Engagements with the World

Emotions and Human Nature

After fi fty years of futile research on mind and behavior, trying to fi nd their causes in the brain, without success, psychiatrists and psychologists are turning their attention to the emotions, also looking for their causes in the brain, also without success. The problem is that there is no generally accepted theory or paradigm for understanding the emotions. William James suggested that such a paradigm must meet two criteria: (1) it must explain each individual emotion (i.e., anxiety, anger, depression, etc.), and (2) it must relate all the emotions to each other. This book presents such a paradigm. It is based on the accepted biological principle that all organisms from the lowest to the highest function in two biological motives, which I call bipolar reactivity. All organisms seek pleasure and/or that which sustains and promotes life, and all organisms seek to avoid pain and/or that which threatens or disables life. Interestingly, this biological principle corresponds to a basic principle of Buddhist psychology that the pain we cause to ourselves and to each other is caused by the Three Poisons: desire, aversion, and ego. Desire and aversion link humans to the great chain of being, and ego distinguishes humans from all other beings and recognizes our unique capacity for symbolic reactivity. I have used this paradigm for fi fty years in my practice of psychotherapy and have found it very useful for understanding my patients mental and emotional pain and helping them to understand and heal themselves.