From a press release:
NEW YORK: When there is turmoil in society, humanity experiences emotional turmoil. But the opposite can also be true, explains retired clinical psychologist Dr. Bruce Hutchison.
Emotions can be the fuel that feeds society’s turmoil in times of political or social upheaval. Can the cycle ever be broken?
In his groundbreaking book, Emotions Don’t Think: Emotional Contagion in a Time of Turmoil, Dr. Hutchison explores in depth the nature — and the power — of emotional contagion, its impact on society and how to stop the spread.
“You can’t have turmoil without emotions, so we have to stop the spread of contagious toxic emotions to stop the turmoil in society,” Dr. Hutchison said. “This book tells you how to do that without changing your position on an issue.”
Emotions Don’t Think describes how to use systematic reasoning and critical thinking to put necessary limitations and stipulations on incoming emotions.
“In this book, I use my psychological knowledge to explain how to stem the flow of negative emotional contagion in our current social and political environment,” he said.
“It is important to know how to evaluate an emotion that comes at you in order to decide if it should be acted on as is, tempered, minimized or blocked.”
Emotions Don’t Think presents a psychological perspective on events in contemporary society, with an emphasis on the effects of emotions and how they are contagious and impact the people who may absorb them. There are five chapters on overcoming the effects of contagious toxic emotions by using healthy psychological principles.
It is Dr. Hutchison’s hope that these principles can be used to help society mitigate and cope with emotional contagion in this day and age.
“People use these emotions to think, but emotions can only feel,” Dr. Hutchison added. “Emotions don’t think.”
