The Wisdom in Feeling Psychological Processes in Emotional Intelligence

The fundamental concern of psychotherapy is change. While practitioners are constantly greeted with new strategies, techniques, programs, and interventions, this book argues that the full benefits of the therapeutic process cannot be realized without fundamental revision of the concept of change itself. Applying cybernetic thought to family therapy, Bradford P. Keeney demonstrates that conventional epistemology, in which casue and effect have a linear relationship, does not sufficiently accommodate the reciprocal nature of causation in experience. Written in an unconventional style that includes stories, case examples, and imagined dialogues between an epistemologist and a skeptical therapist, the volume presents a philosophically grounded, ecological framework for contemporary clinical practice.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Boston College. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto and her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Waterloo. Dr. Barrett's research focuses on the generation and representation of emotional experience, but she has also published papers in related areas, including the structure of affect, interpersonal relationships, experience sampling procedures, and, more generally, the role of retrospection in the self-report process.

Peter Salovey, PhD, is the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Yale University. He is also Director of the Department of Psychology's Health, Emotion, and Behavior Laboratory and Deputy Director of the Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS. Dr. Salovey has published over 175 articles and has been an editorial board member of several journals. A recipient of the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), he has served on the NSF Social Psychology Advisory Panel. His recent work on emotion has focused on the ways in which feelings facilitate adaptive cognitive and behavioral functioning.