Emotional Intelligence and the Five Domains

Emotional Intelligence and the Five Domains

Ashley Vaughan

Widener University

INTRODUCTION

The concept of Emotional Intelligence can be defined in several of ways.  In this week’s reading article “Emotional Intelligence, emotions, and social work” written by Tony Morrison published in 2007. Morrison examined the role of emotional intelligence and its relation to five cores that involve social work tasks. The five cores included engagement of users, assessment and observation, decision making, collaboration and cooperation, and dealing with stress. Morrison is a social care consultation who works in child services.  In his paper, Morrison situates the rapid changing of social work and why social work and why social work needs to know its claim of professional competence during the changes in order to address users’ needs (Morrison,2007) . Morrison is interested in the role emotions play in social work. Morrison argues that the poorest performance occurs when staff lacks empathy, self-awareness, and self-management skills.  

In comparison to Morrison article, the second literature source I chose to discuss because I found this article very interesting is “Locating Emotional Intelligence at the Heart of Social Work” published in 2013. Richard Ingram, the author of this article, is a lecturer in Social Work at the University of Dundee. According to research, Ingram is seeking his PhD and focusing on the role of emotional intelligence and emotions within the social work practice. In Ingram’s article he also talks about the concept of Emotional Intelligence. He discusses how empathy and emotional regulations can be put together in a model that is clearer when seeking and using the view and perspectives of service users. Ingram argues that emotional intelligence is very important to the development of social work/ service user relationship.

RESULTS

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DEFINTION

I defined the concept of emotional intelligence as identifying one’s own feeling and awareness of others emotions and feelings. Although we as humans choose to live our lives the way we want, being able to manage your feelings is a prime example of someone who is emotional intelligent. For those who lack emotional intelligence may not realize how the awareness of emotions impacts our daily lives. Emotional intelligence is just as important as the five senses. I like to think emotional intelligence as the sixth sense of human nature which is the ability to sense emotions through nonverbal communication. My overall score on the emotional intelligence assessment was a 65. The assessment consisted of two parts: a self-report portion and an ability portion. My score on the assessment states there are some areas that I could use improvement in.

SELF-AWARENESS

Emotional self-awareness is being aware that you understand you. A person who knows their strengths and weaknesses is a person who has self-awareness. Once you are able to understand yourself you will then start to understand why you feel a certain way and what makes you feel that way. As a social worker, self-awareness is very essential. It prepares one to encounter a client’s personal matter, attitude, and thoughts.  I personally believe that past experiences has helped me become more aware of my own emotions. My results from the self-awareness section indicate that I should work on being able to identify and express my emotion within myself and others. However, I was successful on the recognition of emotions aspect of the test. Seeking guidance from a professional social worker would be a great start for improving.

SELF-MANAGEMENT

The second element of emotional intelligence is self-management. A person who has self- management is in control of his or her reaction to an emotional act. Even when rushed decisions are made I am still in charge of my actions. In other words, I have self-control. However, the results from the emotional intelligence test states that my self-control could use improvement because when I am faced with difficult emotional situations I tend to struggle to pick myself after experiencing a setback.  I can think fast but still act creatively to solve problems. Most importantly, I can also adapt to change. My self-evaluation shows that I am trustworthy, conscientious, initiative and have good coping skills. Self-management connects to social work because some cases may lead to conflict. According to Chapter 5 in “Newly Qualified Social Workers: A Handbook for Practice”, conflict is an inevitable part of social work because of the differences in needs, values, and interests. However, the way social workers respond and manage conflicts is the vital part.