This is a continuation of last week's two part blog. In light of recent tragic international events developing sensitivity to others couldn't be more important. 

One of the scales in the Challenge of Change Resilience Profile measures Sensitivity.  We usually talk about this in conjunction with the Detached Coping scale: people who are high on both have what we call Detached Compassion, which means that they can pick up quickly and accurately how other people feel but don't themselves become identified or involved with the emotions.  

Heaven help me, I've just been holidaying with a Toxic Achiever.  Do these people never relax? 

In the course of delivering the Challenge of Change Resilience programme, participants will from time to time suggest that rumination must have a purpose, otherwise it wouldn't have evolved. Evolutionary oversimplifications of this kind are widespread and persistent: as early as 1966 Robert Ardrey claimed in The Territorial Imperative that a human being is 'as much a territorial animal as is a mockingbird singing in the clear California night'.  The basis for his argument was that humans own property, but let's dispense with these sorts of glib notions by looking at the evidence. 

We know that expressing emotion is a vital part of resolving experiences and building resilience.  Those people who soldier on, denying or ignoring their emotions will have a much tougher time dealing with life's rapids.  American Vietnam veterans returned, defeated, to the USA after an unpopular war and felt unable to talk about their experiences. Many took years to re-integrate back into their work and personal lives, some never did, and some suffered flashbacks years later.  In a more everyday context, you may know people who when asked why they are angry, snap back through clenched jaws 'I'm not angry!'  Or the person who tells you in a high pitched voice that they aren't stressed.