223-224)

    INDEX (p225-232)

    ABOUT EMOTIONAL LITERACY & TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS (p233-234)

    ABOUT CLAUDE STEINER --- THE AUTHOR (p235)

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