Abstract
The study of emotions has been neglected until the last three decades for several reasons. They have been considered as antithetical to our cognitive skills and a source of irrationality. It was assumed that emotions interfere with calm, voluntary, rational behaviour, and they are associated with ethically undesirable states that ought to be eliminated. Psychologically, emotions have been considered as states of agitation. In the area of academic research in psychology, emotions were relegated to the status of subjective phenomena incapable of verification. In general, in the psychologist’s landscape of the study of behaviour and consciousness, emotions remained a poor relation compared with stimulus-response behaviour, perception, motivation and personality. However, recent work by Antonio Damasio (1994)1 in emotion studies; by Joseph Le doux (1996)2 in neurology; by Paul Ekman (2003)3 in biology and facial expression of emotions; by Daniel Goleman (1997)4 in emotions, medicine and health, as well as his contribution to emotional intelligence and education (Goleman, 1996);5 by brain, body and emotions in Candace Pert’s thesis of the body as a ‘second brain’ (Pert, 1997)6 and in philosophy (Robert Solomon, 2004a, b)7 — all these contributions represent a veritable revolution in emotion studies. As well as these developments, projects carried out at the Mind and Life Institute produced several publications on emotion studies, among which was the ground-breaking neuroplasticity thesis concerning the impact of meditation practice on the brain by Richard Davidson.8
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Notes
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© 2014 Padmasiri de Silva
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de Silva, P. (2014). Emotions: Western Theoretical Orientations and Buddhism. In: An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology and Counselling. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287557_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287557_5
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