Ocean
Ocean was the screen name of a teen I knew who tried to kill herself when she was living with her parents. In my opinion she is an example of a person who proves that the Mayer Salovey concept of emotional intelligence is seriously flawed. First, they believe an emotionally intelligent person is a conformist. (I discuss this in my editorial on EI and Conformity.) Ocean, though, was about as far from conformity as you can get.
Second, Mayer and Salovey believe an emotionally intelligent person avoids self-destructive behavior, and ever since their 1990 article they seem to have held the belief that a suicidal person suffers from low emotional intelligence. Ocean, though, like so many sensitive, intelligent, non-conforming teens who have not received adequate emotional support at home, has a history of self-harm. (I discuss the topic of EI and suicide more in this article )
Far from having low emotional intelligence, I believe Ocean had exceptionally high innate EI. I suspected this ever since I started talking to her her online, based partly on the way she could so articulately describe her feelings. Then I had a chance to meet her in person and we spent countless hours talking. We also spent some time traveling together which gave me a chance to observe her in many situations. I now feel even more certain she had a very high level of innate EI.
Ocean's thoughts on abuse and teenagers