I like to write about this concept of emotional disconnection without consulting professional reference books, so that I can position this experience graphically enough for us to appreciate it. It is a very common phenomenon which can take place in all forms of human relationships such as that between husband and wife, parents and children, employer and employees, governor, president and the citizens.

Human beings are higher animals because we possess a more sophisticated mind with great capacity for emotions, intellect, conscience, willpower and affections. Animals are directed by their instincts, while human beings have a conscious governence of their minds in the direction of rational choice, with emotional embellishments.

Our human relationships may have technical, legalistic and, at times, cultural definition; but they have enormous emotional content that must be critically managed.

A good number of developed countries recognise this fact, which led to articulating mental capital development initiatives. This is a paradigm that views the mental well being of citizens as productive resource.

Life is essentially about relationships and the quality of life instruments used by behavioural scientists measure the emotional tone that exists in their relationships indirectly. The powerhouse that moves the activities of life is the emotion.

Once mismanaged, productivity declines and overall meaning in life disappears. These can manifest in different psychological disorders.

I strongly feel that the modifiable factors responsible for non communicable diseases are often due to changes traceable to emotional issues. A good number of our adolescents who are hooked on drugs are from so-called responsible families who may have parents that have no regard for legitimate emotional feelings of their children in the process of growing up.

Every human being, irrespective of life, social class or gender, requires consideration of emotional feelings in different settings of relationships.

When the emotional connection is disrupted through crude and insensitive communication style, the adolescent becomes vulnerable to the peer group who may provide alternative facilities of emotional connection and validation.

Emotional disconnection is quite profound in our marriages, but highly underreported. No relationship makes human beings as emotionally vulnerable as the marital relationship, where partners have duties that accrue from emotional connection.

Sexual intercourse is the vehicle for the facility of emotional connection but not a guarantee for it. Young adults are counselled to exercise control of their sexual drives, such that they can have a rational assessment of feedbacks necessary for a life-long emotional investment.

Emotions in human beings are not mechanical objects that can be switched on and off. Rather, they are sustained in the context of relationships through feedbacks that come in verbal and non-verbal communication, attitude, body gestures and a host of others.

Sexless marriages are quite common; and even when there is sex, it is often more of a duty rather than a product of emotional connection. The women are more prone to experience this, but it could also happen to men who may have erectile dysfunction.

There is virtually no marriage without potential for emotional disconnection, but intelligent couples proactively develop effective strategies for handling it. Our religious systems have borrowed heavily from our cultural software, hence the lack of understanding of the peculiarity of emotional needs of individuals in the context of several relationship settings.

The African culture is full of commands, instructions and conventions with little regard for individual ventilation in the process of instituting communalism. Taboos, superstitions and myths are used as sanctions to stifle individual emotional expression.

A lot of folks are locked up in marriages as emotional wrecks, since the culture has no regard for the emotional cost of such dysfunctional marriages.

Our educationists need to interrogate our culture and how it stifles the development of emotional intelligence. When a father lacks it, he becomes a bully, not only to his wife but also to the children, as he struggles to conform to the cultural prescriptions of his gender role.

Our cultural software annihilates the proper development and practice of emotional intelligence, which impacts our relationships negatively.

When a governor fails to pay workers’ salary for about eight months in a state that has little or no private sector activity, it reveals a profound disconnection for the emotional concerns of the citizens.

Boko Haram is a cumulative product of emotional disconnection between the political elites of the North and the vulnerable masses. When the emotional context of a relationship is mismanaged, the partner in that emotional contract becomes a demon.

The Nigerian political leadership has not demonstrated enough consideration for the Nigerian citizens, hence the blatant emotional disconnection towards the Nigerian state by the citizens. Corporate organisations that have no respect for the emotional needs of their employees invariably pay dearly for sabotage and monumental frauds.

We should begin to respond to the emotional dimensions of our relationships at home, school, place of work, state and the nation at large.


http://www.punchng.com/health/healthwise/danger-of-emotional-disconnectedness/