Emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and irrational beliefs in personality disorders

Summary Theodore Millon proposed that psychopathology could be traced, at least in part, to roots in personality constructs. Millon’s personality psychology theories helped give rise to the multi-axial, multifactorial clinical diagnoses tha have become the standard in psychiatry and psychology, codified into the DSM. While Millon did conceptualize personality as a set of stable tendencies and cognitive constructs, the evolutionary perspective nevertheless divorced personality from biological determinism. Millon also offered the groundwork for further research in emotional intelligence and into trait emotional intelligence more specifically. Recent research has illustrated the importance of mindfulness in promoting emotional intelligence, particularly with regard to self-awareness and detecting or modifying irrational beliefs. The present study assesses 121 psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with various clinical Axis-II (personality) disorders. The goal of the present study is to illustrate the relationship between irrational beliefs, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence on psychopathology. Trait emotional intelligence, one of the independent variables, is measured using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire?Short Form. Mindfulness is measured with Five Factors Mindfulness Questionnaire, and irrational beliefs were measured with the Irrational Beliefs Test. Millon’s Clinical Multi?Axial Inventory II (MCMI-II) was used for assessing personality disorders. As hypothesized, all of the variables were interconnected, with direct implications for psychotherapeutic interventions. Position Statement The position statement is clearly explicated, as being filling a gap in the literature. Petrides, Gómez & Pérez-González (2016) note that while a relationship between trait emotional intelligence, mindfulness, irrational beliefs, and personality disorders was intuitied, no empirical research had existed to highlight the intersection of these variables. This study serves to highlight the nodes of intersection and offer opportunities for future research. The position statement is strong, as the authors identify the weakness in prior literature and show why the present study is important. The only ways to make the position statement stronger would be to better operationalize the variables. Emotional intelligence includes various sub-components, including self-awareness but also being able to recognize the emotional or cognitive states of others. Likewise, mindfulness can be measured in different ways. These issues may have a bearing on the validity of the results. Validity Overall, the Petrides, Gómez & Pérez-González (2016) has internal validity. The researchers controlled for extraneous variables, and acknowledged potential weaknesses in the research design. The researchers refer to the “spate” of evidence substantiating the validity of emotional intelligence measures (p. 8).