To topic re above, in general, qualified psychologists/psychiatrists will be drilled in their studies and practices, plus they will have the intelligence to understand no human can be infallible.
In the military, they use a peculiar self assessment stress test. I’m not sure what model it’s based on (maybe Holmes and Rahe) but it reminded me of this topic. The test has a list of lifetime events most of which mark some type of defining change in ones life, like a death in the family or getting a new job. In the test, if an event applied to you you added points to your score. The thing is that the test does not discriminate between positive or negative events, so if, for example, you had a positive event, like marriage, birth of child, or a even just a promotion, you still add “stress” points to your overall stress score. The overall stress score does not discriminate where the points came from, only how high your overall number is, so the higher your overall number the higher your health risk. The presumption there appears to be that the less lifetime events (or changes) you’re experiencing, the better your overall health will be in the long run. Personally, I think this test is a little absurd by not differentiating the stimuli, but it doesn’t even address variables like the presence or absence of composure or self-control, it disregards it completely too.
I am bold enough to state that pretty much every mental illness can be cured using nothing other than meditation. Equanimity is the polar opposite of neurosis.
Sounds about right Phyllo … the Adam/Eve/Serpent myth. 
I am bold enough to state that there is pretty much no such thing as mental illness.
I like your confidence in meditation … for me, meditation is simply a process that facilitates the appropriate reconstruction … usually not an exact replication … of the brain’s neural pathways and circuitry.
Nehru’s prison life comes to mind.
Emotions are stress. Apathy is sort of like fasting. Whereas fasting cleanses the body of toxins, apathy cleanses the mind (or nervous system.) And again, whereas fasting increases the appreciation for food, apathy increases the appreciation for emotions.
Severe case of schizophrenia and mania cannot be cured with meditation.
Seriously?
It’s like how CPU’s need a cooler in order to prevent over-heating. The more heated your brain, the more cooling you need. Emotions generate heat, meditation generates cold. I’m now beginning to sound like Aristotle. The two processes must occur in parallel. When they do not, emotional disorder happens.
Yep
Mental illness implies the brain is not functioning properly … one could argue for any illness the brain is not functioning properly … being the brain controls our wonderful immune system.
More specifically, many years ago I had the privilege of interviewing a respected psychiatrist who spent his adult life dealing with serious cases of schizophrenia … as a patient. … long story.
The most shocking thing he shared was his belief that mental illness has a spiritual component … he went on to lament the psychiatric community’s inability to understand or treat spiritual issues.
In the above anecdote substituting the word “spiritual” for “evolutionary” is appropriate.
But there is such a thing as “brain pain”, right?
Huh?
I would call it transmutation pain experienced in the brain. 
Transmutation … a zillion fragments of the evolutionary process … in the human species is involuntary and unavoidable … and self evidently painful/uncomfortable.
The advocates of equanimity are often really rather extreme. Walking DSMs with a lot of denied fear and anger.
So he “controls” his excitement. How much control?
Irrelevant.
You seem to think that there are only two kinds of people in the world … those who have equanimity and those who go crazy out of control.
Trying something “once” does not make you addicted but I think you are saying more … you’re saying that those with equanimity don’t become addicts. And if you are saying it, then equanimity is magical because it overcomes physiological processes.
There are the two types of people - two types of reaction - those with equanimity who have an appropriate reaction and those who are out of control.
It really comes down to this : you have defined equanimity as “an appropriate” reaction, an appropriate feeling, an appropriate emotional level. Anything that seems appropriate to you, shows equanimity and anything which seems inappropriate shows lack of equanimity.
It does not commit you to any action or feeling in particular. And no wonder you think that everyone ought to pursue it. Heck, everyone ought to do the most appropriate thing and have the most appropriate thoughts.
But that really says nothing.
Contrast that with the Stoics who actually said how you ought to act. For example, one ought to be indifferent to death, even the death of your own child or loved one. That’s pretty harsh. It’s spelled out in concrete terms. It means something as a directive.
Not really. If a virus or bacteria in your body multiplies faster than the immune system can mobilize and destroy it, then that has nothing to do with the proper or improper functioning of the brain. It’s a limitation of the immune system.
So he “controls”
Or to put this good question another way…The Finnish advocate of equanimity might think the American advocate of equanimity is manic.
Irrelevant. or to come at this from another angle…or the person who is trying to balance his or her emotions does not get the information about the other person one gets when one is real and expressive around that person. And so does not realize they are _______________some negative thing that comes out later in the challenges of real relationships.
and in addition to this nice observation, the person who is afraid to do silly things - not defined her - may not be letting another human being (that is a social mammal) know, meet, feel, understand who they are, what they are feeling and so on.
yes, it is good you keep pointing out his binary thinking. But further, a person need not view one’s feelings as ‘natural psychological reactions’ to have them wear off. In fact they may wear off in a more healthy way if, to the person who advocates equanimity, the person grieving seems out of balance at times or even often. And how long is the appropriate grieving period for everyone, given all the possible relationships and given the different other facets of the survivors’ lives the death happened amidst?
How does one determine the appropriate level of emotional feeling, expression and duration? how does one take into account cultural and personal factors? How does one look at another person and judge this? How can we know what their relationship with their deceased parent was in comparison to our own relationship with ours? It becomes this vague floating criterion - really well abused by pharmaceutical companies - where people who prefer to control their emotions can judge their own sanity and that of others. At what point does equanimity as a priority become pathological? Is it possible that different people will have different levels of healthy expressiveness and what would be judged as pathological by the equanimity crowd is often actually healthier than control based and/or detachment based guidelines would indicate?
There is definitely a cultural aspect to consider.
Yes. Is this a repression of authentic feeling and relationships? What result are we trying to achieve? A calm mind but is that all? Is it so important to be calm and in control?
“Faint heart never won fair lady.”
I think that one has to recognize that the scope of human behavior is large and that behaviors which don’t fit in the definition of equanimity (as I understand the concept) are quite reasonable and non-damaging. In fact, much of what we celebrate as heroic, passionate, and romantic would be classified as wrong by the advocate of equanimity.
All good questions.
Big pharma is salivating at the prospect of establishing normal human feelings as something to be medicated away.
There are not many people proposing equanimity because many are not exposed to the concept of equanimity.
For those who come across such a term, they do not understand or are ignorant of its usefulness.
Can you tell me how much love must a spouse show to another? I don’t think you can but you are asking me for an answer.
In this case what we can do is we match ‘control’ with the consequences.
In the case of sexual excitement, the control is to ensure it does not turn to lust and actual rape or other obvious evil sexual acts. The same applies to other types of excitements.
You are like Cathy Newman with Jordan Peterson. You are putting words into my mouth when I did not say them.
Since the subject of the OP is ‘Equanimity’ it is obvious there is a case of having equanimity and not having equanimity which is presented in a continuum thus in degrees.
Thus it is crazy to think that I am thinking, “no equanimity = going crazy out of control.”
There are various degrees and contexts to take into account.
That was what I say, a person can try LSD once and experienced an exceptional high but because of his state of equanimity he will not be influenced by this one* exceptional experience to go on to be an addict. * could be two, three or four times.
I did not say an person who has cultivated a state of equanimity and had tried LSD 500 times will not be an addict. It is possible the numerous experiences from LSD could have weakened his state of equanimity [not a permanent state] and he then become an addict and lose his state of equanimity.
Again, you are like Cathy Newman with Jordan Peterson. You are putting words into my mouth when I did not say them.
Note the term ‘equanimity’ is not my invention as equivalent to ‘what is appropriate’. Note again,
Note equanimity can even be researched objectively;
Your statements have consequences which either you don’t recognize or won’t admit to. I’m simply spelling them out.
You’re the one claiming that it ought to be controlled. I’m not claiming any “correct” amount or level, so your question makes no sense.
If equanimity involves some rational and wise control over the emotion of love, then how does one establish the level of control? It seems like a fairly obvious question.
‘Level’ involves measurement thus it is not easy but possible.
There are many ways to measure one’s level of equanimity, e.g.
Based on the above one can determine the relative levels of one’s level of equanimity.
Read this to get an idea:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4350240/
Moving beyond Mindfulness: Defining Equanimity as an Outcome Measure in Meditation and Contemplative Research
The above is one example among the many possible ways to assess one’s level of equanimity, overall or related to a specific emotion, e.g. love.
As I have always mentioned, I am very optimistic given the current trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology, towards the future, we can improve the precision of our measurements in this area on a neural basis down to the specific set of neurons.