This involved essay looks at emotional
intelligence -- a theory that assumes people are equipped with an ability, perhaps
innate, to understand themselves and other people, and to identify emotions. With any ability comes the option, however difficult, of measuring that ability. Emotional
intelligence is a
psychological construct that is latent and not directly observable, and so its measurement may be seen to be as much of an art as it is a science. The author goes to great lengths in discussing the balance one needs to maintain in a so called 'healthy relationship'. The last part of the paper is a 'test' that the author constructed for an individual to rate himself/herself in the balanced defined earlier.