Emotional intelligence: towards the problem of structure

Issues of self-regulation are acutely relevant, and today the role of emotional sensitivity and a person’s ability to experience in managing emotions and feelings, including in connection with models of emotional intelligence (hereinafter referred to as EI), has not been sufficiently studied. The article clarifies the content of the concept of emotional sensitivity (hereinafter referred to as ES) as a structural element of EI in terms of its comparison with the concept of experiencing: ES as the ability to feel and feel emotions and feelings is present both in the process of preverbal experience (according to Yu. Jendlin) at the beginning of the emotional process, and in the process of a holistic experience of personality (according to F.E. Vasilyuk) with further deep living of feelings and emotions. It shows the presence of ES in opposite processes – deep living of feelings and emotions, distancing from feelings and emotions as well as in the transition from one process to another. The experimental data accumulated in science on these processes are considered, their features and the relationship between them in theoretical and practical aspects are revealed. The expanded concept of EI can become the basis for the integration of various areas of psychotherapy and counseling and for the organization of more holistic – in terms of rational and emotional – practical psychological work. In addition to the well-known global drama of EI on the awareness of emotions and feelings, a new facet of it has been formulated, generically revealing the objective difficulties of experiencing emotions and feelings. The prospect of the study is further empirical verification of the extended EI structure.

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