Chapter 2 52 Table 2. Levels of emotional awareness and some indicators Level of cognitive development Level of emotional awareness Ability to differentiate emotions Ability to describe emotions 1) Sensorimotor: reflexive Aware of bodily sensations. No, at most ‘tension’ (arousal) is perceived. Unable or limited ability to describe physical sensations. 2) Sensorimotor: enactive Aware of the ‘body in action’: emotional tension. Limited to perceiving own ‘action tendencies’ and global state of well-being (pleasant versus annoying). Able to describe the perceived action trends or the global state of well-being (I feel good/bad). 3) Preoperational Aware of the extreme emotions or the ‘basic emotions’. Able to experience a ‘specific emotion’ onedimensionally (‘completely present’ or ‘absent’) and as such distinguish one emotion from the other. Able to describe unidimensional emotions (fear, anger, happiness, sadness). 4) Concrete operational Able to distinguish between emotions and integrate opposing emotions. Able to perceive states of ‘mixed feelings’' and simultaneously occurring opposite emotions. Capable of describing more differentiated emotions. 5) Formal operational Capable of farreaching, subtle differentiation in emotions belonging to oneself and others. Able to experience various combinations of (incongruent) emotions. Capable of extensive differentiation in emotions and experiencing a great variety in intensity and quality of the emotions. Nuanced descriptions of both mixed and finely distinguished emotions belonging to oneself and others.
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