Novey, S. (1959). A Clinical View of Affect Theory in Psycho-Analysis. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 40:94-104.

(1959). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 40:94-104

A Clinical View of Affect Theory in Psycho-Analysis

Samuel Novey, M.D.
In the clinical practice of psycho-analysis, we use a number of points of reference with regard to the emotions or affects. A considerable degree of consensus exists among psycho-analysts as to certain considerations relevant to their nature and function. A careful study of these areas of consensus is warranted with a view to determining whether some critical additions to our theory can be made on the basis of these clinical considerations. It is particularly warranted, since the prior attempts to construct a useful affect theory have been made with the primary goal of integrating it into our previously established metapsychollogical framework. This has required us to force affect theory into an already established mould with some violence, on occasion, to our practical needs. If the problem is approached primarily from the standpoint of the implications of our clinical position, it offers certain fresh insights into the relationship between affect theory and other phases of our theory. In view of their nonspecificity, the terms affect and emotion are best used synonymously in psychoanalysis to designate a complex set of physiological, psychological, and motor manifestations. The term feeling is best used to delimit the subjectively experienced aspects of an affect. The feelings are thus the experiences which appear in awareness or consciousness. In clinical practice we always have to do with complex affective and feeling states. We are given to referring to thiscomplex field of action as a 'mood' and to refer loosely to a specific segment of a lesser degree of complexity as an 'affect'. In doing so, we often disregard the fact that what we commonly call 'affects' are themselves mixed states of considerable complexity. This derives from our orientation, in psycho-analysis, towards disturbing affective states which may be contributing to our patients' neurosis. By and large, we exert a selective inattention at any given time towards those aspects of the patient's mood or affect which we judge to be of lesser significance in our efforts to attain our therapeutic goal. Some degree of affect is present in the organism throughout the waking state and probably when asleep as well (cf. affect in dreams). As Jacobson has emphasized(11), when we speak of loss of affect in certain psychopathological states we are speaking in relative terms. We are actually referring to a reduction of affect, since there is never an absolute loss of affect even in such states. Thus, a theory of affect must pay prime attention to the natural functioning of affect as an integral part of the organism. In addition, the affects are the source of the colour and richness of human experience, and no human relatedness is conceivable without affective participation. This fact further documents the regular nature of affective participation in our existence. In the usual attempts to explore affect theory, prime attention has been centred on affect crises, i.e. acute emotional states. These have been either states which occur in the normal course of psychological functioning such as the emotions accompanying sexual excitement and orgasm, or states which occur as a product of a psychopathological process. An example of the latter is the acute anxiety attack to be observed in the phobic disorders. While these areas of investigation have been fruitful, they have tended to obscure certain more fundamental aspects of affect theory (1). In the main, the attempts to develop a theory of affects in psycho-analysis have chosen a specific affect, anxiety, as a model from which to create the theory. This has occurred because of the manifestly important nature of this particular affect, as well as because it is ubiquitous in the human personality. The choice of anxiety for the development of a theory of affect has,

(Received 14 May, 1958)

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however, this unfortunate aspect. Anxiety is not a typical affect, and a theory of anxiety is not a theory of affect. It is more than likely that it is a connecting linkbetween all the other affects, and there is reason to suspect that the energies of many, if not all, the other affects may be translated into anxiety or may emerge from what had been an affect state of anxiety. In view of the special problems related to the operational aspects of anxiety, therefore, a general theory of affect cannot be based upon the particular unique characteristics of this affect alone. In our considerations of psychological process for clinical purposes, it is customary to differentiate four major spheres of activity. They are (a) instinctual drive, (b)affect, (c) conceptualization (imagery and ideation), (d) behaviour and expression. The last three are considered as derivatives of the drives. We assume a continual interplay between these four aspects of psychological process. The further assumption is made that the drives themselves are to be identified only through their manifestations in the three other above-mentioned functional spheres. I wish to emphasize the significance of the concept of affects as derivatives of the instinctual drives. This is quite different from saying that they are 'discharge channels' (14) and places them within a more readily understandable genetic framework. If instinctual drives are envisioned as dynamic forces with directions, then their most immediate derivatives had best be envisioned as dynamic forces with direction also, rather than in the more passive sense implied by 'channels of discharge'. Thus, affects may be viewed as forces with direction, and inquiry may be made not only into their function of reducing instinctual energy, but also one may explore, in turn, their impact on other aspects of our psychic and physiological selves. While we consider affects as derivatives of instinctual drives, it cannot be said that either drive or affect is of earlier origin or is more intimately related to our biological selves. It is fallacious to assume that the one or the other is of a higher order of importance in the human economy, despite our commitment to the positionthat affect derives from instinct. It was this that prompted Freud in his earliest theoretical position intimately to associate the libidinal drive and the emotions of loveand erotism. As his interest developed further in the direction of the ideational activities of the human psyche he tended to divorce drive and affect and to view the latter as a derivative of the former. As a product of this, we have been prone to err in our theory, in assuming that affect is of a second order of significance. By the time that the theory of narcissism was proposed, the cathexis of objects with energy was presented within a framework of drive energy quite separate, in theory, from any relationship to affect. Despite this, the presence of affect is frequently conceived of even now as being interchangeable with instinctual drive. There has never, however, been any satisfactory definition of their interrelationship. Although psychological process in the adult consists of four operational spheres, in some life circumstances only three of these processes may be present. These three are drive, affect, and behaviour and expression. We assume that these three are always operative, from birth onward. In early infancy there is reason to presume that along with the lack of capacity to verbalize there is a concomitant incapacity to conceptualize. Since the primary instinct derivatives, affect and behaviour, are present in a primitive form from earliest infancy, neither one of them has genetic precedence, and they commonly engage in interrelated activity. Behaviour also originates in our physiological selves, and may be said to have its roots in the simple reflex response. The later aspects of behaviour and expression can be observed in our motor responses, both skeletal and visceral. They are also to be observed in inhibitory states, which again involve the skeletal or visceral musculature or both. In fact, the impact of an acute stimulus is more apt to present itself first in the form of bodily movements and behaviour, and only secondarily in the form of an affective state. In addition, many of our later verbal communications are experienced and transmitted along with concomitant behaviour and gesture. These latter may be more effectual communicative devices than words, and this is especially true with regard to thecommunication of affective states, as will be elaborated later in this paper. While we come to know the instinctual drives through their multiple manifestations, in the case of the affects we are bound to subjective experiences for ourknowledge of them. Certain data may be obtained from physiological studies which are objective, but the critical aspects of the affects in psycho-analysis do not lend themselves to ordinary objective means of analysis. Our avenue of access to the affective life of
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our patients is bound to the subjective verbal reports of the patients along with such analogies as we may draw from our own subjective experiences of an equivalent kind. In addition to these points of access to the feeling state of our patients we depend on extrapolations from our observations of the presence or absence of motoractivity, including voice intonation and gesture, as well as upon our own empathic responses. From these sources we draw logical assumptions as to which affects are operative in the patient at a given time. As common practice, we assume that certain other factors bear an influence on the formation and intensity of affective states. We postulate that external and internal stimuli, as experienced by the perceptual apparatus, have an intense influence upon the affects as well as the drives. This may include instituting a given affective state. The perceptual apparatus is, however, not simply sensory in character. It is itself a composite of memories of prior experiences, including affective ones. As an illustration of the impact of external stimuli upon the affects via the perceptual apparatus, we may choose the experience of mourning. In it the sensory apparatus as well as a host of memories of prior affective and ideational experiences are mobilized, and the work of mourning has more to do with restabilizing the multiple affective components of the relationship than of the ideational ones.

GENETIC VIEW OF AFFECTS

In constructing our affect theory it is necessary to establish as accurately as we can the affects which are presumed to be present in earliest infancy. On the basis of common observation and of certain theoretical views in our literature, it is possible to construct a suggested breakdown of the primary infantile affect states. The value in so doing is that it offers some base line to which the complex emotions are later added, and it offers some sense of the primitive emotions which one might anticipate in states of extreme regression. In Freud's concept of affects as congenital hysterical attacks he assumed a congenital response to object loss which depends on the psychogenetic history of the organism. This has always been one of the more undemonstrable aspects of our theory. We can, however, delineate certain primitive affects which we may assume the infant experiences in a state where subject and object are not as yet separated. The affects of this pre-object state are: (1) PLEASURE (2) UNPLEASURE (a) PRIMARY ANXIETY (PRE-OBJECT) (b) APHANISIS (c) RAGE With the development of the capacity to differentiate subject and object, we may then speak of the complex emotions which we are accustomed to recognize clinically. Of this group, the basic members would be (a) anxiety, (b) love, (c) hate, (d) guilt, (e) depression. In addition to these, we may speak of mood states, which are best described in Rapaport's terms as complex quasi-stable substructures with ego, id, and superego contributions (14). It is crucially important, in a consideration of the economics of affect theory, to be quite specific as to when we are dealing with affects or emotions as such, and when we are dealing with theoretical principles bearing some pertinence to the affects. Freud produced two theoretical principles having some relevance to the affectswhich seem to stand in opposition to each other. These principles are: (i) pleasure principle and (ii) stability principle. In so far as they relate to the affects at all, they are theoretical formulations of the mode of production and the functions of affects and hence do not primarily relate to the question of affective experience as such. According to the pleasure principle, the human being is motivated to seek pleasure and to reject unpleasure. This places the affect as the goal of a motivational process which, in psycho-analysis, cannot but be an expression of the drives. The pleasure principle has been primary to our thinking in psychoanalysis. Freud based the critically important concept of the purified pleasure ego on it, to mention only one of the theoretical premises which are contingent on it. The essence of this concept is that anything pleasant is considered ego, anything unpleasant is considered non-ego (7). Standing in apparent opposition to the pleasure principle is the stability principle. According to it and the associated concept of dynamic homeostasis, the release of drive energies and the subsequent

establishment of a stable state is experienced as pleasure, while unsuccessful release of drive energy is experienced as unpleasure. This is to say that affect
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is incident to the release of drive energy and that the motivating force is the need to release drive energy. The goal is the actual release of such energy. These two principles seem incompatible in that their goals differ (6). With the pleasure principle the goal is to experience pleasure; with the stability principle the goal is to release drive energy and to attain a stable state as an end in itself. The two principles and their goals can be reconciled to some degree through the application of the reality principle, a later addition to the pleasure principle. The reality principle is a conceptual statement of human motivation towards adjustment with realityand it stands in primary opposition to the pleasure principle. It postulates that pleasure must be denied when it conflicts with the demands of reality, at first the reality of time-space and later as represented both in the ego and superego as well. We may envision the goal of the reality principle as being one of modifying the pleasureprinciple. Here again, as with the stability principle, affect is incident to successful function. In so far as the reality principle is gratified, this may be experienced aspleasure, although the initial motivation stemming out of the pleasure principle had been denied and had been experienced as unpleasure. As can be seen, the goals of the reality principle and the stability principle are the same in that both seek for drive reduction and the affective components are secondary. The goal of the pleasure principle differs in that it is primarily an affective one. In clinical psycho-analysis we use the concept of pleasure as a primary goal in human striving, as distinct from the affective experiences incident to the successful operation of the reality principle or the principle of stability. In our clinical work, therefore, we are prone to put differing interpretations on the same facts depending on other related events in the treatment situation. Thus, in connexion with sensory pleasures, such as the desire for and experience of sexual pleasure, we may view it as directed towards the goal of pleasure and as being a manifestation of the pleasure principle. In connexion with the same experience in some other context, however, we consider it a process of instinctual discharge and, according to the stability principle, we consider the pleasure as being incident to the re-establishing of a stable state. I shall turn now to a consideration of the specific varieties of unpleasure postulated in the infant, namely, anxiety, aphanisis, and rage. a. Primary Anxiety. Freud distinguished two sources of the anxiety of later life in his revised theory of anxiety (6). He presented this in the following terms'Thus we attributed two sources of origin to anxiety in later life. One was involuntary, automatic, and always economically proportionate, and arose whenever a situation analogous to birth has established itself. The other was produced by the ego as soon as a situation of this kind merely threatened to occur, in order that it might be avoided.' Freud described primary anxiety as a 'traumatic situation'. It is characterized by helplessness and absolute vague indefiniteness as to the object of the dread. The subject is unable to cope with a mass of overexcitation for which no discharge can be provided. Thisprimary anxiety is closely related to its endproduct aphanisis, to use Jones' term. They deserve to be categorized separately since aphanisis is an end-product only, while in primary anxiety the struggle is in its on-going stage. b. Aphanisis. Jones (12) introduced the term aphanisis'to represent an intellectual description on our part of a state of affairs that originally had no ideational counterpart whatever in the child's mind, consciously or unconsciously.' He further proposed that it be used to refer to a total annihilation of the capacity for libidinal gratification in any form. He looked upon it as the ultimate response on the part of the infant when its capacity to relieve libidinal excitationis continuously denied. He further pointed out that the exhaustion of even a 'temporary aphanisis' would be perceived by the infant as permanent. I choose this term in preference to depression for the description of a primary emotional state, since the concept of depression depends on object relationships, and this is an attempt to describe a pre-object phenomenon. In so far as one might compare it to later clinical states it would more closely represent the regressive aspects of schizophrenic symptomatology and, at a more mature level, the castration complex (cf. Jones). It differs from Spitz's (16) concept of 'anaclitic depression' since Spitz emphasized that the state he is describing occurs somewhere about the sixth month, that is, after the infant develops

some awareness of the mother as a person and has established an object relationship with her, if even at a primitive level. The marasmus of some of his older children perhaps represents a regressive
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state resembling the theoretical concept of aphanisis. c. Rage. The primitive rage response of early life can be most readily observed as a response to inhibition of motor activity. Jones (12) has stated the matter in these words, 'The primary hate is probably the instinctive purpose of the infant, usually in the form of rage, to frustration of its wishes, particularly its libidinal wishes.' Consistent with this view of primitive rage is the nature of certain emotional spells in later life. In these emotional spells, such as may be observed in epileptic equivalent states, the two predominant emotions are those of anxiety and rage. As deeply regressive phenomena, these are precisely the emotions we might expect to find. As may be noted, these primary emotional states are connected with each other in an intimate way. Thus, the end-product of primary anxiety is a state of aphanisis. A source of danger may result in primary anxiety or in a rage state depending on its degree, nature, and on the state of the infant. Rage at frustration may terminate in a state of primary anxiety. Such interactional relationships are also intimately bound to the primitive behavioural and expressive capacities of the infant. The function of the primary genetic emotions, and particularly primary anxiety, continues to offer clinical interest. In Freud's revised theory of anxiety, he assumed that the later ego signal anxiety finds its genetic origins in the trauma of birth and equivalent early experiences. This makes for some complications from the point of view of our structural position, since it infers that primary anxiety is an id experience or an experience of the undifferentiated ego-id, while at the same time it is experienced as feeling by the infant. As will be discussed later, Freud postulated that affects exist as such only in the ego, and this has made for much confusion. Of course, the same question arises in connexion with any of the affective states which we assume to be present from birth. It should be clear that this is something more than a pedantic matter, since it has clinical implications of considerable importance for our understanding and theoretical position in connexion with the affects to be observed in regressed states. The affects, by our very definition of them, merge over into our physiological selves and hence into the organism and the id. Hence in the adult, as in the infant, there is an amorphous operational sphere existing throughout life which we may continue to describe as undifferentiated ego-id, and this sphere must be included in any appraisal of the total function of the organism. Within this amorphous sphere one would anticipate the existence of transition states from driveto its derivative, affect. In addition, thus, to the adult signal function of anxiety, it is reasonable to postulate that anxiety and other emotions do not come into being in the adult only as fullblown ego operations, but must also exist as transitional states from the drives. If so, it would resolve the old paradox and would offer a degree of validity to Freud's first theory of anxiety, namely the translation of libido into anxiety. This offers a theoretical basis for a clinical observation which has continued to be useful, without negating the later aspects of affect theory and of the theory of anxiety.

MODE OF CREATION OF AFFECTS

For a great many years there has been considerable preoccupation, both within and outside psychoanalysis, with the mode of creation of affects. The role of some emotions has, from simple observation and introspection, long been looked upon as a simple discharge phenomenon which is experienced as a relief from tension. In 1917, Drever (3) introduced the concept that with some emotions (joy emotions), the process of reduction of tension, which is experienced as pleasurable, gives rise to fresh tensions which in turn are experienced as pleasurable. This fluctuating level of tension and release from tension has become an intrinsic part of modern thinking in psycho-analysis. To translate this into the psycho-analytic frame of reference, this is to say that affects would be viewed in the first instance as simple discharge phenomena of driveenergy according to the stability principle. Thus, the reduction of tension within the organism would be experienced as pleasurable. In the second instance, affectswould constitute conflict phenomena with a fluctuating level of tension reduction and increase, in which the assumption may be made that the affects themselves play a part. As may be seen, no absolute correlation can be drawn between tension and unpleasure as opposed to discharge and pleasure. In general, however, they tend to maintain a relationship. In so far as the pleasurable aspects of drive tension

are concerned, there is, within the concept of dynamic homeostasis itself, the prospect of a further source of pleasurable tension. If we do not centre our attention exclusively on affect
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crises, the dynamic tension state of our physiological and psychic selves has a constant substrate of potentially pleasurable tension. Even after sharp reductions of affectin affect crises (cf. orgasm), the state of tension reduction is a relative one. In this regard the principle of constancy or the homeostatic principle has been much abused as applied to man as a biological organism. Dynamic equilibrium is not tension-free but is a state of balanced tension. In addition, in man as a living organism, while there is an evident tendency towards maintaining an equilibrium around a constant axis, there is as evident an urge to growth and change. In recent times Rapaport (14) has introduced an additional hypothesis which, while it still limits the role of affects, adds another theoretical concept to the affectdischarge phenomena. He has suggested that, consistent with the structural concept of primary autonomy of the ego, 'inborn discharge thresholds' for affects as well as for drives exist. He offered this to supplement the two concepts of affect formation already mentioned. In clinical practice we are in the habit of viewing some affects as a product of conflict and others not. Thus we look upon the affect of love as being an expression of the drive, while the repressive influence of the affect of disgust upon the emergence of a forbidden affect of sexual desire would be viewed as a conflict between affects. This difference is hardly to be resolved theoretically by a conflict or any other single theory of affects, but rather by accepting these dual aspects of affect in our driveand affect theory. This thesis of the defensive function of affect against affect was used by Jones as the basis for his classic paper, 'Fear, Guilt and Hate' (12). His reluctance to distinguish defence against affect, as against defence against the underlying drives, is a measure of the essential oneness of drive and affect, at least for many clinical purposes. It is to be noted again that the present psycho-analytic tension and/or discharge theories of affect, based on thresholds of affect accumulation and then theirdischarge, seem to remain oriented to the consideration of affectivity as a crisis phenomenon and fail to centre attention on the continuing mood states of man. Such mood states cannot be explained on the basis of a continuous subthreshold state, since this speaks only of a potential to experience affect. The mood is a continuous state. We do not speak of organic process primarily in terms of thresholds and discharge states, although these may be significant but lesser aspects of organic functions.

AFFECTS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

Through common usage in psycho-analysis, we assume the existence of unconscious affects. While Freud and others have objected to this conceptualization on the grounds that no state of feeling can exist without conscious awareness of it, for all practical purposes we postulate that unconscious states of feeling do exist, and not only a 'tendency towards a particular feeling', a 'latent affect' or, speaking more theoretically, an 'affect-charge'. While feeling is presumed to be the consciousexperiential aspect of the affective state, the greater part of the affective state merges over into our physiological selves. Thus all affect states are in part unconscious, and a division of affect and affect-charge is, at best, highly artificial. For operative purposes, affects are present in the unconscious. If the measure of their presence is their impact on performance, then we lean heavily on this thesis. A classic example is the proposition of an 'unconscious sense of guilt' with the additional proposition that certain behavioural patterns are a consequence of it. It is only to obscure matters to talk of it as a state from which the feeling of guilt is potentially capable of arising, since operatively it is the impact of the affect which determines the resultant behaviour. The process of psycho-analysis includes the task of assisting such unconscious affects in gaining access to consciousness as a felt, consciousexperience. This we consider to be a basic aspect of therapy in addition to our approaches along conceptual interpretive lines. Fenichel (4) was cognizant of the clumsiness of our theoretical construction and stated, ' of course such unconscious dispositions towards affects are not theoretical constructions but may be observed clinically in the same way that unconscious ideas may be observed: they, too, develop derivatives, betray themselves in dreams, in symptoms, and in other substitute formations or through the rigidity of the opposing behaviour, or, finally, merely general weariness.'

One of the postulates that strongly influenced psycho-analysts to insist upon the exclusively conscious nature of affects is the thesis that the instinctual drives do not have access to consciousness (9), (13), (2). The drives were assumed to be manifested in consciousness as a feeling,
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an idea, or as both. In view of the tendency to equate the drives and the unconscious, prior to the structural era in psycho-analysis, there was manifest reluctance to make a place in our theory for such a critically important drive derivative as the affects in the realm of the unconscious. The development of the structural theory in psycho-analysis resulted in our modern conceptualization of repression and of the other mechanisms of defence, and has important implications for the question of the relationof affects to the unconscious. Freud proposed that the aim of repression is to keep the emotions from developing, i.e. becoming conscious, and/or to keep the ideas associated with the emotion out of consciousness. He did not alter this view when he added that anxiety was the motor of repression and not the product of repression. He alleged that the ideaexisted in the unconscious, but that the emotion existed in the unconscious only as a potential disposition. This was a logical product of his view that ideas are cathected by libidinal energy, such ideas being ultimately of memory traces. He, at first, viewed affects as being essentially discharge processes, basing his theoretical views fairly exclusively on the fate of anxiety. Originally he viewed anxiety as the product of undischarged libido. Later (9) he assumed that all affects existed only inconsciousness, except anxiety, and that any repressed affects existed in the unconscious as anxiety or, more appropriately, as a potential to experience anxietyconsciously. With the development of the structural position, he envisioned anxiety as being primarily an ego function, serving as a danger signal. Concomitantly, he viewed affects in general as the outcome of repressed drivecathexis. As may be seen, he continually held the view that affects exist only as consciously felt experiences, and hence, he did not conceive of them as 'actual formation' like ideas. Consistent with this, he found no place in his theory for definitive functions for affects other thananxiety. When Freud (6) developed his new theory of anxiety, after the formalization of the structural position, he said that all affects, including anxiety, developed in the ego. It is to be remembered, however, that this concept of the ego was quite different in character from the earlier one. This later concept of the ego was envisioned asbeing unconscious to a significant degree. In addition, the function of the ego was beginning to be envisioned as being much broader than had been the case earlier, and the roots of the present view of the autonomous ego were in the process of development. When he, from this new position, speaks of anxiety as an ego function for the purpose of bringing about repression, the repressed includes not only ideas and memories of ideas but affects as well. In our clinical work, it is certainly not uncommon for us to uncover anxiety which has been functioning in the role of a repressing agent. In addition, we have regularly to do with analytic situations in which anxietyitself has been defended against by repression. Thus anxiety may be the motor of repression, as Freud suggested, but it is also the object of repression. The same may be said of other affects as well (cf. guilt). The nature of defence is primarily defence against affect, predominantly anxiety and guilt, although we commonly formulate the defensive techniques as being primarily against drives, against ideas, or against affects. Even with the defences which we interpret as being primarily against drives, it is the affect stimulated by the drive that precipitates the defence. We are thus in the habit of considering affects as being in a state of repression with the resultantdevelopment of derivatives, appearance in dreams, and in symptom formation. To cite a single example, the defence technique of isolation, as employed by the obsessional neurotic, depends upon the isolation of an idea from the emotional cathexis originally connected with it and is thus essentially a process of repression ofaffect. With the development of the structural theory, the ego functions to 'tame the affects', to 'increase the organism's ability to tolerate affect tension without discharge.' This may be for a temporary period or permanently, in any given instance. This constitutes one of the important functions of the ego and works in the service of thereality principle. An associated aspect of this function is that the ego, in the process, enhances the possibilities for sublimation. This depends on the displacement of affective energy from an initially desired goal of satisfaction to other goals of satisfaction. It is well to remember, however, that the ego is a multifunctioning system, and that when we talk of the ego as bearing an influence on the affects, we are not speaking of one unitary system acting on another. More often than not we are speaking of the impact, within the system ego, upon affects which are an intrinsic part of this very same system.

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With the more recent shift in our orientation towards the role of the affects which includes our viewing them as tension processes, discharge processes, alarmprocesses (cf. anxiety), etc.; a reformulation of the role of affect is needed (14). Affects in general are an intimate and inseparable part of the need for and the process ofrepression. They serve other functions, as well as the commonly accepted one served by anxiety of being the 'motor' for repression, and there is no reason to give the 'idea' primacy in our unconscious life. In fact the memory of the affect is closer to the kernel of the need for repression itself than the memory of the idea. It is highly questionable whether we are justified in considering the 'memory of an affect' as a conceptual process. The inner experience of an affective state, beginning in our somatic selves, seems often to occur prior to any ideational memory process as such. Thus affect, more often than not, precedes conceptualization. If we view the affectas an instinct derivative with the instinctual properties of being a dynamic force with direction, then for the sake of clarity and simplicity it is more appropriate to speak of unconscious affects than of an 'unconscious potential for affects' or of 'affectcharge'. As regards the superego, it is hardly necessary to add that it has a readily discernible participation in affective states. In some respects, it shares a positionequivalent in kind to that of external stimuli in so far as it may institute or quantitatively influence affective states. It differs markedly from external stimuli in that it itself, as an integral part of the personality, engages in the affective experience and is influenced and altered by it far more than are external stimuli (external objects of time-space.)

THERAPEUTIC IMPLICATIONS
Theory in psycho-analysis is ultimately to be measured in terms of its usefulness in the actual therapeutic process. Of critical importance for the psycho-analytic process is the ability to engage in an emotional experience with another person, the analyst. This must occur both in relationship to those affects which are a product oftransference and those affects which are a product of the analytic situation itself as a unique life experience. Even in the transference phenomena, it is necessary for the analysand to be able to reawaken and re-experience the old emotional states if therapy is to be successful. The capacity of human beings to interrupt repetitive patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving through psycho-analysis is not possible without access to ideational process and to verbal techniques. It is, nevertheless, true that psycho-analysis centres much attention upon disturbing affective states also, as well as concentrating sharply upon the unconscious affective-ideational constellations out of which some disturbing feeling is apt to appear. In our therapeutic zeal we are rather prone to concentrate upon given affective states without due conscious emphasis, on the analyst's part, upon the prevailing mood state against which background we encounter the given affect which immediately concerns us. Such moods are complex affectional states which are not pathological in themselves. In dealing with a given affective facet of them, however, it is of the first importance to maintain a reasonable degree of stability in the overall mood. This is the basis of the use of reassurance as a necessary accompaniment of the psychoanalytic process. Often the verbalization, by the therapist, of the existence of a given affective state in the analysand will serve as a channel for the emergence of the feeling aspects of this affective state. When a given affective state which is in repression gains access toconsciousness and thus to a feeling experience, its potential pathogenicity is sharply reduced. In addition the act of translating this feeling into verbal terms and of then sharing it with the analyst further reduces its pathogenicity. There are complex interrelationships and subtle overlappings between ideational process and affects. Storch (17) took issue with the tendency in psycho-analysis to speak of 'emotionally toned ideas' as if they were rigid bodies in the unconscious. Since such definite thought formations do not exist in unchanging form anywhere, their existence is even less likely in the unconscious. To use his words, ' in proportion as the periphery of consciousness is approached, the content of the idea loses more and more of its definiteness, becoming more undifferentiated and acquiring greater resemblance to emotion. The complexes which determine the pathological experiences, therefore, are not really unconscious emotionally-toned thought formations, but rather vague, obscure tendencies and feelings of wholly indefinite ideational content.' What he has to say about pathological experiences can be legitimately extended to the character of our unconscious mental operations in theabsence of pathological functioning as well. In this latter state, it is simply less apparent.
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Affect states and ideational process mutually influence each other, and it is unlikely that we are warranted in assigning precedence to one or the other of them in the adult. Suffice it to say that, when concepts and ideas are fragmented and faulty associations and conclusions result, there is often an accompanying affective disturbance, and vice versa. We are prone to view the ideational or affective disturbance as being primary and as the cause of the associated disturbance, presumably basing this upon the observable phenomena. To use a gross example, in the schizophrenias we are prone to assume the ideational disturbances to be the cause of the affective ones, while in the cyclothymic disorders we assume the reverse to be the case. The more we explore the dynamics of these illnesses, however, the more reason is there to feel that they are concurrent interacting complexes of affect, ideation, and behaviour where no such definitive concept of causality is warranted. To infer such a concept is only to confuse the issues. These factors are interrelated and interacting; they mutually influence and stimulate or inhibit each other in a complex fashion which cannot be translated into simple cause-and-effect terms. In addition to considering the impact of affect on ideation, it is necessary to consider that of affect on affect. It is not uncommon for one affect to replace another, at least in consciousness, and part of the task of psycho-analysis is to unravel the relationships between those affective states. This phenomenon is well illustrated by thecomplex function of wit, where repressed hostile, sexual, or otherwise unacceptable affective states are communicated by the substitution of more acceptable affective-ideational complexes. Comparatively little formal attention has been paid in psycho-analysis to the constructive aspects of affective states, although this thesis has been lucidly elaborated in psychiatric circles (18). Even in connexion with acute anxiety states, it is of considerable therapeutic importance to envision them as being not only disruptive psychopathological experiences but also as attempts at re-establishing a more stable and more constructive integration of the personality. In this sense, the thesis has been advanced that one very considerable function of the affective state in general is to bring about constructive personality changes. This is perhaps more true in our theory than in our practice, since we have long looked to an operable level of emotional discomfort of our patients as a condition for treatment. Out of the foregoing consideration of affects, we may now add something to a tantalizing problem. It is not uncommon in psycho-analysis for the analysand to express great difficulty or an actual inability to describe his affective state in verbal terms, even though he may claim to experience it as a conscious, feeling state. We, very legitimately, first explore the resistance aspects of this and, in fact, it often proves to be analysable in these terms. It is not infrequently the case, however, that we are left with a sense that the unanalysable instances of this sort are by no means all instances of resistance. In psycho-analysis we are concentrating upon the overcoming of resistance as a therapeutic matter, since such conflictual areas are potentially alterable. We have been accordingly less observant of those areas of psychological operations which are non-conflictual. The instances of inability to verbalize an affective state where we have reason to assume that they are not a product of resistance, are based upon the peculiar nature and origins of the affects. Having their roots in our visceral and skeletal selves, they are by no means always evident as feelings. In so far as they are not, our capacity to translate them into conceptual and verbal form is proportionately limited. In my own experience, the greater the degree of regression of my patients, the greater is their difficulty in employing verbal forms to describe emotional states. This is in inverse proportion to my empathic appraisal of the intensity of their affectivity and also of their degree of conscious feeling. The very concept of empathy gives cognizance to the above-described limitation of conceptualization and verbalization as communicative processes. There has been an increasing interest in psycho-analysis in the channels of non-verbal communication. We have long been dependent upon them as well as upon verbal means of communication. It is only relatively recently, however, that they have been the subject of intense scrutiny. Such channels afford access to unconsciousprocesses which the patient excludes from consciousness through resistance or which he is unable to communicate by any other means through the very nature of his experience. These latter channels have been perhaps too little considered in our usual theoretical formulations. As Ferenczi (5) has stated, the infant establishescommunication with the external
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world by such feeling speech as crying and crowing before it learns to talk.

Rycroft (15) has the following to say about affects. In his view the most important fact about an affect is ' the fact that it is perceptible by others and has an intrinsic tendency to evoke either an identical or complementary response in the perceiving object.' The function of affects as a communicative device in interpersonal experiences has not been sufficiently stressed, and much is to be gained by viewing them in Rycroft's terms. In so far as we may consider the human personality as receiving important contributions through the introjection of significant persons, one might say that affects serve the same kind of function also in the internal economy. We have been accustomed to consider intrapsychic activity as being something quite different from interpersonal activity, and have not sufficiently stressed the need for intrapsychic communicative devices. Affects, thus, would best be looked upon as having an important role in interpersonal communication, but as havingother critically important intrapsychic functions as well, a part of which is in the intrapersonal communicative process. The primitive origins of behaviour and expression have been considered earlier, since they relate so closely to the primitive affects. Behaviour and expression include innumerable verbal and non-verbal means of communication, many of which precede the more advanced techniques of communication through language. In the adult, the intimate bonds between affect and behaviour and expression as means of interpersonal and intrapersonal communication persist and are a significant aspect of their function. While the communicative aspects of emotions are justifiably stressed, their role in stimulating behaviour deserves more attention. Emotions have been described as 'feeling with a cognitive attitude'. The role of affect in stimulating communicative behaviour, both verbal and non-verbal, is an intriguing one. The emphasis on symbolic behaviour in human communication has been one of the prime contributions of psycho-analysis. Thus the gestures and physical attitudes of our patients are often analysable as communicative devices of affective states and, as a rule, are out of the awareness of the patients themselves. Certain physiological processes tend to be associated with certain given affective states more often than with others. While no one-to-one correlation can be drawn between any given feeling and its physiological concomitants, we employ some rule of thumb associations to advantage. Thus, the probability that grinding of the teethis associated with a rage state is immensely greater than is its association with love. Diarrhoea is apt to be a concomitant of acute anxiety rather than of a state ofpleasure. These types of association have given rise to the proposition that 'affect-equivalent states' exist and that they represent alternate channels for the 'discharge of emotion' in the event that 'discharge' through feeling and associated conscious motor action is denied by the defences. It should be noted here again that to view theaffect-equivalent state as a discharge phenomenon alone is to exclude a large share of its physiological and psychic participation in the personality. In fact, for all practical clinical purposes we do nothing of the kind and we far transcend such formal concepts of affect in our clinical propositions. In psycho-analytic theory, it has been our custom to view the role of the bodily organs and the skeletal musculature in psychic organization from more than oneposition. Thus, we speak of the function of these parts as a segment of the functional system of the affects as well as speaking of the same organs as being the source of the energy of the drives and thus as the source of their derivatives, the affects. In addition, our view of object-relationships permits the cathexis of the very same organs as if they were 'external objects'. Thus, this secondary process of cathexis, carried out by the ego, is of the original reservoirs of drive energy and affect themselves. Taking the physiological roots of affect and of drive as a point of departure, Glover (10) attempted to draw correlations between affective processes and driveprocesses as a logical corollary. His concept of the 'fusion of affects', through extending the concept of 'fusion of instincts', would seem to have a broad sphere of usefulness. Such fused states tend to be relatively stable, and Glover emphasized their refractoriness to change. The same may be said about fused instincts (cf. sadism). As he points out, such fusions of affect must be differentiated from mixed affects or simultaneous experience of different affects. As a practical matter the affective state is inevitably a fused one to some degree, as is true of the drives, and only from a theoretical position can one talk of a pure affect. The variety of, affective components of, and relative stability of a
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given affective constellation would represent a more adequate description of the affective state at any given moment than the one we are prone to use.

In conclusion, little has been said in our theory about the manifold influence of affect both on other aspects of the physical and psychic self and upon the instinctsthemselves. There are innumerable clinical illustrations in the literature to substantiate the impact of affect on behaviour, on communication, on our organic state, and through counter-cathexis (cf. guilt) on the instincts themselves. While Freud developed his later theory of anxiety with the principle of its function as his prime concern, we have been prone to pay too little attention in our theory to the function of the other affects. It is true that they are apt to be spoken of as discharge processes and are functional in that sense. This however, lays insufficient stress on the function of all affects as dynamic forces which constitute an intrinsic and essential part of that which we speak of as the psyche. As was suggested in the introduction, in our clinical task we have been sorely in need of a theory of affects for 'everyday use'. Some of the problems in constructing a theory of affect in psycho-analysis have been explored and a general frame of reference has been offered. No attempt has been made to offer clear-cut classifications, since it was felt that the nature of the material does not lend itself to them. In addition, classificatory devices are of little use in the day-to-day task of conducting psycho-analytic therapy, and may in fact have a stultifying effect in so far as they may reduce the analyst's capacity to engage in each analytic experience as a new and unique life situation.

REFERENCES
BRENMAN, M. 'On Teasing and Being Teased: and the Problem of "Moral Masochism".' Psychoanal. Study Child 7 [] BRIERLEY, MARJORIE 'Affect in Theory and Practice.' Int. J. Psychoanal. 18:1937 256-267 [] DREVER, J. 1917 Instinct in Man (Cambridge Univ. Press.) FENICHEL, OTTO 1945 The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neuroses (New York: Norton.) FERENCZI, SANDOR 1916 Papers on Psychoanalysis FREUD, S. 1926 Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety FREUD, S. 1915 'Instincts and Their Vicissitudes.' FREUD, S. 1915 'Repression.' FREUD, S. 1915 'The Unconscious.' GLOVER, E. 'The Psychoanalysis of Affects.' Int. J. Psychoanal. 20:1939 [] JACOBSON, EDITH 1953 'Affects and Psychic Discharge Processes.' Drives, Affects and Behavior ed. Rudolph M. Loewenstein. (New York: Int. Univ. Press.pp. 38-66.) JONES, E. 'Fear, Guilt and Hate.' Int. J. Psychoanal. 1929 [] NUNBERG, HERMAN 1932 Principles of Psychoanalysis (New York: Int. Univ. Press, 1955.) RAPAPORT, DAVID 'On the Psychoanalytic Theory of Affects.' Int. J. Psychoanal. 34:1953 177-198 [] RYCROFT, CHARLES 1956 'The Nature and Function of the Analyst's Communication to the Patient.' Int. J. Psychoanal. 37:469-472 [] SPITZ, RENE A. 'Anaclitic Depression.' Psychoanal. Study Child 3-4 [] STORCH, ALFRED 1924 The Primitive Archaic Forms of Inner Experience and Thought in Schizophrenia (New York: Nerv. & Ment. Dis. Pub. Co.) WHITEHORN, J. C. 'Physiological Changes in Emotional States.' Assoc. for Research in Nerv. & Ment. Dis. 19 256 1939

Affect in Psychoanalytic Theory

Mortimer Ostow, M.D.
I have chosen this title in preference to Affect Theory in Psychoanalysis because there is no systematic treatment of affect as a category in psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalysis is essentially a clinical discipline. The psychoanalyst is intensely and constantly concerned with the meaning and significance of specific affects. His observations permit him to generalize about the triggers of affects, about the circumstances under which affects occur, and about the consequences of affects. However, clinical observation alone is not sufficient to establish the nature of affect. In his earliest writings (1895) Freud conceded that the nature of affect was not a psychoanalytic, nor even a psychologic problem, but ultimately a physiologic one. The affects which psychoanalysts study, are the affects of neurosis. Though Freud acknowledges that a play of affect continues without interruption during waking life, and in dreams too, it is only the affect directly appearing in his patient's neurosis that the analyst examines and deals with. The clinically significant affect is found to be associated with an ideaan idea which portrays the gratification of some instinctual need, or defends against the gratification. Instinctual needs are represented psychically as wishes, and the ideas in which the gratification of these wishes is visualized, bear affects. In psychoanalysis we deal with gratifying ideas which were once repressed and are now threatening ot escape from repression. This threat to escape compels the creation of compromises, each composed of gratification anddefensenamely, symptoms. Or, the repressed idea may be held repressed, while it transfers its impetus to similar but disguised ideas acceptable to the ego, to derivatives. Each symptom and each derivative idea is associated with an affect appropriate to the instinctual impulse which is striving forward toward action, or to the need to defend against it. However in the process of defense, the affect may be denied, repressed, or displaced. The psychoanalyst's
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task includes the detection of these distortions of the affect-wish relation and reconstruction of the original form in each case. The psychoanalyst is concerned therefore, more with affect derived from repressed than from unrepressed impulses, and more with the psychopathology of affect than with its normal psychology. For these reasons the psychologist looking to psychoanalytic theory for a theory of affects will be disappointed. Even if he accepts the analyst's observations as sound, they will be remote from theory. The few theoretic excursions which Freud made will be disappointingly tentative and limited, and will seem helpful and likely only to those accustomed to assuming that in ordinary daily life, the most powerful human impulses are those which are unconscious. To repeat, the psychoanalytic theorist addresses himself to these problems. First, what is the precise nature of the relation between affect on the one hand and instinctual impulse, wish, unconscious or preconscious, and conscious fantasy on the other? Second, what is the specific significance of each of the several, clinically recognizable affects? Third, what are the vicissitudes of the relation between affect and instinctual derivative in neurosis? I shall try to outline some of the features of the answers provided to the first two questions. The third question deals with material somewhat peripheral to the central them of this discussion. I shall endeavor to offer no more than appears in Freud's writings. While other analysts have written about affects, in my opinion none of their contributions has been sufficiently impressive to have been incorporated into the main core of classical theory. Most topics in psychoanalysis are best studied historically. First, because most of Freud's theories continued to change under the impact of clinical experience. Second, because one can then appreciate what observations and experiences necessitated the changes. Third, a full comprehension of the final form of the theoretical constructs is best attained from study of their history. The Project for a Scientific Psychology (1895) which was only recently published is an excellent starting point. Freud actually discarded this manuscript uncompleted for he realized that the effort that he was making to state psychological propositions in neurologic language, was nothing more than a sterile transposition from one set of terms to another. Nevertheless it bears close study, for Freud had already had several years of clinical experience with neurosis at the time it was written, and
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had thought long and hard. In this statement one will find in early form, concepts, ideas and theories which make their formal entry into his writings over the subsequent years and decades. The Project contains many vital statements about affect. There is first a statement of the pleasure principle, which remains the fundamental principal ofpsychodynamics. This principle states simply that the ego tends to act in such a way as to achieve a maximum of pleasure by means of instinctual gratification, and to avoid pain. (It will do no harm, for the purposes of this discussion, to neglect the differences between the term ego as used in the Project, and as used in the later metapsychologic writings.) Implicit in this statement is the idea that instinctual gratification yields pleasure. Pain may be caused either by stimuli impinging upon the psyche from the outside, at intensities too great to tolerate, or by internal influences such as memories. How could memories give rise to pain? Freud guessed that disturbing memories stimulated a class of neurones which secreted a substance within the central nervous system, causing a sensation of pain. Even in the Interpretation of Dreams he spoke of the development of affect as a motor or secretory function. The second important feature of Freud's understanding of affects which appears in the Project, is their motive power. In his initial formulations concerninginstinct, Freud attributed to them the quality of impetus, that is, the power to compel actions. This is the basis of the libido concept, which in his earliest writings was simply called quantity. In the Project, affect is seen as the psychic representation of instinctual impetus. An affect, he says, intensifies the ideas to which it is attached, inhibits thought and facilitates primary process, uninhibited instinctual discharge. The ego acts to inhibit further release of affect, after a small amount has been released. By binding and taming, the ego can prevent or retard the release of affect. It is not clear here how affect differs from quantity. The motive function of affect continued to prevail as its most important attribute until the revision of metapsychology that took place between 1914 and 1920. In the paper on Repression (1915), Freud said, We have adopted the term charge of affect for that part of the instinct which has become detached from the idea, and finds proportionate expression, according to its quantity, in processes which become observable to perception as affects. Shortly thereafter, in his paper on The Unconscious (1915) his emphasis was some-what
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different: affects and emotions correspond with processes of discharge, the final expression of which is perceived as feeling. The two statements are not actually inconsistent. They both state that a charge, an impulse, gives rise to processes of discharge which are appreciated as feelings. Nevertheless, the emphasis is different. In the first statement attention is drawn to the motivational aspect of the affect, in the second to the discharge process. This second aspect of affect, that it correspond(s) with a discharge process, becomes more significant in later theoretical considerations. The reasons for this shift in emphasis are clear. First, in neurosis affect is often dissociated from the conscious derivative of the impulse. The impulse continues to press for discharge, yet no corresponding affect appears in consciousness. We must then deal with unconscious affects, an imaginary concept, or speak of a readiness for affect. When we ask what determines readiness for affect, we must come back to instinctual impetus. Second, affect is often associated with visceromotor and somatomotor activity, which are signs that an instinctual impulse is in process of discharging. Third, when, as a result of analytic work, the patient comes to express the affects, he seems thereby to be relieved of some of the pressure of the pathogenic impulse. For these reasons, I assume, Freud began to emphasize the discharge function of affect rather than its motivating function. Anxiety is the affect to which Freud gave most attention, and in his monograph Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety, he wrote his most extensive discussions ofanxiety specifically, and affect in general. If I may generalize, he proposed that the motor pattern characteristic of what is now an affect, must have beenin the phylogenetic pasta full instinctual act, appropriate to the situation in which it arose. It had a meaning in the sense that it was a response to an external situation and it dealt in some way with the situation to the advantage of the individual. Freud compared the affective discharge to a hysterical episode, in which an actual incident from the individual's past is recapitulated in abbreviated form. Currently the affective discharge is evoked by the same circumstancesinternal, external or both which evoked its phylogenetic, full predecessor; and in addition to constituting a partial discharge of the triggered impulse, it may itself evoke an additional, more appropriate, less automatic response. When it

does so, it comes to act as a signal. In other words, an archaic instinctual act is, over the generations, rudimented
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and employed as a signal for the purpose of influencing the conscious determination of behavior. Such signal affects must be restricted and prevented from developing fully. If an unpleasant signal affect is not limited, it will have succeeded only in offering the individual a different kind of distress in place of the specific distress it has spared him. Similar considerations also apply to pleasant affects. Freud noted in. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, that the performance of the need satisfying act was itself pleasurable. Opportunities for the performance of these gratifying acts are labeled when the sense of pleasure passes over from the act to the opportunity. Following Freud's suggestion, we should expect to find that even these gratifying signals are abbreviated gratifications. Preliminary abbreviated gratification was calledforepleasure, a term Freud used in speaking of preliminary sex play, including looking, touching, sucking and so on, and also secondarily entertaining word play, above and beyond the pleasure obtained from the instinctual release in wit. In the case of sexual foreplay which is somewhat clearer in this instance, it is evident that each act of preliminary sex play, enjoyable in itself, yet leading on to definitive genital intercourse, is a very limited return to an infantile act of sexual gratification, pregenitalgratification. Here the need to limit the preliminary affect is not to prevent pain, but to preclude full pregenital gratification which would constitute perversion and block the path to genital performance. The limitation is achieved by repression and by the appearance of other negative affects such as disgust, shame or guilt. What can we say about affect and the topographic and structural hypotheses? Affect is, by definition, a conscious experience. But it may, and in most instances of interest to the clinical psychoanalyst, does arise from unconscious impulses. It normally appears together with an image or a memory which expresses or promises gratification of the instinctual impulse, except when, as a result of repression or another defense, it is separated from it. Since it is conscious, the affect is an ego phenomenon. A pleasurable affect appears in the ego circumstances: during the performance of a gratifying act, and in a state of anticipation or readiness for that performance. Such readiness occurs either as a result of the appearance of a need from internal sources, or as a result of temptation externally, or both. Where the anticipation leads to performance, the anticipatory
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pleasure passes over to performance pleasure. The anticipatory pleasure itself is a small discharge of an archaic, abbreviated instinctual act, such as examining by sight, touch or smell. But the anticipation may become too intense, as a result of frustration or as a result of conflict, in which case anxiety appears. Or, the ego or superego may protest against the impending gratification, in which case the anticipatory pleasure will disappear and be replaced by an unpleasant affect such as disgust, shame or guilt.Anxiety or any of these unpleasant affects will not subside until some action, autoplastic or alloplastic, has been taken to reduce the likelihood of gratifying the troublesome impulse. These unpleasant affects, then, act to motivate preventive or undoing acts. For the sake of completeness, another consideration should be mentioned. More than once, Freud tried to relate the existence of pleasure or unpleasure to the level of libidinal tension prevailing in the ego. He found it difficult to come to some general conclusion, for a state of anticipatory tension might be pleasant or unpleasant depending upon its intensity, and a discharge of tension might be pleasant or unpleasant depending upon the circumstances under which it was accomplished. It is my impression that a state of pleasurable optimism exists when the libidinal content of the ego is sufficiently high so that the individual will be in aposition to gratify one or more conscious or unconscious impulses and, at the same time, meet the requirements of the ego and superego for work, that is, for activities which yield a relatively small amount of pleasure, or no performance pleasure at allmerely the pleasure of fulfilling an obligation. On the other hand a state in which libidinal pressure in the ego is too great to be contained, or to be discharged in a controlled fashion, causes distress or anxiety. Also, an ego libido content that is too low to meet obligations, and to find and exploit opportunities for gratification, is uncomfortable. An individual with limited libido resources in the ego, will tend to avoid instinctual gratifications, for by their discharge, they empty the ego further and leave in their wake feelings of distress. Thus a person on the verge of a

melancholic, ego-depleted depression, will avoid sexual intercourse though he might enjoy the performance; he finds that after the act, the feeling of depletion is painful. Let us turn now to a consideration of the individual affects. Psychoanalysis has little to say about the pleasurable affects beyond
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what has already been mentioned: that the act of instinctual satisfaction is pleasurable, that the act is preceded by a state of pleasurable anticipation, called forepleasure; that forepleasure itself consists of a small discharge of a phylogenetically or ontogenetically archaic instinctual act; that the pattern of this archaic act determines the pattern of visceromotor and somatomotor discharges accompanying the affect, including those motor changes which serve to communicate the affect to others. Analysts are, of course, concerned with the pleasurable affects associated with repressed instincts, though they do not deny that pleasure is achieved in the performance of non-repressed instinctual acts as well, such as eating, athletics, conversation, excretion, play, normal work, study and so on. They have learned, however, that these acts often come to serve as substitutes for repressed gratification, they are driven by the thwarted energies of the latter, which in turn, in disease, impair and distort the performance of these activities favored by their participation. By the same token, what the individual may take to be pure eating pleasure, or pure study pleasure, or pure workpleasure may be that, plus an unrecognized pleasure derived from a repressed impulse which is simultaneously finding partial or symbolic, sublimated gratification in the same act. This state of affairs holds in health as well as in disease. In health the additional libido intensifies the pleasure; in disease it impairs or inhibits the act or the pleasure, or both. Anxiety is one of the most common problems with which the analyst deals. In studying anxiety, Freud was at first impressed that patients who complained of free -floating anxiety, that is, anxiety attached to no specific trigger, turned out to have little or no sexual gratification. He assumed that sexual frustration resulted in a disturbingly great accumulation of libido, and that the libido was itself converted into anxiety. This supposition was difficult to square with the observation that in anxiety hysteria, some phobic trigger could evoke anxiety whether or not there was indication of abnormal accumulation. In Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety Freud altered his position. Anxiety, he said, appeared in the ego when the latter felt itself helplessly exposed to injury. Energetically, this helpless vulnerability could be brought about by the threat of being overwhelmed by excessively powerful external stimuli or by excessively intense internal needs. The individual's first exposure to overwhelming stimuli probably occurs at the moment of birth. During infancy, such a
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situation arises when the mother is absent. When the boy has reached the phallic level, castration is the current danger. Subsequently the disapproval of the superegobecomes the potential threat. The visceromotor and somatomotor components of anxiety, largely respiratory and circulatory, might follow the pattern of changes occurring automatically at birth, this pattern serving as a prototype, though it is obviously extravagant to believe that anything more than such a prototypic pattern could be retained from the experience. The affective experiences include a specific, distressing feeling, motor changes, and awareness of these motor changes. The feeling is relieved when the pressure is removed from the psyche, or even when the individual merely does something to escape though his act may be, by realistic standards, futile. The whole affective complex can also be evoked by any trigger which threatens to bring about such a traumatic situation. The signal anxiety which then appears warns the individual to take measures to forestall actual injury; it motivates autoplastic or alloplastic acts of escape. Depression is no less important a problem for the analyst than anxiety. It occurs when a love object has been lost. A loss of selfesteem, since it is essentially loss of alove object, can also bring about depression. I suspect that depression acts to urge the individual to retrieve or undo his loss, or when it occurs as a signal, to take measures to prevent such a loss. I believe too, that the motor pattern of depression is a recapitulation of the imploring, crying pattern of the infant left without hismother. When is depression, rather than anxiety, the response to object loss? Freud answers that in infancy when the child is entirely helpless without his mother, herabsence is a traumatic, or at least a danger situation. Subsequently, when the child matures to the point where he maintains a catalogue of individual objects as memoryimages, and is not immediately and entirely dependent for defense or gratification on any one of them, object loss evokes depression rather than anxiety.

There is a complicating problem tied in with the affect of depression. Normally a severe object loss evokes depression, and along with it, a certain amount of psychomotor retardation, inertia, anorexia and disinterest in the external world. This condition Freud attributed to ego impoverishment. When this impoverishment is excessive, we see melancholia rather than depression, and when it is inadequate we see primary process, disorganized efforts to retrieve the
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object. (For a full discussion of ego impoverishment and depression, see my paper on The Psychic Function of Depression.) Guilt is the third of the unpleasant affects which are universal and pressing analytic problems. Guilt is an affect, or rather a complex of affects, which appears in the ego at the instigation of the superego and therefore is presumably absent before superego formation is begun with the onset of latency. However, certain precursory attitudes of self-observation, self-criticism and self-control can be seen in children some years earlier. Like other affects, appropriate guilt appears when an act contrary to the tendency of the superego has been performed, and signal guilt appears in the presence of a wish to perform such an act. Guilt impels a wish to arrest the tendency to perform forbidden act, or to undo the act once it has been done, or in some way to make restitution or to punish oneself, or some combination of these. The feeling ofguilt comprises in addition to a specific nucleus, also anxiety in anticipation of punishment, shame, remorse and depression. Since its content is so variable, the actions it motivates are also variable. Phylogenetically, Freud supposed that the prototypic experience of guilt arose at a time when mankind lived in patriarchal hordes. He assumed that on occasions, brothers would band together and kill the father and identify with him by consuming his flesh. Thereafter, remorse set in, and with it, a number of methods for creating the impression that he has magically been restored to his place. This recurrent experience in the pre-history of mankind not only gave rise to the phenomenon of guilt, but formed the basis for primitive religion in which the destroyed father is restored as a god. In most religions, methods of evoking and assuaging guilt are elaborately developed. (See Totem and Taboo for a full discussion of the phylogenesis of guilt.) Even more than in the case of other affects, many analysts speak as if there were an unconscious sense of guilt. What they mean is that the patient exhibits restitutive or self-punitive behavior, as though he felt guilty, whereas actually he is aware of no feeling of guilt. We may speak of a readiness for guilt, but it is perhaps more meaningful to assert simply that unconsciously, the superego has been offended and requires appeasement. It has been my impression that when the ego is overcharged with libido, the patient is unaware of guilt, he overrides superego protests to a certain point, and when the superego asserts its authority, it does so silently, the patient seeming to suffer
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only at the whim of destiny. On the other hand, when there is a dearth of libido, the patient is excessively sensitive to guilt feeling and in the extreme case, melancholia, accuses himself endlessly and bitterly for offenses which he has not been known to commit. Hence, the superego's mode of operation, the extent to which it creates a feeling of guilt, and the extent to which it exacts restitution and self punishment, depend upon the energetic state of the ego. Shame is an unpleasant affect which appears in the presence of an urge to exhibit, which the ego or superego will not tolerate. It impels a wish to hide. Efforts to conceal oneself and make oneself small are evident in the automatic, involuntary physical movements and attitudes which betray a feeling of shame to others. I believe that shame may also appear in the presence of any wish to engage in pregenital behavior especially when the behavior can be witnessed by others. Disgust is another unpleasant affect, with which any improper food is labeled, and accordingly it is associated with nausea and muscular movements that seem calculated to eject an offending substance from the mouth or throat. It may appear in neurosis as a signal affect in reaction to current unconscious oral strivings. This is certainly not a complete catalogue of affects. I have merely attempted to mention and discuss briefly the affects with which psychoanalysts deal most, and therefore which they know the most about. We know considerably more, I believe, about the psychopathology of affects than about their psychology. The two chief forms of abnormality, are first, the dissociation of the affect from

the instinct derivative to which it belongs, in the interest of sustaining repression of the instinct; and second, defense against the affectitself, for example by denial, by projection, by reaction formation. Proper treatment of this aspect of affect theory, however, requires considerably more discussion and illustration than would be possible in this paper.

Bibliography
Freud, S.: Project for a Scientific Psychology (1895). The Origins of Psychoanalysis. Edit. M. Bonaparte, A. Freud, E. Kris. New York: Basic Books, 1954. Freud, S.: Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Tr. and ed. J. Strachey. London: Hogarth, 1953. (Standard Edition, Vols. IV-V.) [] Freud, S.: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). (Standard Edition, Vol. VII, 1953.) []
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Freud, S.: Totem and Taboo (1913). (Standard Edition, Vol. XIII, 1955.) [] Freud, S.: Repression (1915). (Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, 1957.) [] Freud, S.: The Unconscious (1915). loc. cit. Freud, S.: Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety (1926). A. Strachey. London: Hogarth, 1936. Ostow, M.: The Psychic Function of Depression: A Study in Energetics. Psychoanal. Q., Vol. 29, 1960. pp. 355-397. []
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Ostow, M. (1961). Affect in Psychoanalytic Theory. Psychoanal. Rev., 48D:83-93

Novey, S. (1961). Further Considerations on Affect Theory in Psycho-Analysis. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 42:21-31.

(1961). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 42:21-31

Further Considerations on Affect Theory in Psycho-Analysis

Samuel Novey
In previous contributions (17), (18) I have attempted to explore the nature of the psyche through an examination of the object representations. In the process, the fundamental role of affect became increasingly apparent. Since prior considerations on affect theory in psycho-analysis had given little attention to this fact, I attempted to organize certain theoretical views on affect theory on the basis of this insight. In my initial approach, only secondary attention was given to the theoretical basis for the more complex emotions which are most clearly bound to the object-related experiences of our adult patients in psycho-analysis. This occurred because I was there concerned with more primary considerations without which the present views could not be offered. In my earlier considerations of affects I postulated a primary series of affects, classifying them on the basis of the fact that they exist prior to the separation of subject and object as human experience. I did not enter into any extended examination of the theory, at that point, of the more complex emotions such as love, hate,guilt, depression, etc., which are inevitably object-related. They are the emotional states which are of prime concern to us in the clinical practice of psycho-analysis, since such emotions are predominant in the object-oriented experiences of our patients. On purely theoretical grounds, one could in fact predicate that the intricate relationships of man to himself, to his inner experiences of others, and to other persons in fact, would require affects of considerable complexity. In these terms, the fundamental emotions of love and hate would themselves represent emotional constellations of a complicated kind. For instance, their functional role as modes of eliciting responsive behaviour in others has barely been considered in our theoretical formulations. Our inner experiences are closely bound to what we conceptualize as objects of one sort or another, and such objects are experienced as being associated with or bound to certain affective states with which we invest the inner object. Of course, such feeling states in connexion with the inner experience of objects vary from time to time, and we are often given to rationalizing this by assuming that the behaviour of the inner object, for which we even call upon old memories of the prior behaviour of an object in external reality, elicited the shift of feeling, rather than the reverse. It reduces anxiety to create such chains of causality and, on occasion, to reverse the causal relationship of a series of events, and it is often necessary for the analyst to explore just such phenomena during the process of psycho-analysis. I shall review and elaborate upon certain views related to affects and to internal representation of objects in this paper, and undertake a further synthesis of their interrelationship.

Perspective on Affect Theory

I shall first review briefly certain characteristics of the affects insofar as they may pertain to the subject of this investigation. It would be redundant, however, to review the history of the psycho-analytic attempts at establishing a coherent theory of emotions, since this has been done in excellent fashion before now by a series of investigators (2), (7), (10), (11), (19) who have added their original contributions as well. Since the introduction of the libido theory, we have been in the habit of conceptualizing the investment of cathexis of objects with libido and, more recently, also with aggressive energy. We do not state this in terms of an emotional investment, but there is no point of clear definition between these two concepts observable in practice. This is true despite the theoretical view of affect as a derivative of instinctual drive. In fact, we use assumptions
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relative to the affect of the patient for our interpretation of the instinct or part instinct of which we assume them to be derivatives. This is a useful means of orientation, but should be used with the full knowledge that we are translating not only into terms of instinctual drives but, for purposes

of communication, into verbal and ideational terms as well. While this is essential for our therapeutic task, which is mediated through a verbal communicative process to a considerable degree, we are translating from affect, via words and ideas, to the terms of the instincts. It is also true that we conduct the same process in the reverse direction. We infer from the implied presence of certain instincts or part instincts, as evidenced by a given pattern of behaviour for instance, that certain affects will be present. An example of this is our assumption of the existence of a sense of guilt, as a result of certain behavioural patterns, although the specific affect itself may be repressed and hence not in awareness. The ideational aspects of this concept are relatively more accessible to us, while the affectional aspects of it are much more difficult for us to conceptualize. I may add that this is by no means peculiar to psycho-analysis, but is also true in psychiatry, psychology (15), and, in fact, wherever a theory of human personality is advanced. It is just in the sphere of affect theory that the greatest deficit is observable. The necessity to use knowing, i.e. conceptual ideas to define feeling experiences makes for special difficulties. The process of scientific communication depends heavily on verbalization, and it can do only an impoverished job of describing and defining affect. In psycho-analytic work, we thus depend heavily on the less definitive empathic and non-verbal communicative devices of appearance and gestures, voice tone, etc., to appreciate the analysand's emotional state. To describe the emotions of fear, hate, guilt, or love emotional states which are of such prime significance in psycho-analysisin verbal terms, has tantalized the artist as well as the scientist. The artist has most closely approximated it when he has been able to arouse a resonant feeling in his audience; the scientist has been much less successful in his description of emotion insofar as he is bound to a more objective 'non-emotional' verbal description. The affects are the source of the colour and richness of human experience. It is impossible to conceive of human existence without the manifold implications of emotions. Even when we speak of 'lack of affect' in psychopathological states we have reference to a relative reduction of the feeling state, but by no means an absoluteabsence of it. No human relatedness is conceivable without affective participation, and our drive theory presumes the concomitant experience of emotion as a means ofdrive expression and as an accompaniment of other expressions of the drives, as, for instance, in behavioural expression. Our very definition of affect includes both physiological and psychological aspects and, as with the drives, they lend themselves only partially to examination. Insofar as strictly objective means are concerned, the physiological aspects of emotion are more available for study. Insofar as the psychological ones are concerned, we are compelled to rely upon introspective process or the verbally reported experiences of others. The traditional separation of mental processes into affect, cognition, and conation has made for some convenience in our attempt to examine them individually. It has, however, interfered with the attempt to examine the total functioning personality, and various attempts have been made to consider the coalescence and interaction of these functional units. All attempts to fragmentate the flow of mental activity, no matter how lofty the motivation may be, inevitably introduce artefacts into the stream of mental activity. Our traditional separation of feeling as a mental function from thinking or knowing as another mental function has, along with its evident advantages, stultified our views of mental process as a unity. In this same connexion, it is necessary that the structural theory in psycho-analysis be appropriately conceptualized in order to avoid a comparable kind of fragmentation. The id, ego, and superego are best compared, insofar as physical analogies are applicable, to three overlapping magnetic fields in a constant state of activity. There is ample justification for drawing lines of distinction between their variable functional activities, but only for as long as the amplitude of their interplay is not ignored. According to Flugel (4), the term orexis has been used increasingly by British psychologists in recent years to distinguish feeling and striving (conation) fromcognition. As he pointed out at some length, it is important in some spheres to separate feeling and striving, especially as they relate to the initiation of behaviour. Thedevelopment of a concept such as orexis is an
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attempt to surmount the obstacles created by such fragmentation. In the same connexion, during the psycho-analytic process we more often than not have to do with acomplex of feeling and ideational process without there being evident aberrant behaviour.

Perspective on Concept of Mental Representation of Objects

As in my previous paper (17), the concept 'mental representation of objects' will be used in the broadest sense to include the entire spectrum of inner experience, which bears reference to objects of timespace. This applies to objects of time-space in the present or in the historical past of the individual. As may be seen, such a version of mental representations will merge over into the structure of the ego itself, and our inquiry will inevitably be delimited when the object has become sufficiently amorphous and thus cannot any longer be reconstructed even by the psycho-analytic process. Within this broad definition of mental representation of objects there will thus be included the entire range of the inner experience of objects, from those most closely approximating to the immediate sensory image of them to those which are primarily a product of memories of prior experiences. Thus we include all those classes of object which are variously spoken of as introjected objects, internal representations of objects, externalized objects, phantasy objects, hallucinatory images of objects, etc.; without primary concern with their coincidence with a time-space worldin fact, anything deserving the term object. This is done since they bear a primary relationship to each other as psychic experience. We are, of course, interested in that aspect of ego functioning which ascertains the coincidence of internal representations and objects of time and space, but this is not the primaryconcern here. The use of time-space as a means of differentiating objects having an existence 'outside' the individual depends upon a commonsense view of the world. Objects may have an inner sense of reality whether or not they coincide with time-space objects, for instance in an hallucination. The inner objects which do coincide with time-space objects will coincide to a large degree with equivalent experiences of other human beings, and are the group which are commonly spoken of as being 'real'. All objects having an inner sense of reality have an important bearing on the way the individual structures his existence, whether or not they coincide with time-spacereality. They may stimulate emotional responses of one kind or another, and they themselves are experienced in a manner which can be described more in affective than in ideational terms. We are prone to think of object representations as complexes of emotionally toned ideas, and in considering their contributions to disease process some are prone to think of them as if these ideas were clear-cut, definitive things which are active in the individual's unconscious. No such group of ideas can exist, much less in the unconscious, in a state of isolation. In fact, the existence of separate, clear-cut, thought processes is in direct proportion to their relationship to consciousness. We are further apt to speak of them as being 'invested' with 'affect' as though affect were somewhat belatedly plastered on. It is, in fact, difficult to say whether one had better speak of an internal representation of an object as a constellation of ideas with an affective colouring or as an affective experience which is only secondarily perceived as having ideational content. This problem is, in our clinical work, obscured by the character of the defences. It is thus true that the patient will describe all colourings of object representations from primarily affective ones to primarily ideational ones. The more useful theoretical position is that internal representations of objects are primarily affective constellations and the ideational aspects function for purposes of 'suitability of representation'. This violates our highly conceptual verbal tendencies, but it allows for a more accurate view of such objects by centring our attention on the empathic and non-verbal aspects of the patients' communications. Because it is possible to look upon ideation and affect as variable aspects of experiencing the same phenomena, we might conceive the knowing aspect of an object as a static 'thing' as opposed to the feeling aspect of an object as if it were a dynamic field. This variable means of describing internal representations of objects partially clarifies our view of these apparently disparate aspects of them, although actually it limits our perspective on the state of affairs in the psyche. It is probable that our categorical separations of affect and ideation have given us a false image of psychic function and of object representation, and that a picture of a complex of affect-ideation would constitute something quite different from the sum of our usual consideration
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of each of them. In any given instance the inner view of internal representations of objects may be experienced more in a feeling sense with no definitive conceptualization of them or experienced more in a knowing sense with little feeling evident. It is my impression that the former is much the more common state of affairs. Genetically speaking, emotional means of experiencing predate conceptualized forms of experiencing, and conceptualized forms of experiencing are engrafted on a substrate of emotion. We enter into endless verbal rationalizations for our performances, and yet much of our performance is based upon our emotions which are by no means concealed, at least from others, by our verbal gyrations.

Such ideational and conceptual processes are genetically late in development, as compared to affectional and behavioural responses; the most primitive object representations are formed with a predominance of affectional aspects. Only the earliest elements of conceptualization are present. This parallels the genesis of the infant's gradual development of a sense of separation of self and objects, which we assume to be absent in earliest infancy and to develop gradually with the growing capacity to conceptualize and verbalize. Object representations thus consist of a complex of affective and ideational components in the adult. The earlier ones have a predominance of affectional aspects with a gradual equalization of the contributions of both of them in the object representations established with maturity. Along with maturity, the subtlety and the number of identifiable emotions increase (1), and this is paralleled by an equivalent complexity of the internal representations of objects. As I have previously stated (18), for our theoretical purpose we may presume a matrix of emotion and feeling in the infant in the directions of pleasure and unpleasure. With the beginnings of verbalization and internal representation of objects there begin to differentiate out from this affectional matrix the states we come to know as love, hate, etc. They will always remain bound to the matrix in a greater or lesser degree of differentiation throughout life, and it is one phase of this complexaffectional constellation which we describe as the internal representation of objects. Only our therapeutic endeavours have warranted the sharp delineations of specificaffects. In reality such fine demarcations do not exist in the human psyche. The relationship of affects and of the mental representation of objects to consciousness and to the unconscious emphasize the bond between them. With the establishment of the structural hypothesis and of the concept of bound cathexsis within the ego, affects are best viewed as being present both in consciousness and unconsciously. This position correlates well with the relationship of our inner representations to consciousness. The capacity to create mental images in consciousnessis intimately bound to our theory of perceptions. In psycho-analysis we assume that consciousness can call upon a fund of unconscious affective and ideational memoryimages as well as upon the data of sensation for its imagery. We further assume that all such sensory data enter consciousness only after being processed out of awareness, and are exposed to unconscious affective influences. Such unconscious substrata for conscious memory images push towards consciousness as an intrinsic quality of the unconscious, and are pulled towards consciousness by the needs of the conscious ego for appropriate imagery. This imagery is in the final analysisobtained from the unconscious alone and not from 'external reality' if we follow the proposition that all experiences including sensations are first processed unconsciously. The unconscious sources of affectivity in this context would seem to be both a necessary and convenient postulate.

The Role of the Affective Participation of Others in Infancy and in Maturity

The infant has no internal representations of objects insofar as we look upon them from within an ideational conceptual framework. It is nonetheless true that he is dependent on his environment, although not so perceived by him, both for the care of his physical needs and for a favourable affective environment in which to mature. This affective environment is supplied by the mothering person, and the infant is acutely sensitive to the character of the stimuli forthcoming from her. A reduction of appropriate affectionate stimuli or the introduction of hostile stimuli from the mothering person has a profoundly deleterious effect upon even the physicaldevelopment of the infant. The first involvement of the infant is thus primarily affective in character. Later on, prior to the development of the language function, the first internal representation of objects is established with this very same personthe mother. It is on the foundation of a primarily affective relationship that we then establish our first object representations, and it is primarily as an
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affectional state that all our later object representations persist. Following the same proposition, we may conclude that object representations, based in our most primitive affective experiences, are essential for the integrity of thepersonality. This is to say that originally stimuli from without interact with the primitive affective state of the infant, and that the stimulating influence of the mother's psyche, essentially affective in nature, must be placed among those factors essential for the psychic development of the infant. If, on the other hand, the infant is exposed to certain

varieties and intensities of negative stimuli, he will be incapable of developing adequately. The infant lacks a sufficient degree of development of the ego to be able to employ the defence operations which are available to the mature psyche. As a consequence the range of stimuli which he is capable of tolerating is proportionately limited. This is particularly notable with regard to unpleasure of any sort. This same phenomenon may be observed in later life whenever the ego is overloaded either by a hostile approach or some other stimulus of such an intensity as to disrupt the normal defensive techniques for denying, reducing, or otherwise lessening the impact of such stimuli. The processes of introjection, projection, and identification are at the first significantly determined by circumstance. It need hardly be emphasized that the infant does not choose his own parents or parental substitutes, and is hence compelled to set up his first identifications with these individuals. It is these initial 'external objects' which establish a pattern that bears heavily on all later internalizations. A not inconsiderable secondary factor, however, appears when the ego becomes relatively autonomous. From a random group of possible objects for internalization, only some will be chosen. These will always be affected by the primary internalized objects, but will also be affected by later life experiences. It is only so that we consider the process of psycho-analysis, a life experience, as being capable of altering the patterns of internalization of objects. Psycho-analysis itself has been much maligned for its alleged lack of consideration and emphasis upon 'social factors'. The essential psycho-analytic views are based on the interactions between the patient and other significant persons from the earliest time of life. Psycho-analysis has insisted upon the predominant impact of the first and most primitive life experiences as those most apt to set up relatively fixed patterns of relating to other persons. This is not to say that later interactions with others may not play an extremely important role, but they are never of the same order of importance as the first experiences with other persons (16). The first objects which are internalized will, from that time on, have a major influence upon later object choice. Although we have been primarily interested in the pathological significance of this fact in certain instances, the ubiquitous character of such influence would hardly warrant our looking upon it as intrinsically pathogenic. The choice of later objects is itself influenced by the first experiences with objects, and certain external objects are able to revivify the memory, both the affective and sometimes the ideational aspects as well, of these primary persons. Such external objects thus function as stimuli to relatively quiescent unconsciousprocesses. With due regard for the prime significance of the permanent imprint of the first internalized objects, something may be said for the later experiences. The process of the internalization of objects continues throughout life, and the element of choice among a random group becomes greater with the full organization of the ego. With maturity, the objects chosen for internal representation will more or less coincide with the consensual view of such objects. This is not to say that they will not be coloured by the memories of experiences with earlier objects to a significant degree. Another way of restating this is that, with greater maturity, the sphere of consciousego operations increases. Choice of new objects then, while never entirely a conscious and hence willed process, is relatively more so than is true earlier. In addition, insofar as such object choices are a product of unconscious process, this is carried out in a fashion which is less hampered by defensive operations. It may be said that such participation of the unconscious in the nonneurotic person may enhance the prospects of satisfactory object choice. The stimuli of external objects are essential to most individuals in order that the integrity of the ego may be maintained. In the absence of such stimuli, the ego responds with anxiety and the attempt to seek out such objects. If they are unavailable, a compensatory resort to phantasy or even to hallucination may ensue. This process draws upon the reservoir of previously internalized objects. The experiments of
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Lilly (12), (13) and Hebb (8) bear on this phenomenon in an experimental sense. However, the withdrawal phenomena of some neurotics and to a far greater degree of some psychotics offer the opportunity to observe an 'experiment of nature' of a similar kind. A share of what we observe is just such restitutive devices as are mentioned above. Certain external objects are highly valued as sources of stimulation and the maintenance of an optimal internal representation. The loss of such external objects may make for major disruptions of the ego and for the necessity for a considerable reorganization of the ego. This we look upon as basically a normal process

and it may be observed in the 'work of mourning' (6). As opposed to the tremendous significance of some external objects, there are others which would seem to be of relatively little significance in themselves, but which seem to have a profound impact on personality organization. A typical example of such an instance would be the recurrence of hysterical vomiting in a young woman on hearing of the engagement of a casual male acquaintance in connexion with whom no major investment of feeling existed on her part. In such instances one might adopt the precarious position that some as yet unconscious affect of major significance existed towards that person. The alternative, and it would seem to me the more likely view, is that a small stimulus from a relatively indifferent object is capable of setting off a strong affective response in an ego where the object representations are unstable. The external object depends, for its impact, on its affectional coincidence with an internalized object on the basis of the principle of suitability of representation.

Structural Considerations
The view of the interrelationship of objects and of affect so far developed correlates with the structural point of view in psycho-analysis. Internal representations of objects are a part of and a measure of the development of the ego out of the undifferentiated ego-id. Out of the initial affective matrix of the egoid emerge the more or less definitive specific emotions which we later, as adults, experience as conscious feeling through their appearance in the perceptual apparatus of the mature ego. Although we have every reason to believe that the infant experiences emotion, our structural theory has left little room for this belief. The adult ego itself is partially composed of the first introjected objects, which 'objects' have become so integral and indistinguishable a part of the ego as no longer to be thought of, or truly to warrant consideration, as objects. They are part of the stuff of which the ego is composed. The degree to which such initial introjects are affectively experienced and thus introjected far transcends the early ability to conceptualize them. In fact the degree of incorporation via identification and the taking in of objects as an indistinguishable part of the ego which the infant carries out, is inversely proportional to his capacity to conceptualize. Thus, much later, the crystallization of thesuperego with the resolution of the oedipal complex is experienced as a powerful other force, the conscience, and not as a part of the self, although it too is still very strongly experienced as affect. In this same connexion, the concepts of introjection of objects which become a part of the ego, their then externalization and reintrojection in modifield form (3), while actually presented in structural dynamic terms, is a process in which the specifically affective elements are predominant. The initial object of time-space is, from one point of view, especially important insofar as it serves as a stimulus to this series of affective experiences. While we have been centrally interested in psychopathological process in psycho-analysis, such affective stimulation as is thus supplied is actually essential for the reality state itself. The experience of the affective state of guilt is a state which is structurally a product of the impact of the superego on the ego. Insofar as the superego is significantly composed of the internal representations of objects (cf. the parents), we are prone to conceptualize it in exclusively ideational terms. The inner experience of the superego, both within and out of awareness, is far more than of one's affective response to it as an 'outside' stimulus. In the instance of guilt the response is one of disapproval and loss of love. Only secondarily are we prone to conceptualize this 'outside' affective state as being embodied in a person or persons, and this may in fact never occur. The superego is thus experienced less as a 'thing' and more in terms of its impact as measured, for instance, by the affective response of guilt, an emotion. In our limited verbal attempts to define internal representations we reach a point at which we no longer experience them as organized and clearly delineated things, but rather as if they resembled or were emotions. The phenomena
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of condensation and displacement were described by Freud as being rooted in our affective life. Thus we fuse and substitute the object representations of different people, representative of differing structural areas, towards whom we have the same affective experience in the dream state. In the waking state we maintain a somewhat better bond between image and affect, but more than a casual amount of the same tendency is evident in the so called 'prejudices' of the normal individual. In this same connexion, an attempt has been made to conceptualize multiple affects and fused affects as being phenomena parallel to equivalent concepts with regard to the instincts(7).

The Concepts of 'Sentiments'

Freud eventually established that, in terms of human psychology, the source of the instincts is of much less importance than is their aim or object. This was a product of the separation, for all practical purposes, of the adult behavioural pattern from specific instincts, in at least the substantial majority of cases (9). Despite the relative ease of displaceability of the aims and objects of the drives, they constitute the primary means of consideration of drive activity in psycho-analysis. In my particular considerations here the relation of the object of the drive and of affect as a drive derivative will be further explored. In so doing, certain non-analytic views relating to emotions and objects serve to enrich the present psychoanalytic concepts. A most intriguing theoretical view of the relationship of 'emotions' to objects was advanced by Shand (20) and developed further by McDougall (14). Shand pointed out that our emotional dispositions tend to become organized in systems about the various objects and classes of objects that excite them. He used the term 'sentiments' to define a complex basically affective state with admixtures of ideational and potential behavioural and expressional components. As a dynamic state it is directed towards objects. McDougall emphasized the fact that the sentiments are not static bodies, nor are they peripheral activities of the mind, but are an intrinsic characteristic of the highly organized structuring of mental activity. The proposition was further advanced that the oftener the object of the sentiment becomes the object of any one of the emotions constituting a sentiment (cf. hate; composed of anger, fear, and disgust in his view), the more readily may the total sentiment and its resultant emotion be aroused by the object. Both Shand and McDougall emphasized the 'tendencies to action in behaviour' intrinsic to the concept of sentiments. Unfortunately, Shand chose the term 'sentiments' to describe such an organized system of emotional tendencies. The resultant confusion with the usage of this term in popular speech has served to vitiate an otherwise useful concept. Whitehorn (21) offered this modified definition of the sentiments: 'A trained or experientially developed disposition to feel and act, or refrain from acting, in rather specific patterns, towards certain persons or objects or situations. Sentiments are here viewed as having the biological function of facilitating or inhibiting the modes of overt behaviour (by which an acute emotional experience might be resolved into definite action)'. In his further considerations, he emphasized the predominant role of 'nurture' in modifying and creating sentiments and clearly differentiated between the emotional experience and associated patterns of behaviour. While his views were developed in the setting of the impact of the acute emotional experience as a means of interrupting habitual internal modes of adjustment with or without resultant behavioural change, the same things may be said with regard to the less dramatic interaction of emotion and the rest of the organism. As regards the derivation of sentiments, it has been suggested that a given object (time-space), for instance, the mothering person who arouses the same affectrepeatedly, will result in the crystallization of a sentiment in connexion with that object or its substitute objects. In clinical psycho-analysis we have to do with suchcomplex dynamic states as the sentiments rather than with affects in the pure state. When we clinically talk of pure love, hate, or other affect we are using a useful artefact as a therapeutic device, and it is well that we recognize it as such. The sentiments drive towards certain ends with a greater or lesser degree of purposefulness. They originate in our instinctual drives, and thus in our physical selves, become conscious to us as feelings and as impulses towards behaviour, are influenced by the ideational processes, and are executed by our physical selves in the form of behaviour and expression or the inhibitory concomitants of these. In order that an emotion and its associated impulse may participate in behaviour and expression, in what can be conceived of as a drive towards action, an internalrepresentation of an object is a necessary part of the process. This
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internal representation seems to function as an organizer and director of the impulse, or drive towards action, which is a part of the emotional dynamism. Here, as elsewhere, internal representations of objects tend to ally themselves with appropriate external objects (time-space). Hence, as perceptual experience, the drive of the emotional dynamism towards action is experienced as if it were exclusively directed towards the time-space object. In addition, certain particularly appropriate time-space objects may be most effectual in arousing the emotional dynamism insofar as they may closely resemble the internal representation of object which is a part of it.

Therapeutic Implications
The internal representations of objects are complex affective-ideational dynamic constellations which are organized through experiences with other persons. They are oriented partially towards the time-space object of experience and partially towards the inner need to maintain certain complexes of this sort as a stabilizing factor in the character. The inner sense of self is significantly dependent on these constellations of object representations (for instance, the superego) as a means of maintaining the inner sense of one's own adequacy and completeness as an individual. When the object relations break down in pathological states the sense of self also deteriorates, and the reverse is clearly as true. When they both break down, then the demarcations between self and object become obscure, and the various psychopathological phenomena dependent on such fusions of object and self and of self and object ensue. Consciousness of self and object are products of our perceptual experiences, they are both inner experience, and the differentiation of them is a product of man's capacity to conceptualize. In the infant and in lower animals there seems little reason to assume that this capacity exists, and in some psychotic states it is grossly impaired. Proper cognizance of the strongly affective nature of internal representation of objects in our theory will make it more consistent with our clinical practice and will broaden the scope of our clinical approach. A more rigid ideational and mechanistic theoretical position lends itself to greater ease of communication between analysts, but is prone to lose sight of the patient as a functioning, complex, feeling human being. It is especially in the sphere of affective experience that our difficulties in rigidly conceptualizing are the greatest, and this has coloured our preferences for means of describing internal representations of objects in other than affective terms. Internal representations are primarily affective constellations of the subject. They invariably stand in various degrees of separation from the persons with whom they are originally associated as a result of the change in them during the perceptual experience. In pathological states there are gross distortions of the internal representations of objects, and, composed as they are of affective constellations, the experience of intense affect, either consciously or unconsciously, is often the only manifest evidence of them. The resultant of this is a disturbed relationship towards the self and others. In the process of psycho-analysis, the reassociation of these internal affective constellations with their original sources through the medium of the transference experience is a therapeutic thing. It hardly need be said that thetransference experience itself is only meaningful if it is an affective one, whatever else it may be. While Freud postulated that the object of an instinct was very labile (5), one might restate this as being not a process of giving up the initial object, but one ofdisplacement as a normal or pathological ego defence. Such instinctual bonds to objects are experienced in terms of an affective state. Thus, far from being absolutely labile, a certain share of drive energy remains forever bound to the initial internal representations of objects throughout life. The initial relationships to parental figures may undergo all kinds and degrees of displacement in later life, but on analysis, they always bear some continuing bond to these parental figures. This is true not only in psychopathological states, but in normal development as well. In psychopathological states the degree and character of such bonds differ from the normal, but they exist in both. This has important therapeutic implications insofar as we attempt to conceptualize the terms in which relationship to inner objects and those of time-space are to be viewed as normal or neurotic. The primarily affective nature of object representations with only secondary ideational aspects allows a better therapeutic approach to the character disorders which have become much more predominant, perhaps in number, and certainly as a subject of interest in psycho-analysis. In
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these patients extensive intellectual defences are more common than they were in the hysterical disorders which seem to have been so prevalent in the earlier days of psycho-analysis. In view of the highly verbal, ideational, and abstract nature of the defences one sees in many character disorders, it is helpful to throw emphasis on the affective nature of the object representations. This is not to say that one should neglect the ideational aspects, but the emphasis on the affective aspects is a useful therapeutic direction. Insofar as words are used to consider the object representations, one may best choose poignant affect-laden ones even if they are not always the most scientifically accurate. If we are cognizant of the affective nature of objects, certain emotions which we have been prone to envision as pure states can be more readily identified as beingactually complex emotional ones. Thus love and hate are complex affective states, and are really basic affective constellations, within which

some object is an indivisible part. While love is a complex affective state, even the related affect of lust cannot be said to exist as such from infancy, and requires a significant measure ofmaturation before it can be said to exist. Both love and lust include a degree of object-relatedness, the former more than the latter, and hence they both include acomplex operational system of instinctual, affectional, ideational, and behavioural components. The affective components would seem, however, to be of a primaryorder of importance. In psycho-analysis we attempt to recreate faithful object representations of significant individuals in the patient's life. For the neurotic, such reproductions function as an adequate means of assisting their relatively intact egos in the task of resolving their neurotic conflicts. In the borderline state and in the psychotic, however, it may be substantially more difficult to establish coincidence between their internal representation of objects and objects of time-space. Their internal representations of early objects may be seriously limited. They have had very early disturbed interpersonal experiences, and the process of development of relationship to external objects may be fragmentary. In this group of patients, particularly, one can see the essentially affectional nature of their relationship to self and others with only a modicum of intellectual conceptualization. In such instances it is a fruitful therapeutic manoeuvre to assist the patient, by use of his identifications with the therapist, to construct usable internal representations of early significant people, whether or not they coincide in a specifically factual way with such time-space people. These patients suffer from 'empty spaces'a lack of adequate object representations, and we may legitimately assist them in filling these spaces. The significance of other persons having especial sentiments towards the patient in the creation of internal representations throws some further light on the analytic process itself. The process of psychoanalysis itself depends on the impact of the analyst as an external object upon the psychic state of the analysand. In order for the analyst to have any impact upon the analysand certain conditions must be met in the latter. Significant among these are the existence of a sensory apparatus sufficiently intact to receive stimuli from without, to be able to integrate them, and to respond to them in a more or less appropriate fashion. While the practice of analytic technique has always been a matter of the first importance in the process of psycho-analysis, we have been prone to emphasize the role of the analyst as a suitable object upon whom the analysand could project his internal representations of objects (transference). This is a function of vital importance to the process of psycho-analysis. But in emphasizing this aspect of the role of the analyst we are somewhat inclined to overlook the implications of his function as a significant external object functioning so as to have a major impact upon the disordered operations of the psyche of the analysand. This aspect of the task of the analyst is intrinsic to his functional role in clarification and interpretation of psychic process. A clearer theoretical statement of this aspect of the analyst's role as an 'external object' possessed of certain 'sentiments' and capable of stimulating affective responses in the analysand may throw light upon the more general theory of the relation of external objects and internal representations of objects. The emphasis in our theory upon the role of the analyst as an object of transference has developed from the importance of this aspect of his work, but this has, at the same time, promoted certain underemphases in our theory. These later oversights are particularly apt to occur in view of the analyst's apparent role. He is in a role of relative anonymity, and his
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performance appears to be a relatively passive one. This later aspect of his role is, however, more apparent than real. In terms of the totality of his communicative process, his participation may seem small indeed, as opposed to other psychotherapeutic methods. In terms of the impact upon the analysand of the communicative techniques which are employed (and even silence may be employed as a communicative device) the analyst's role is indeed an active one. The relative anonymity and apparent passivity of the analyst are employed as devices which enhance his use as an external object upon whom the drives, affects, and ideational processes of the analysand may be crystallized. This operates as a means by which both analyst and analysand can examine these functions. The analyst in this phase of his function uses his impact as a negative stimulating device, creating a vacuum which is filled by the activities of the analysand. In another phase of his function, as classifier and interpreter, his impact is a directly positive one. The need for the analyst in order that the analysand may carry out the controlled process of psycho-analysis emphasizes the role of the former as an external object whose impact is essential for the entire process.

SUMMARY
The internal representations of objects are affective-ideational dynamic parts of the personality which have existence in both the conscious and unconscious. In viewing them as primarily affective states nothing is taken away from the importance of the ideational verbal view of them, but it identifies this latter as being primarily a descriptive and potentially therapeutic communicative device. Verbalization is necessarily used, but the goal is not the eliciting of a conceptual view alone, but of hopefully coming to some consensus with the patient and of modifying his affectional state through clarification of and separation from the fixation to his archaic object representations. The mature state includes a significant capacity to establish current more realistic object representations in the context of prior experiences in living, but not dominated by them. In addition to the commonly accepted role of the affects as discharge processes, with no necessary relationship to objects, affectscarry out a series of object-related functions. These include their role as motivators or inhibitors of behaviour, as communicative devices, and as means of eliciting or inhibiting behavioural responses in others. The concept of 'sentiments' offers a means of clarifying and stating the intimate bond between affect, object, and behavioural pattern. When envisioned in the context of the already rich psychoanalytic metapsychology, it fills a gap in our attempts to define complex psychic patterns.

REFERENCES
ANDERSON, JOHN E. 'Changes in Emotional Response with Age' In: Mooseheart Symposium (New York: McGraw Hill, 1950.) BRIERLEY, MARJORIE 1937 'Affects in Theory and Practice' Int. J. Psychoanal. 18:256 [] BYCHOWSKI, GUSTAV 1958 'Struggle against the Introjects' Int. J. Psychoanal. 39:2-4 [] FLUGEL, J. C. Studies in Feeling and Desire (London: Duckworth, 1955.) FREUD, S. 1915 'Instincts and Their Vicissitudes' S.E. 14 [] FREUD, S. 1917 'Mourning and Melancholia' Contemp. Psychoanal. 4 [] GLOVER, EDWARD 1939 'The Psycho-Analysis of Affects' Int. J. Psychoanal. 20:299 [] HARON, W., BEXTON, W. H., and HEBB, D. C. 1953 'Cognitive Effects of a Decreased Variation in the Sensory Environment' American Psychologist 8 8 HARTMANN, HEINZ. 'Psychoanalysis as a Scientific Theory' In: Psychoanalysis, Scientific Method and Philosophy (New York: International Univ. Press, 1959.) JACOBSON, EDITH. 'Affects and Psychic Discharge Processes' In: Drives, Affects and Behavior ed. Rudolph M. Loewenstein. (New York: Int. Univ. Press, 1953.) JACOBSON, EDITH. 1954 'Contributions to the Metapsychology of Psychotic Identifications.' J. Am. Psychoanal. Assoc. 2:2 [] LILLY, JOHN C. 'Illustrative Strategies for Research in Psychopathology in Mental Health' Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, Symposium 2, June, 1956 LILLY, JOHN C. 'Mental Effects of Ordinary Levels of Physical Stimuli on Intact, Healthy Persons.' Psychiatric Research Reports 5 (Amer. Psychoanal. Assoc., June 1956.) MCDOUGALL, WILLIAM. An Introduction to Social Psychology (Boston: Luce, 1918.) The Mooseheart Symposium: Feelings and Emotions (New York: McGraw Hill, 1950.)
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NOVEY, SAMUEL 1955 'The Rle of the Superego and Ego-Ideal in Character Formation.' Int. J. Psychoanal. 36:4-5 [] NOVEY, SAMUEL 1958 'The Meaning of the Concept of Mental Representation of Objects.' Psychoanal. Q. 27 [] NOVEY, SAMUEL 1959 'A Clinical View of Affect Theory in Psycho-Analysis.' Int. J. Psychoanal. 40 [] RAPAPORT, DAVID 1953 'On the Psycho-Analytic Theory of Affects.' Int. J. Psychoanal. 34 [] SHAND, ALEXANR.DE The Foundations of Character p. 50 (New York and London: Macmillan, 1914, 1920.) WHITEHORN, JOHN C. 1939 'Physiological Changes in Emotional States.' Assoc. for Research in Nerv. and Mental Dis. 19
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Novey, S. (1961). Further Considerations on Affect Theory in Psycho-Analysis. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 42:21-31

Kaywin, L. (1966). Notes on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Affect. Psychoanal. Rev., 53B:111-118.

(1966). Psychoanalytic Review, 53B:111-118

Notes on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Affect*

Louis Kaywin, M.D.
In discussing affects we must, to begin with, distinguish between a cognitive, subjective awareness, sometimes called a feeling or affect-felt, and a host of related phenomena, which may be observed by the self or by others. These latter include various tension states or their somatic counterparts, some of which may even be measurable. These have been referred to as affect-expressions, affect equivalents, or as emotionsto distinguish them from affects, or more specifically, from affect-felt. Rapaport6 has called our attention to the confusion existing about what to label as affect. One difficulty with Rapaport's extremely erudite approach is that affectsare considered only in terms of being discharge phenomena of drives. As we shall discuss, this may be rather limiting. In any case, this report concerns itself primarily with the cognitive aspect of affects, or affect-felt. In terms of cognition, we differentiate between ideation and affectivity. One of Freud's formulations was that drives attain psychic representations as both affectsand ideations. Implicit in this view is that some degree of psychic (or ego) organization exists, which can distinguish between, and lay down representations of, ideation and affects. This point presupposes that affects have some kind of pre-history. Since a drive may lead to affect-felt, what is left open is where non-drive experience (e.g. hunger or pain) fits into Freud's theory regarding affects.

* This paper was presented in abbreviated form, as part of a symposium, The Clinical Relevance of Affect Theory at

the Third Annual Conference of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists, New York, Feb. 14, 1965. From the Department of Psychoanalytic Education, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York.
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Freud originally tried to work within the confines of the dual instinct theory of libido and aggression. His theory that these drives were differentiated by the energies involved could not easily be upheld, so that eventually he had to postulate, in addition, a neutral or undifferentiated energy. Over the past few years3, 4 the problems concerning these differentiated energies were examined in some detail, and here only some generalizations pertaining specifically to the theory of affects can be presented. Freud originally conceived that nuclei for the ego were laid down and organized relative to the differentiated body parts; the earliest ego being a body-ego. Since consideration of sensations is essentials to this body-ego representation, our attention focuses on two problems: 1. How do sensory experiences relate to affective experiences? and, 2. How may this relationship be reconciled with the drive aspect of affects?

Relationship of Sensations to Affects

The commonest differentiation is that a sensation is circumscribed and localized in conformity to neuronal distributions. In distinction, an affect is unlocalized and can only be described as a feeling about one's self. I am using the term self technically, as differentiated from the concept ego. If we consider the ego as a structure in the sense of the grouping of certain functions such as perception, synthesis, ability to lay down memory traces, etc., then we may conceive of the gradual building up of hierarchic sub-groupings of functions and structures, the harmonious functioning of which eventually lead to a composite or synthesized representation which may be conceptualized as the self (cf. 3). We note that self is conceived in both structural and functional (process) terms; emphasis being on the harmonious functioning of the various structures. The mental apparatus, with its primary autonomous functions (Hartmann2) has certain potentials. As I have written elsewhere:

The actual manner in which these potentials unfold in a developing mental system, with individual memory traces and hierarchic organizations of these we will call the self system. The various stimuli, both internal and external, which impinge on the psychic apparatus are perceived on a primary level in positive or negative terms. Eventually with development, polarizations will occur, so that eventually very primitive positive and negative selfrepresentations within the self-system, objects will also be perceived in positive or negative terms. These are precursors of what usually are called the good and bad self and objects3 (p. 634). The point to be underlined is the fact that the concept of affect
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as used here has relevance only to the hierarchic complex which I call the self-system. Thus, although built up out of bodily sensations and body-ego nuclei, the self-concept transcends the physical and the bodily to be concerned with a hierarchic, psychically synthesized constellation. Just as stimuli and sensory-feedback are essential for adequate physical functioning, so must the various so-called psychic structures be perceived in order to function adequately and harmoniously intra-psychically, as well as socially and in relationship to reality. Affects are to the psychic structures what sensations are to the physical. The genetic relationship betweenaffects and sensations is easily demonstrated. If, for example, one is troubled by a toothache, it may at first be fairly circumscribed and contained. But if it persists or its severity increases, misery floods the whole being, leading to various degrees of despair, depression, anxiety, etc. Observing a pimple or blemish on one's face may be sufficient to lead to a degree of lowered well-being. I do not wish to enter into the dynamic details of such situations, which, genetically conceived are, via anxiety and pain, a threat to the self, but only emphasize that an affect can only have meaning in terms of a certain degree of psychic development and more particularly a structuralization of the self-system. From this point of view, it would be meaningless to speak of affects in lower organisms where no such structuralization can be postulated. To emphasize one of my main points: The emergence of a more or less unified self may be conceived as a new structure which will be perceived in either positive or negative terms. Such perceptions, as distinguished from ideational or thing perceptions, relative to (associated with) parts of the self may be described as affects. Affects therefore emerge out of sensations and their perceptual tonal qualities, parallel with the emergence of the more total self from the bodily representations. It follows that in organisms that function with no psychic apparatus we should not think in terms of affect. In the lowest organisms, whether they exhibit disequilibria patterns with or without the mediation of a primitive nervous system, we may not even think of stimuli in terms of the registering of tonal qualities. For example, anxiety is applicable to representations of the self, as distinguished from sensations, which apply to representations of parts of the physical organism. Anxiety is relatively closer to sensations than, for example, depression and other complex affects. Pleasure, by contrast, is dependent on a more diffuse state of affairs, and it is more than the absence of displeasure and pain. It is closer to many comforts which include optimal temperature, tactile experiences, acceptable auditory and visual stimuli, as well as internal equilibria. That is why a painful stimulus or area of discomfort
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can usually be localized, but the feeling of well-being is diffuse; one just feels good.

Relationship of Affects to Drive Theory

Relative to psychoanalytic theory there is a great deal of confusion about the theory of instincts and drives. In its simplest terms the major problem concerns a conceptualization of the dual instinct theory, that is, the libidinal and aggressive drives as formulated by Freud. The difficulty arises from an unwarranted assumption that it is the differentiated energies, i.e. libidinal and aggressive energy, which distinguish and differentiate the drives. Freud himself became entangled with this formulation when he attempted to account for such affects as love and hate; he had to conclude, in Instincts and Their Vicissitudes, that The case of love and hateacquired a special interest from the circumstances that it refuses to be fitted into our scheme of the instincts1 (p. 133). Yet in spite of this awareness, the libido concept seemed a useful formulation to account for various clinical phenomena. Libidinal shifts and displacements are discussed throughout the literature as if the energic displacements conveyed either an affective component, e.g., a

libidinal shift from love object to love object; or a shifting of a quality of kind, e.g., a libidinaldisplacement from a sexual organ or function to nonsexual organs or functions (e.g. from a penis to a pen which serves to erotize or sexualize the pen). This facile employment of the libido theory actually breaks down on close scrutiny. As one example, the attempt to understand the process of sublimation requires the use of a second hypothesis to undo an initial hypothesis. Thus, if libido as a differentiated energy conveys a quality of sexuality (first hypothesis) then the process ofsublimation, which is synonymous with desexualization, required that this energy, libido, become neutralized or desexualized (second hypothesis). The whole process is actually tautological as far as sublimation is concerned. The Metapsychological explanation for sublimation has been accounted for by implying that libidois neutralized; i.e., sublimation occurs because something is sublimated. This all led to conclusions that the dual instincts theory had to be more correctly conceptualized in terms of developed drives or reaction patterns unhindered by energic hypotheses of differentiated energies. This required a different and more biologically genetic explanation for affects as well as the concept of sexuality. It became apparent that the libido concept obscured the distinction between love as an affect and sexuality with its attendant physical sensations. 4 The core of my thesis is that the earliest representations of the self and objects are laid down
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in terms of polarizations around positive and negative affect-representations in addition to that of thing representations. From this point of view reformulations of various concepts are possible. 1. Narcissism: Instead of a cathexis of ego (or more correctly the self2 with libidinal energy), I see this as an association of part of the self with a positive affect-representation (a positive self-representation). 2. Masochism: The association of part of the self with negative affect-representations, (the negative selfrepresentations). We are now in a better position to account for love, which Freud also concluded was a transaction between ego (self) and object. Instead of speaking of a shift oflibido (differentiated energy) from self to object, it appears more correct to designate it as a displacement of cathected positive affect-representations from self to object. The positive self-representations, I believe, are paramount in acting as gathering forces for a subsequent evolution of self-esteem, confidence, optimism and trust. I believe we are justified in calling this a narcissistic state. That the self or parts of the self may become erotized is an entirely different and more complex state of affairs; this has to do with such ideational matters as fantasies and symbolic displacements and may be considered conversion phenomena (e.g., the body as phallus, etc.). Parallel to the concepts of narcissism and libido, so with masochism; the difficulty lies in the concept of aggression. Fear involves the awareness of danger, whether external or internal. It is the perception of the self associated with hypercathected negative affect-representations (danger to the self). Unless too overwhelming, negative self-representations, especially those of primitive character, usually undergo repression aided by the hypercathexis of positive self-representations. The anticipation of fear, i.e., anxiety, relates to (frequently unconscious) perceptions; that is, repressed negative selfrepresentations may be recathected with the re-experiencing of previous traumatic events. Hate is an intrapsychic activity, an awareness of direction; a displacement of negative affect from self to the usually feared object (or parts of the self).Hate may be conceived economically as an attempt via intrapsychic discharge to rid the self of unbearable negative affect-representations and direct them to objectrepresentations. Aggression impelled by fear and hate, would be the discharge, via mother activity, onto an object. This view permits a distinction to be made between aggressive behavior and activity otherwise motivated which may be destructive in effect. Aggressions are only those activity patterns which represent discharges of cathected negative self-representations; they represent a real or imagined threat to the selforganization; they require the mediation
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of a relatively organized mental system. It may be objected that aggression is characteristic of all mobile life forms. However, when an insect devours another insect, or attacks a natural enemy, does it love or hate the object? Is an amoeba or bacterium an aggressor? But do we even have to consider such lower forms of life? What of human slaughtering for food? Or just hunting for pleasure? We must admit it is

possible to kill for gain or pleasure (and even for food) without hate being involved. In this sense, man is no different from the insect or amoeba and he can be destructive; but I feel that this destructiveness must be distinguished from aggression as adischarge motivated by hatred. Thus love and hate are possible only with sufficient psychic organization and development and therefore are probably unique to man. We were able to reach these formulations without postulating differentiated energies such as libido or aggression. My views do not obviate the general drive theory which is fundamental to psychoanalytic thinking. The dual instinct theory is not invalidated but rather is put into a better perspective, but this we cannot discuss now. The concept of affects as described here has widespread theoretical as well as clinical applicability. Theoretically, I have already pointed to such reformulations regarding narcissism and masochism. For more detail on these, reference may be made to my previous publications. 3 The concept of sublimation, also mentioned, comes in for reformulation.4

Clinical Applications
Clinically, one may immediately see certain applications which, I believe, clarify the approach here advocated. For example, the dual instinct theory postulates that in the fusion of the instinctual energies, aggression may, in some way, be brought under control. This is why it is still thought by many, that in regressive states, when so-called defusion occurs, inevitably aggression will reappear. In my terms, this is simply organismic energy which is always at hand as long as life lasts and which will always appear when controls and the usual channels available to an organism are either overwhelmed, defective, or break down. The necessity for semantic clarity in distinguishing between aggression and destructive activity in general is recognized by Beata Rank.6 Reporting on children with atypical development, the author states that these children are in a constant frenzy, expressed by explosive motor discharges. However, aggressivedestructivebehavior directed toward people or objects is rarely observed. It is only after treatment, with some development of ego functions and structuring, that the diffuse
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explosive discharges are abandoned and the child reacts with more or less goal directed aggressive and destructive behavior. In other words, only when the child's relationship with others is sufficiently developed will outbursts assume the form of hostility toward the object. No more appropriate clinical example could be used to underline the value of the formulations suggested in this paper. Rank clearly chose her words well. The term frenzy indicates that the organism is flooded with reaction pattern disequilibria which manifest themselves in relatively disorganized behavioral patterns. Only with the development of some psychic structuralization can the diffuse response be bound and goal directed and then only are the terms hostility and aggression used and correctlyby Rank. Translated into the terms of this report, it is only with the structuring of self-representations which may then have direction (aim) toward an object that we may speak of hate or aggression. There can be no direction without a self and, properly speaking, it is only this intention (conscious or unconscious) which should serve to distinguish an aggressive act from all other acts no matter how destructive. Clinically, also, we are frequently confronted by patients who have not learned to discriminate their various activities from aggressive behavior. Thus any move toward an object, or of an object toward them, is conceived as a threat. It is necessary to show these people that their every progressive or maturational activity has become associated, whether due to fantasy or actual traumatic experiences, with aggressive (or possibly forbidden libidinal) tendencies. Unless a differentiation of these attitudes can be effected, they will be under the influence of their beliefs, with accordant defensive and/or symptomatic behavior. In this category I recall a mother who, as her baby son began to mature and become active, reaching out for her, would become panicky and enraged with the child. The need for this woman to differentiate between a maturational activity and her interpretation of a psychic intention (aggressiveness) is apparent. Every activity pattern becomes associated with positive or negative affect representations, but whether they will, in addition, become associated with sexual or aggressive ideational content will be a matter of happenstance. But, even if we conceive that there are close associative ties in the unconscious, subject to primary process displacements and condensations, the fact is, that at higher levels and with secondary

process thinking, a differentiation must occur, that is, various functions as well as structures must become relatively conflict-free, as Hartmann puts it. Thus, discrimination between such things as (1) aggression, (2) destructiveness not motivated by hatred and, (3) activities in
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general must be effected. By the same token the affect of love must be differentiated from, various activities which are usually considered to be sexual or sensual. If this discrimination cannot be effected and adequately maintained we would expect such end results as we do see in many of our patients who have foundered because of inability to resolve their oedipal attachments. The libido theory, based as it is on a drive determined differentiated energy, libido, does not readily permit such distinctions. I believe my approach, via affect-theory, does allow for this.

Summary
The psychoanalytic theory of affects has been inextricably bound up with the instinct theories of libido and aggression. In this report affects are considered as genetically derived from sensations, actuated by the various biological urges and drives as well as external stimuli. Affects are regarded as perceptions related to or associated with the development of a new structure, the self-system. Positive and negative representations act as polarizations for self-and object-representations. The interactions of these affect-representations between self and object permits a differentiation of such emotions as love and hate, and such activities as loving andaggression.

References
1 Freud, S. Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915). Standard Edition, Vol. 14, London: Hogarth Press, 1957. [] 2 Hartmann, H. Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation. New York: International Universities Press, 1958. [] 3 Kaywin, L. An Epigenetic Approach to the Psychoanalytic Theory of Instincts and Affects. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., Vol. 8, 1960. pp. 613-658. [] 4 Problems of Sublimation. (Unpublished manuscript). 5 Rank, B. Aggression. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vols. 3 and 4. New York: International Universities Press, 1949. pp. 43-48. [] 6 Rapaport, D. On the Psychoanalytic Theory of Affect. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., Vol. 34, 1953. pp. 177198. []
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Kaywin, L. (1966). Notes on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Affect*. Psychoanal. Rev., 53B:111-118

Smith, J.H. (1970). On the Structural View of Affect. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 18:539-561.

(1970). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 18:539-561

On the Structural View of Affect

Joseph H. Smith, M.D.
IN THE FOLLOWING I attempt to differentiate as radically as possible between a structural view of affect, on the one hand, and a view of affect as psychologicalstructure or as having a tendency to become structuralized, on the other hand. Freud (1915), (1917), (1926), (1930), (1933), Schur (1953), (1955) and Rapaport (1951a), (1951b), (1953), (1957a), (1957b), (1959), (1960a), (1960b) have made systematic theoretical statements about affect which allow for relatively concise comparative study. This critique of current affect theory will largely focus on their contributions. It will become apparent that my own formulations are essentially in agreement with affect theory as it evolved in the work of Freud and as elaborated by Schur. Regarding Rapaport's affect theory, it should be noted that in his Stockbridge seminars (1957b, pp. 138, 144) Rapaport expressed some reservations about his earlier formulations. He did not, however, suggest revision of the positions he had taken on signal anxiety as structuralized affect, on depression as "another structuralizedaffect" (1957b, p. 148) and on the unconscious existence of affect as segregated affect charge (1957b, p. 171). In the following I shall try to show the importance of maintaining the prior concept of affect as unstructuralized, conscious ego response. Notwithstanding its use by Freud (1926) and Schur (1953), ego response as a concept may seem an unwarranted anthropomorphism, appropriate only as a clinically useful metaphor. I shall return to this question. For the moment, I submit ego response as a concept. In this connection, while there is a tendency

Submitted December 11, 1968

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to feel that the anthropomorphic fallacy is avoided to the extent that concepts are "neutral," there is no guarantee that the mere choice of neutral terms expands explanatory value. The choice of neutral terms can also evoke metaphors, often more disguised and less heuristic. Another means of avoiding reification of structures generally is to define them "by the functions attributed to them" as suggested by Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein (1946), who wrote: A word need be said here about how these definitions were arrived at. Definitions are matters of "convenience," and convenience in science consists of an adequate relation to the observed facts. Freud established his definitions of the psychic systems after careful and repeated scrutiny of his clinical material. That material suggested that in a typical psychic conflict one set of functions is more frequently on "the one side" than on "the other side" of the conflict. Functions that we find "together on one side" have common characteristics or properties. The relatedness is one of frequency [pp. 14-15]. The antepenultimate and penultimate sentences of the paragraph cited suggest different interpretations. Did the writers mean that functions typically on one side are to be termed, for example, ego functions? Or should the common characteristics or properties of togetherness on one side (meaning cathectic condition and mode of organization) in each instance of conflict be taken as the criterion for conceptualizing certain functions as ego functions? The phrasing of passages preceding are ambiguous. On the one hand, they wrote: Thus, three of the foremost functions of the ego, thinking, perception, and action, are frequently put into the service of [my italics] either the id or thesuperego. [And on the other hand:] In extreme cases, in catatonic states, for instance, motor activity loses even residues of ego functionsits coordination into deliberate acts [p. 14].

The question is which conceptualization offers the greater advantage. Is the psychic regulation of motor activity an ego function or does it depend on developmental level or regression together
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with mode of organization and cathectic condition? The gradient seems toward the former interpretation. more correctly, we should say that functions exercised by one of the systems may temporarily be more or less influenced by one of the others [Thusthinking is an ego function but:] In psychoses, e.g. in paranoid delusions, it is overwhelmed by id and superego functions [p. 14].1 By extension, ideation is very "idful" thinking. As a mode of thought, it is still an ego function, but an instance of ego passivity and thus primarily an indicator (or representative) of instinctual drive. Similarly, affect storm, though still an ego response, indicates ego passivity. I shall try to show how these distinctions evolved and assumed importance as corollaries of the evolution of the structural point of view. Affect, according to Rapaport (1953), was originally equated with psychic energy.2 Subsequently, affect was seen as one means of drive representation, corresponding with discharge processes. The idea was conceptualized as the other means of drive representation. But, rather than accenting merely its discharge aspect, the stress was put on the idea as a mode of structure building by virtue of its being the cathexis of a memory trace. Finally, in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety(1926),affect was conceptualized as ego response. Early affect and ideation, together with affect and ideation occurring in regressed or passive ego states, may thus primarily "represent" either instinctual drive or external stimulation. However, in either event, they are conceived as ego responses. With this shift of emphasis, affect and idea no longer represented instinctual drive, except in the sense of being ego "representatives" specifically responding to internal or external excitationsa shift in emphasis corresponding to the concept of differentiated psychic structures and of primary autonomous functions. Thus the discharge aspect not only of ideation, but also of affect is deemphasized. Affect

1 For an unambiguous statement of this interpretation see Loewenstein (1966, p. 307). 2 For a discussion pertinent to this paper generally, and for a different interpretation of this point specifically, see

Beres (1965). 3 Conceptualizing the idea as ego response adds to the question of how somatic processes achieve expression as psychological force, the question of the means by which an instinctual drive can determine which memory traces the ego will cathect. In terms of current concepts, it might necessitate retaining the postulate of a prior drive cathexis of the memory trace, or else the assumption of a qualitative aspect in an instinctual drive, not necessarily manifested in the form of a drive cathexis of a memory trace.
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can now be conceptualized as the unstructuralized aspect of ego response, ideation as the structuralized aspect. This assumes that in each instance of cathecting amemory trace, some energy is bounda more or less stable structure constituted.3 Both affect and ideation would be intimately associated with memoryideation still as the cathexis of a memory trace, but now in the form of ego cathexis, andaffect as a capacity to respond conditioned by memory. Ego energy is assumed. The "drive organization of memory" would refer to a relatively undifferentiated state where drives achieving peremptory level determine which memory traces the ego cathects. However, ego response, even though beginning in such passive "pre-ego" response, would be the presupposition of the development of an autonomous "conceptual organization of memory." In general, "The drive-representing idea tends to become reality-representing thought" (Rapaport, 1953, p. 194), but both ideation and thought are conceptualized as ego functions. In extending these concepts to external stimuli affect would still be the unstructuralized aspect of ego response andas in the response to internal excitationclosely associated with the ego function of attention cathexis. The ideational response to internal excitation is a mode of structuralization augmenting the autonomy of the ego from the id. The ideational response to external stimuli constitutes a means

of internalization and as such a mode of structuralization augmenting the autonomy of the ego from external reality.4

4 Rapaport (1960a, p. 239): "contact with external reality and the stimulus nutriment for structure-building

and structure-maintenance it involves seem to be the guarantee of the ego'sautonomy from the id, and instinctual drive pressure seems to be the guarantee of the autonomy of the ego from the environment." At a glance, the notion that the ideational response to an internal excitation would first of all be a mode of structure building leading to the autonomy of the ego from the id, and the ideational response to an external stimulation a mode of structure building leading to the autonomy of the ego from external reality, may seem opposite to Rapaport's formulation. However, they are compatible. Rapaport's formulation is a more general statement of the ultimate conditions external to the ego which guarantee or compel autonomy. The other describes a means of itsdevelopment. "The thought-organization of the secondary process, like the ego, crystallizes in the conflict between reality- and drivedemands. But as a part of the ego it is built also on constitutional equipments, such as memory-capacity, perceptual systems, stimulus-barriers, and general endowment. By apperceiving external and internal stimuli, it subserves the ego's internalizing of theconflict between reality and drives" (Rapaport, 1951a, p. 703).
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The above interpretation of the direction of theory development goes counter to arguments for conceptualizing affect as itself psychic structure or tending to become structuralized. Primitive affective response might "lead" (and not just follow) attention cathexis which, if enduring, might lead to stable structure formation.Affect itself, however, would always be de novo, conscious response. Two arguments for affect as structure or capable of becoming structuralized are those of Schur (1953) and Rapaport (1953). Schur quotes Freud as follows: Our next question will be: How can we picture the process of repression carried out under the influence of anxiety? I think this is what happens: the ego becomes aware that the satisfaction of some nascent instinctual demand would evoke one among the wellremembered danger-situations. This instinctualcathexis must, therefore, somehow or other be suppressed, removed, made powerless In such a contingency, the ego calls to its aid a technique, which is, at the bottom, identical with that of normal thinking. Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures about over a map before setting his troops in motion. In this way, the ego anticipates the satisfaction of the questionable impulse, and enables it to reproduce the painful feelings which are attached to the beginning of the dreaded dangersituation. Thereupon the automatic mechanisms of the pleasure-pain principle is brought into play and carries through the repression of the dangerous impulse [1933, pp. 89-90].5 [Schur comments:] What appears most important here is the comparison of this reaction to a thought process. That

5 Reference numbers of all citations have been altered to conform with my bibliography. 6 Schur's footnote: "We cannot speak of unconscious anxiety if we want to keep a clean

psychological conscience" (Freud, 1930).

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awareness of danger as an ego experience is closer to a thought process than to the affect of anxiety is emphasized by the fact that it shares with a thought process the potentiality to take place in the system unconsciouswhile an affect, according to Freud, cannot remain unconscious.6 Primary anxiety in a traumatic situation and awareness of anticipated danger represent the two extremes in a series of reactions. Between these extremes we find innumerable variations of reactions which constitute such an essential part of normal, and especially of abnormal, responses

What constitutes a traumatic situation for the infant need not even represent danger to the adult, what is extreme danger to one individual may be commonplace experience to the other. While it thus depends to a large extent on certain factors of ego development whether a situation is experienced as traumatic, the ensuing reaction to such a traumatic situation will also depend on the state of the ego at the time of the experience [1953, pp. 7374]. One might agree with an earlier statement of Schur's that signal anxiety "is as remote from primary anxiety as thought is from action" (p. 72). But this need not imply that affect, as he put it, "in Rapaport's (1953) terminology has become completely structuralized" (p. 73). It is likely that signal anxiety begins and for the most part functions in accordance with the description given by Freud (1933, p. 89): "the ego notices that thesatisfaction of an emerging instinctual demand would conjure up one of the well-remembered situations of danger." However, even in the conscious anticipatory thought described in the latter part of the Freud quotation, it is not a matter of affect becoming thought but of thought subserving the ego function of anticipating a situation, the response to which is anxiety. Anticipatory thought is not "close to thought," it is thought. And the affective response to the anticipated danger situation is anxiety, ordinarily less intense in an imagined than in an actual situation. It remains unclear why Schur accepts, or at least seems to
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accept, as corresponding to his own "awareness of danger" Rapaport's concept of structuralization of affect. Affect as structure seems unnecessary to his concept ofdesomatization, and unconscious affect is not a part of his concept of resomatization. Although he employs the term "affect equivalent," he went to some length to show that by the term he meant nothing so simplistic as a somatic symptom resulting merely from repression of affect (1955, p. 127). In general, he presents an ego response theory of anxiety: "This formulation stresses the fact that anxiety is always an ego response" (1953, p. 93). And, although not so different perhaps from Freud's meaning: Economic justification is inherent in any evaluation of danger and is proportionate to the degree of ego regression. In regression more than a memory isbeing reenacted. Regression can restore archaic situations and thus re-create economic conditions. As to "new creation" of anxietyno changes in the id can create "automatic" anxiety per se. Each anxiety response is newly created and yet follows a memoryboth in a phylogenetic and ontogenetic sense. Thus no anxiety response occurs without "economic justification," and every response, although it follows old memory traces, is yet "newly created"[1953, p. 94]. By "phylogenetic sense" Schur follows Freud in thinking of the innate, genetic endowment of a capacity to respond affectively as related to a "preindividual"memory (1926, p. 133). The significance of regression in influencing affective response is reminiscent of Freud in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety(1926) where he speaks oftransformation of an impulse (and implicitly an affect), but actually accounts for a different affective response on the basis of what he terms a "regressive degradation." Freud's actual phrasing is: "One might say that the impulse had been transformed into its opposite" (p. 106). It is not clear whether in this passage he actually means it is transformed, or whether his tentativeness indicates that it might appear that way to superficial observation. The latter seems a more accurate, if less generous, characterization than Freud's own retrospective one that he had given a "phenomenological account" instead of a metapsychological one when he described the cathectic energy of
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a repressed impulse as being "automatically turned into anxiety" (1926, p. 93). Such ambiguity runs throughout Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. Freud renounces the idea of affect being transformedhis previously held id-slanted viewin favor of a changed ego response. the problem of 'transformation of affect' under repression disappears [1926, p. 91]. [And:] It might be asked how I arrived at this idea of transformationin the first instance. It

was while I was studying the 'actual neuroses,' at a time when analysis was still a very long way from distinguishing betweenprocesses in the ego and processes in the id [1926, p. 109]. Yet, he keeps coming back to the idea that affect may, in certain instances, be a product of transformed libido (1926, p. 141). It is as though he could not quite live with the idea, but could not quite leave it either. It was at the conclusion of such a passage (1926, p. 110) that he wrote "non liquet." His point of consistency is that in either event, the economic factor is considerably less crucial an issue than he had earlier believed. whereas I formerly believed that anxiety invariably arose automatically by an economic process, my present conception of anxiety as a signal given by the ego in order to affect the pleasure-unpleasure agency does away with the necessity of considering the economic factor [1926, p. 140]. Instead of discharge, he here speaks of the energy "which is used by the ego to arouse the affect" and adds: "it is no longer of any importance which portion ofenergy is employed for this purpose" (1926, p. 140). He repeatedly wrote that anxiety is a reaction and that "anxiety is an affective state and as such can, of course, only be felt by the ego" (1926, p. 140). The problem in the book is not so much centered in the passages where he specifically speculates about the possibility, still, of affect being transformed. It is more a matter of this old metaphor pervading the exposition of his newer insight, e.g., "it seems as though the longing turns into anxiety" (1926, p. 137). Moreover,
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at least as often as he insists that anxiety is an ego response, he falls back on the phrasing that the ego "produces" or "generates" anxietyan emphasis on affect as something "manufactured" which Schur has corrected (1953, p. 94). Reflected throughout Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety is a lingering tendency to equate affect and instinctual drive, or at least to reify affect as such on the modelof energy as some sort of enduring quantity, subject to various modes of expression, discharge, and alteration after the analogy of vinegar from wine. In a suggested theory of affect with which he concluded his paper "On the Psycho-analytic Theory of Affects" (1953), Rapaport retained aspects of all the three stages of affect theory he reviewed. The theory of affects, the bare outlines of which seem to emerge, integrates three components: inborn affect discharge-channels and discharge-thresholds of drive-cathexes; the use of these inborn channels as safety-valves and indicators of drive-tension, the modification of their thresholds by drives and derivative motivations prevented from driveaction, and the formation thereby of the drive-representation termed affect-charge; and the progressive 'taming' and advancing ego-control, in the course of psychic structure-formation, of the affects which are thereby turned into affect-signals released by the ego [1953, p. 196]. Thus he arrived at a basically threshold-discharge theory. Upon the structural aspects of thresholds and discharge channels, he superimposed the idea of structuralization of affect itself. Rather than staying with a conceptualization that the structuralization of other psychic functions allows for a modified affective response (which would have been a threshold-response theory compatible with much in his article), he retained the idea of affect as energy (affect-charge) and also ofaffect itself as becoming structuralized. Regarding signal affect he wrote: 'Affect-charge' if prevented from discharge does not become merely 'potential,' as was asserted in the discussion of 'unconscious emotion'; it is structuralized and thus it can be reproduced
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as a signal without its 'economic basis,' e.g. without 'affect discharge' actually taking place [1953, p. 187]. Rapaport thus contended that psychoanalytic theory had evolved to a point of conceptualizing affect as undergoing hierarchic development in the form of derivative structures in the same fashion as the development from ideation to thoughtvia, in this case, defense not only against drives but also

against affect itself(1953, pp. 182, 184, 192, 195). This aspect of Rapaport's theory was a marked departure from his often-repeated quote of Freud's that ideas are cathexesbasically of memory traceswhilst affects and emotions correspond to processes of discharge, the final manifestations of which are perceived as feelings. In the present state of our knowledge of affects and emotions we cannot express this difference more clearly [1915, p. 178]. Rather than that affects "correspond with discharge processes" (Freud's earlier understanding of their unstructuralized aspect as in "The Unconscious"), or affects as ego response (his later understanding of their unstructuralized aspect as in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety), affects were conceptualized by Rapaport not just as having a structural basis (in the form of discharge channels with their thresholds)in addition he postulated that affects themselves undergo structuralization.7 To conceptualize affect as structure (a new form of hypostatization) or as energy discharge (an old form of hypostatization) presents clear disadvantages when it comes to accounting for active, spontaneous behavior. In 1953 Rapaport wrote: In the first theory, affects were equated with drive-cathexis; in the second theory, they appeared as drive-representations,

7 Thus for Rapaport, "structuralization" of affect would closely follow the "structuralization of other psychic

functions" (1953, pp. 184, 195). Cf., "From the point of view of psychoanalysis, this is the genetic history of the rise of ego motivations from drive motivations; mobile drive cathexis abiding by the pleasure principlethat is, discharge bentare in part transformed into 'bound' cathexes (partly employed in the discharge-controlling structures, and partly limited by them in discharge) amenable to delay of discharge and available to the ego for deployment, for which the pleasure principle no longer fully holds but yields in part to the reality principle" (1951b, pp. 234-235).
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serving as safety-valves for cathexes the discharge of which was prevented; in the third theory they appear as ego-functions, and as such are no longer safety-valves but are used as signals by the ego. Freud wrote: Anxiety [as any] affective state can be experienced only by the Ego [1926, p. 80]. [Anxiety is] not to be explained on an economic basis; is not created de novo in repression but is reproduced as an affective state [1926, p. 20].8 The quotation from Freud presents a structural view of affect, but not a view of affect as structure. That affect "is not created de novo in repression" should be understood as Freud's rejection of the idea that repressed libido is transformed into anxiety. This is then a structural view of affects. 'Affect-charge' if prevented from discharge does not become merely 'potential', as was asserted in the discussion of 'unconscious emotion'; it is structuralized and thus it can be reproduced as a signal without its 'economic basis,' i.e. without 'affect discharge' actually taking place. The ego, which before the affect was 'tamed' into a signal endured it passively, now produces it actively [1953, p. 187]. The "reproduction" of affect is explicated by Freud as the response to an immediate, recalled or anticipated situation. The affective response reflects a structural capacity to respond conditioned by previous experience (memory and structure building) and released by a present situation. Similarly, the present situation involves learning and will condition subsequent response, including the ability to anticipate similar subsequent situations and to respond affectively to them. (The new hypostatization of affect as structure also lends itself to the old metaphor of affect "produced"). Affect as response, rather than discharge, does not rule out the possibility of a special structural capacity allowing for a type of energic discharge, the perception of which is predominantly one of affective experience. Rather, it allows the conceptualization

8 Rapaport quotes from the American edition, The Problem of Anxiety, tr. H. A. Bunker. New York: Norton, 1936.

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of such a process without the necessity of equating affect either with energy, on the one hand, or with structure, on the other. In addition, it does not limit affect as response only to the perception of energic discharge. To paraphrase Freud, it goes beyond the economic condition to the situation determining that condition. This critique of Rapaport's threshold concept, as applied specifically to affect, involves but one aspect of all that was therein condensed. In "On the Psychoanalytic Theory of Motivation" (1960a), he stated: Thus it was mistakenly assumed by some that the constancy principle was needed to supplement the pleasure principle to account for tension maintenance. The fact is, however, that the entropic tendency embodied in the pleasure principle always depends for its effectiveness and its limits upon the structural conditions of the system whose energy distribution is studied [pp. 201-202]. Likewise he [Freud] did not include the ubiquitously implied but never explicitly considered discharge thresholds among the defining characteristics of instinctual drives either, though it goes without saying that discussions of energies refer explicitly or implicitlyto a structure within which the energies in question operate and therefore always imply a threshold concept [p. 206]. Primarily given and secondarily altered and established thresholds seem a parsimonious way of conceptualizing psychic structure and the structuralization process. There are several questions, though, about Rapaport's use of the threshold concept. First, are thresholds to be understood as themselves structures? Rapaport (1953, p. 184); (1960b, p. 52) suggests that they are. In other realms thresholds are not structures but indicate the presence of structure in terms of various functional limit points. S. S. Stevens (1951) cites Young (1911)in this regard: The threshold is the value that divides the continuum of stimuli into two classes: those to which the organism reacts and those to which it does not. Thus the threshold may be regarded as a "cut" in the continuum of stimuli. This way of saying it is reminiscent of Dedekind's definition of an irrational
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number as the kind of "cut" in the domain of rational numbers that divides the domain into two classes, neither of which has a terminus in the region of the cut [see Young, 1911, p. 104]; [Stevens, 1951, p. 33]. In addition to whether thresholds be taken as structures or only indicators of structure, another question is important. Namely, did Rapaport misapply the threshold concept in the realm of affective experience? Not all thresholds need be considered discharge thresholds. Functions of primary autonomy also have thresholds, but thresholds of response. It seems likely that the capacity for affective response and its threshold would be of the latter kind. However, Rapaport maintained that they weredischarge thresholds. He wrote: It seems to be assumed that if drive-actiondischarge of drive-cathexiswere possible, no separating off of a cathectic amount in the form of affect-charge, or disposal of it in the form of affect-discharge would take place The fallacy lies in the untenable assumption of immediate and completedischarge by drive-action [1953, p. 182]. According to Rapaport, the fallacy, even in a discharge theory, is not the inevitability of delay due to absence of the object, but the inevitability of dealy due to thresholds. He takes the thresholds not merely as levels at which innately given structure will respond. The thresholds themselves are conceptualized by him as the prototypical structurethe latter a conceptualization which might accord with Loewald's suggestion that psychic structures are functions structured in time, but not space (1962, p. 502). In any event, his concept thus far of thresholds as psychic structure could still conform with affect as ego response. However, in differentiating drive-discharge thresholds and affect-discharge thresholds (1953, pp. 184185), he assumes not only that both thresholds are structures but also that both inevitably function as dams,

i.e., as discharge thresholds. After citing Freud on ideas as cathexes and affects as corresponding to processes ofdischarge, Rapaport wrote: I believe that here Freud as yet lacked the observations which could have indicated to him (as they did to him as well as
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to Brierley and Jacobson later) that discharge thresholds of drives and affects are indispensable concepts of an affect-theory. But such thresholds heightened (presumably by counter-cathexis) to attain repression of affect would render the repressed 'affect-charge' just as actual as memory-traces renderunconscious ideas. Freud's conception here shows the limitations of a pure discharge-theory of affects which has no place in it for thresholdstructures[1953, p. 182]. The assertion that if Freud had conceptualized affect thresholds, he then would also have accepted the notion of unconscious affect is not self-evident. That affect if "actual" can be repressed, or if affect can be repressed it is actual, is a circularity which leaves the question of unconscious affect open. Leaving aside the question of unconscious affect, the differentiation of drive-discharge thresholds and affect-response thresholds seems useful. However, to avoid hypostatization of affect, the drivedischarge thresholds could be conceptualized as associated with a build-up of tension, whereas the affectresponse thresholds could be conceptualized as associated with either innately given or with the maturation of a structural capacity to respond. To respond with longing, anxiety, sympathy or compassion, for examples, would then signify the structural development allowing for those affective experiences, without the unnecessarily awkward conception of a damming up of such "feelings" (or their corresponding "charges") prior to their being experienced. The concept of threshold as dam rather than, in the case of affect, a point of structural response, constitutes the foundation for Rapaport's "structuralization" ofaffect. However, the concept of a countercathexis which raises a threshold, even a threshold for affective response, need not coincide with "repression of affect which would render the repressed 'affect-charge' just as actual as memory traces render unconscious ideas" (1953, p. 182). Countercathexis as warding off perception of a drivewhich, if perceived, would involve a painful response seems an adequate conceptualization. It does not involve the reification of affect as something dammed upin spite of the fact of clinical "shorthand" use of such metaphors. Whatever the situation that first releases the infant's capacity
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to respond with anxiety, the point at which he does can be conceived of as a threshold of response in accordance with a structurally given capacity facilitatingadaptation. Defenses operate not against anxiety but in the realm of perception, or anticipation of danger situations. Freud wrote: The conclusion we have come to, then, is this. Anxiety is a reaction to a situation of danger. It is obviated by the ego's doing something to avoid that situation or to withdraw from it. It might be said that symptoms are created so as to avoid the generating of anxiety. But this does not go deep enough. It would be truer to say that symptoms are created so as to avoid a danger-situation whose presence has been signalled by the generation of anxiety [1926,pp. 128-129]. The arguments by Rapaport (1953) for structuralization of affect on the basis of their reproducibility and on the basis of unconscious guilt which Freud wrote of do not seem compelling and have been met by Schur (1953, p. 94) in the case of the former and, in the case of the latter, by Freud himself in his several explications of his own use of the term unconscious when referring to affect, one of which Rapaport cites in part (1953, p. 183); (Freud, 1917, pp. 177-179). A further argument by Rapaport for the structuralization of affect "leans on" the "structuralization of other psychic functions [becoming] the typical form" (1953, p. 184). To accept this argument would be a major move toward washing out the possibility of adequately conceptualizing the phenomenological differentiation of thought and affect, a differentiation maintained probably more rigorously by Freud himself than by anyone else. While true that Freud early sought to systematize his theory of affect chiefly

in terms of what he regarded as its economic basis, he largely renounced this basis later and anchored his theory of affect in the concepts of a situation and a structural capacity to respond. In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, he wrote: how is it possible, from an economic point of view, for a mere process of withdrawal and discharge, like the withdrawing of a preconscious ego-cathexis, to produce unpleasure and
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anxiety, seeing that, according to our assumptions, unpleasure and anxiety can only arise as a result of an increase in cathexis? The reply is that this causal sequence should not be explained from an economic point of view. Anxiety is not newly created in repression; it is reproduced as an affective state in accordance with an already existing mnemic image [1926, p. 93]. The "structuralization of other psychic functions" provides the basis for altered affective response. Affect storms as "automatic" responses of primitive structure to peremptory needs yield to the capacity for more discrete responses to both the inner and, progressively, the outer reality of a more highly developed structure. However, there is also achieved the capacity for wholeness of active response which at times might appear to the "objective" observer as merely the equivalent of a passive affectstorm. But even in the case of calm discreteness of response (reflecting structural differentiation), the wholeness of active response (reflecting structural integration) is also there as context. In addition to conceiving of affect as structure and as capable of actual unconscious existence, Rapaport persisted in conceiving of affect as discharge. While any kind of function involves expenditure of energy and thus can be conceived in terms of a discharge aspect, the explanatory range of such a conception is often meager and, on that account, misleading. Accordingly, in Rapaport's work despite the wealth of developmental data he thus systematizedthe place of discharge and delay is crucial, constituting a conceptual disadvantage only partly ameliorated by his formulations on the capacity for passive and active response. Autonomy remains largelyautonomy from, rather than autonomy for, a problem of which Rapaport himself was aware. (See 1957a)(and 1957b, reference to Hartmann correspondence.)Regarding discharge, Freud wrote: anxiety is based upon an increase of excitation which on the one hand produces the character of unpleasure and on the other finds relief through the acts of discharge already mentioned. But a purely physiological account of this sort will scarcely satisfy us. We are tempted to assume the presence of a historical factor which binds the sensations of anxiety
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and its innervations firmly together. We assume, in other words, that an anxiety-state is the reproduction of some experience which contained the necessary conditions for such an increase of excitation and a discharge along particular paths, and that from this circumstance the unpleasure of anxietyreceives its specific character [1926, p. 133]. If the increase of excitation is understood not in physiological terms but, as Rapaport suggested, as the psychological phenomenon of increased potential, the sentence, "But a purely physiological account of this sort will scarcely satisfy us," could have its counterpart as, "But a purely economic account of this sort will scarcely satisfy us." Even if the economic basis for affective experience were increase of excitationdischarge as a basis is more dubious, but even if that, too, were included Freud did not, even earlier (in "The Unconscious") equate these processes with affect. He wrote: "affects and emotions correspond9 to processes of discharge, the final expression of which is perceived as feeling" (1915, p. 178). It was his way at that time of understanding the unstructuralized aspect of affect as compared with ideation and thought. When he wrote in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety that the "anxiety state is the reproduction of some experience which contained the necessary conditions for such an increase of excitation and a discharge along particular paths" (1926, p. 133), he extended his understanding of affect beyond what he considered to be itseconomic basis, and associated it intimately with experience and memory and with a

present situation which elicits a response in accordance with that experience. That which constitutes the danger situation changes with experience and structural development. The infant can know nothing of his situation,

9 I believe that Rapaport was less patient than Freud with the rather murky meaning of "correspond." William

James wrotes: "When psychology is treated as a natural science (after the fashion in which it has been treated in this book), 'states of mind' are taken for granted, as data immediately given in experience; and the working hypothesis is the mere empirical law that to the entire state of the brain at any moment one unique state of mind always 'corresponds'. This does very well till we begin to be metaphysical and ask ourselves just what we mean by such a word as 'corresponds'. This notion appears dark in the extreme, the moment we seek to translate it into something more intimate than mere parallel variation" (1962, p. 458).
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but he comes to learn that the situation which created the economic condition is that to which he is responding. A final quotation from Freud which heavily influenced Rapaport's affect concept is as follows: The process is prevented, if possible, from finding discharge through motility; and even if this cannot be done, the process is forced to expend itself in making alterations in the subject's own body and is not permitted to impinge upon the external world. It must not be transformed into action [1926, p. 95]. Without exhausting all the possible combinations of response, it may be useful to consider this passage in the light of Rapaport's defense and control concepts. An only theoretically possible extreme of defense would result in the drive being repressed, without substitutive processes or symptom formation, and without psychosomatic or affective response (1957a and 1959, p. 322). A partial failure of defense might result in psychosomatic rather than affective response. A partial failure of defense with inadequate control could result in substitutive processes, "drive-determined" action and/or passive affective response. A lessening of defensecoordinated with adequate control might result in active affective response alone with a judgment not to act, or in active affective response with "ego-determined"action. It is not my wish to speculate about the mechanisms of psychic and somatic correlations. Rather, it is to differentiate psychosomatic from affective response in order to pursue an understanding of affect from a psychological point of view. Questions such as how, or whether, or when psychosomatic illness develops in the absence ofaction or affective responses are left aside. A physiological-biochemical substrate is assumed for all behavior. From the standpoint of elaborating a psychological point of view, however, the fact that certain physiological concomitants of affective experience are more grossly obvious than those of thought, does not warrant the assumption that affect is thereby "more physiological."
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To stress the energic discharge or tension aspect of affective response is, at best, a highly id-slanted view. Autoplastic adaptation in this sense might better apply to psychosomatic response. Even in that case, the custom of referring to such responses as "affect equivalents" has been of dubious heuristic value. Their relationship might be better clarified by a stress on their lack of equivalence (see Schur, 1955, p. 127). Control allowing for the fullness of active affective response is not a phenomenon comprehended by the notion of autoplastic change as merely a necessary expedient. Rapaport conceptualized passive affect experience as safetyvalve and discharge channel"the shortcut to tension-decrease"and coordinated with the pleasureprinciple rather than the reality principle (1953, p. 181). His concept of active affective experience constituted a signal theory of affect, wherein the anticipatory signal function of affect was generalized as affect "tamed" (1960a, p. 207). The possibility of such active affective experience was grounded by him in the concept of affect as hierarchically layered structure. While signal affect as propounded by Freud and Schur is clearly an ego-response theory, Rapaport's conceptualization carries the connotation that any strong affectwould signify a passive ego state, notwithstanding the fact that his model of activity-passivity specifically provides for strong, active affective response. The signalaffect of anticipatory thoughtfor instance, in the citation above of the general

moving "miniature figures about over a map before setting his troops in action"is based on the general's experience in actual battle situations, where his affective experience would not likely be tame, but neither would it be passive. Signal affect is but one form of active affective response. The "taming of affects" does not so much suggest that a relatively undifferentiated organism will respond less discretely to inner and outer stimuli than a more differentiated one. Rather it implies that the affects undergo a change in their nature. It follows the fallacy of taking the neutralization of energy to mean that energy per se has somehow changed in nature, rather than its different manifestation being due to changed structural
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conditions. Even the latter understanding of energic manifestations would have to be differentiated from affective experience. Affect as ego response would always bede novo, not "de novo in repression"Freud's phrase rejecting the idea that repression creates anxiety out of libido. Nor would it be de novo in the sense of affect beingunrelated to present structure, especially memory. Rather, it would be de novo in the sense of affect being the response afresh reflecting a particular degree of structural differentiation and integration, and a particular situation. Affect as ego response might foster anthropomorphization of the concept ego. (The response of a person is a phenomenon, ego response a concept.) However, the fact that every response is "automatic" and economically justified, whether passive or active, seems less an anthropomorphization and less teleological than the oldmetaphor of the ego "generating" affect for signal purposes. Perhaps as Bridgman (1962, p. 306) suggested, some kind of reification, the roots of which are in the verystructure of the language, is almost inevitable. At any rate, we conceptualize certain aspects of behavior as ego functions. Since The Ego and the Id, affective response has been included in those functions. The concept of a structure differentiated from its matrix was the basic presupposition of a response theory which became a centralidea of Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. The ego has been conceptualized as an "organ of learning and adaptation" (Hartmann, 1952, pp. 161162). In Schur's structural response formulation, prototypicalanxiety is seen as the response to tension arising in "an impending disturbance in the homeostatic equilibrium which cannot be overcome by automatic regulations"(1953, p. 69). This formulation includes the familiar idea of the role of deprivation or disturbance in fostering differentiation (Hartmann et al., 1946, p. 20) and, implicitly, the adaptive aspect of affect as communication. Threshold concepts applied herebut differentiated as thresholds related to tension build-up, on the one hand, and affect thresholds as points of structural capacity to respond, on the otherwould imply an initial subliminal perception of tension. The primal consciousresponse would be an affective one. At that early stage, such affective response would coincide with consciousness and subsequently
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constitute its necessary but insufficient matrix. If the response to perception (of inner and outer events) is always partly an affective one, then affect would need to be conceptualized in such a way that it could be intrinsic to any epistemology. Presumably before there could be anything like conscious recall, memory traces laid down in primitive experience would manifest themselves in subsequent affective reponse of the so altered structure. At advanced stages of development, affect would no longer coincide with consciousness in the sense of being its sum total, but in the sense of affect being limited to consciousness. Here it would be still the primal response of the conscious ego, as signal affect in immediate anticipations (whether conscious anticipations or not), and as mood generally, with its intimate connection with memory (whether conscious memory or not). Thus what one "knows," as expressed in one's affective response, may transcend the knowledge of one's consciousthought. A characteristic mood, state of mind, or disposition would represent, on the basis of a maximum reflection of memory, the wholeness of integrated response in one's situation. It would not be affect structuralized, but would reflect in a continuing way a characteristic response of perduring structure. To understand affect as ego response and as a continuing process of response is to conceive of it as our primary way of "listening" to our inner impulses, ourconscience, our store of knowledge and experience, and our anticipation of the future as these messages combine in an immediate situation. One's

mood as a response to this totality is a primary integrate and would be the guiding basis of the ego's task of structuring an integrated adaptation.

SUMMARY
The fallacy of hypostatization of affect has occurred in two formsoriginally by equating affect and energy, and recently by equating affect and structure. Both forms of this fallacy seem to foster the conceptualization of affect itself being capable of unconscious existence. In the above I have advocated retention of the prior concept of affect as conscious ego response. Such
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a conceptualization seems necessary to the development of a general theory of affect and a general theory of signal affect. Signal affect is best understood not simply as affect "tamed" or in small doses. It is not affect which has been changed in form or diminished in quantity, concepts which derive from the hypostatization fallacy. Nor is signal affect limited to an anxious response to an anticipated situation of danger. Signal affect in general is the correlate of highly differentiated and hierarchically integrated active ego functioning. Thus affect signals as modulated ego responses occur on the basis of anticipation, recall or in a present situation. However, it is not affect as a quantitative factor which is modulated. Rather, signal affective responses occur in situations (and ego states) which permit simultaneous attention to multiple stimuli, none of them compelling immediate or total response. Finally, the general theory of affect would not limit the affective response of active ego functioning to signal affect. Extremes of affective response occur not only passively as in affect storms or overwhelming trauma, but also as active affective response in the actuality of singularly compelling events.

REFERENCES
Beres, D. 1965 Structure and function in psycho-analysis Int. J. Psychoanal. 46:53-63 [] Bibring, E. 1953 The mechanism of depression In: Affective Disorders ed. P. Greenacre. New York: International Universities Press, pp. 13-48 Bridgman, P. W. 1962 Quo vadis In:The New Scientist ed. P. Obler & H. Estrin. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, pp. 302-312 Freud, S. 1915 The unconscious Standard Edition 14 161-215 London: Hogarth Press, 1957 [] Freud, S. 1917 Mourning and melancholia Standard Edition 14 239-258 London: Hogarth Press, 1957 [] Freud, S. 1926 Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety Standard Edition 20 77-174 London: Hogarth Press, 1959 [] Freud, S. 1930 Civilization and its discontents Standard Edition 21 59-145 London: Hogarth Press, 1961 [] Freud, S. 1933 New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis Standard Edition 22 3-182 London: Hogarth Press, 1964 [] Hartmann, H. 1952 The mutual influences in the development of ego and id In: Essays on Ego Psychology New York: International Universities Press, 1964 pp. 155-181 Hartmann, H. Kris, E., & Loewenstein, R. M. 1946 Comments on the formation of psychic structure The Psychoanal. Study Child 2:11-38 New York: International Universities Press. []
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James, W. 1962 Psychology: Briefer Course New York: Collier Books. Loewald, H. W. 1951 Ego and reality Int. J. Psychoanal. 32:10-18 [] Loewald, H. W. 1962 Internalization, separation, mourning, and the superego Psychoanal. Q. 31:483504 [] Loewenstein, R. M. 1966 On the theory of the superego: a discussion In:Psychoanalysis A General Psychology ed. R. M. Loewenstein, L. M. Newman, M. Schur, & A. J. Solnit. New York: International Universities Press, pp. 298-314 Rapaport, D. 1951a Organization and Pathology of Thought New York: Columbia University Press.

Rapaport, D. 1951b The conceptual model of psychoanalysis In:Psychoanalytic Psychiatry and Psychology: Clinical and Theoretical Papers ed. R. P. Knight & C. R. Friedman. New York: International Universities Press, 1954 pp. 221-247 Rapaport, D. 1953 On the psycho-analytic theory of affects Int. J. Psychoanal. 34:177-198 [] Rapaport, D. 1957a and 1959 Seminars on Elementary Metapsychology Mimeographed copies of seminars held at Austen Riggs Center, ed. S. C. Miller. Rapaport, D. 1957b Seminars on Advanced Metapsychology Mimeographed copies of seminars held at Austen Riggs Center, ed. S. C. Miller., et al. Rapaport, D. 1960a On the psychoanalytic theory of motivation In: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation ed. M. Jones. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 173-247 Rapaport, D. 1960b The Structure of Psychoanalytic Theory [Psychological Issues Monogr. 6]. New York: International Universities Press. Schur, M. 1953 The ego in anxiety In: Drives, Affects, Behavior ed. R. M. Loewenstein. New York: International Universities Press, Vol. 1 pp. 67-103 Schur, M. 1955 Comments on the metapsychology of somatization The Psychoanal. Study Child 10:119165 New York: International Universities Press. [] Stevens, S. S. 1951 Mathematics, measurement and psychology In: Handbook of Experimental Psychology ed. S. S. Stevens. New York: Wiley, pp. 1-49 Young, J. W. 1911 Lectures on the Fundamental Concepts of Algebra and Geometry New York: Macmillan.
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Smith, J.H. (1970). On the Structural View of Affect. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 18:539-561

Leaff, L.A. (1971). Affect Versus Feeling: On the Concept of a Structuralized Ego Re... J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 19:780-786.

(1971). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 19:780-786

Affect Versus Feeling: On the Concept of a Structuralized Ego Response

Louis A. Leaff, M.D.
THE TERM "AFFECT" derives from the Greeks who used it to denote states of mind characterized by "feelings." Strachey (1955), noting the difficulty in translating the German Affekt, Empfindung (sensation, feeling) and Gefhl (emotion), commented that the terms in both German and English cover very uncertain ground, their meanings as used by Freud frequently overlapping. In spite of numerous statements in the literature relating to the terminological confusion and lack of precision(Jacobson, 1953), "affect" continues to be used both as a clinical term and as a metapsychological concept. Proposed solutions to the semantic and theoretical difficulties have included reserving "feeling" to refer to subjectively perceived experiences, and "affect" to refer to the theoretical, metapsychological constructs, i.e., structures, processes, and regulatory mechanisms. Joffe and Sandler in their "Adaptive Model" (1969) place affects in both of what they consider to be two fundamental and different psychological areas, i.e., the experiential realm and the nonexperiential. In the experiential realm are placed subjective experiences and phenomenologic representations (impulses, fantasies, sensations) while in the nonexperiential realm are the energies, structures, sense organs, and means of discharge. The pleasureprinciple, for example, would have two aspects, one relating to drive states and dynamic homeostasis and another relating to the accompanying feeling state. Earlier, howeyer, Joffe and Sandler (1968) state, "we would prefer to use here the term 'feeling state' rather than affect which includes both feelings and bodily changes. This is a great source of confusion unless

Submitted December 7, 1970

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one differentiates the different aspects of what is meant by affect. " (p. 29). In summary, the term affect, unless clarified in context, lacks clinical or theoretical precision. It is useful as a shorthand or generic term which may relate to clinical phenomena, theoretical substrates, or both. In Freud's early writings, the semantic and theoretical difficulties in the affect concept were not a problem. The relationship of affect to content was fixed and invariable. Discharge of dammedup affect drained pathogenic material of its force and influence (Freud, 1895). Affect was viewed as synonymous with psychic energy and represented direct discharge of libidinal energy from the unconscious. Affects were released by and were indicators of unconscious wishes and drive representations(Rapaport, 1953). Freud's second or "dynamic theory" of affect discharge as a dynamic product of the conflict between mounting instinctual drive energy and frustrating reality, with the direction of discharge determined by inborn drive channels, was found to be insufficient unless supplemented by a theory which took into consideration affect discharge and drive discharge thresholds (Jacobson, 1953); (Rapaport, 1953). With Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety,(1926) and The Ego and the Id,(1923), Freud placed affect theory within the structural frame of reference. Affects are often clinically and theoretically conceptualized principally in terms of energic discharge, e.g., shifts of mobile energy, "bound-down" psychic energy,affect "charge," etc. For example, Rapaport (1953) states, "Affect charge if prevented from discharge does not become merely potential it is structuralized and thus can be reproduced as a signal without its economic basis," (p. 187). i.e., without affect discharge actually taking place. Jacobson (1953) states, "We can certainly adhere to Freud's original definition that the affects correspond to discharge processes What we perceive as feelings is not

'tension'in contradistinction to 'discharge'but the flux of mobile psychic energy released, the changes in the level of tension " (p. 55). From the frame of reference of the structural model, the subjective experience of "feeling" or experiencing affect belongs to the organized group of functions known as ego. According to Hartmann (1958), the organism comes into being with a set of tension
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states (drives) and a set of built-in capacities (ego apparatuses) for perception, learning, memory, thinking, motor behavior, and affect (feeling). These apparatuses constitute the physiological basis of perception, motility, feeling, etc. They become "ego functions" when they become tied to the aims of the organism and are linked with drive gratification (Pine, 1970). Thus, "from the beginning," the capacity to "feel" exists, but is psychologically meaningful only in its relational context, i.e., as part of a structure. Structure is used here in the sense of an organized relationship among the apparatuses and functions of the mind with stability over time. Psychic structures exist on a continuum of complexity from a simple perception, feeling, or idea to the highly complex organizations of the id, ego, and superego. In the newborn, such associations are relatively uncomplicated and unstable. Links become established between drive discharge, need satisfaction, perception, motor and secretory functions and the subjective experience of increased or decreased tension. With maturation such associations acquire stability, dynamic significance, andsymbolic connection. With development of the cognitive and anticipatory functions, the complexity of the associative links becomes richer, more variable, and progressively more directly involved with other ego activities and less directly with drive satisfaction. In addition, it is assumed that the inborn affective response potential undergoes maturation and is modified by learning and experience. The earliest associated experiences of drive discharge, need satisfaction, and tension relief would correspond to the pleasure-unpleasure continuum. Although not necessarily fixed, such structuralized relationships come to represent a hierarchical repertoire of more or less permanent potential responses. The specific response is dependent upon situational and intrapsychic realities. The affective (feeling) response is meaningful in the context of its relationship to these more (or less) complex structures. The feeling states within the nascent ego are the foci around which the developing psyche organizes. According to Joffe and Sandler (1968), "Changes in the feeling state and in the representations associated with these changes provide the impetus for the development of psychological structures and represent the ultimate basis for the ego's regulatory activities" (p. 453). According
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to Kaywin (1966), the earliest representations of self and objects are laid down in terms of polarization around positive and negative "affect representations" in addition to object representations. The positive (affect) self representations act as gathering forces for subsequent evolution of self-confidence, optimism, and trust, whilemasochism results from association of part of the self with negative affect representations (usually repressed). Feeling states, thus, partially pattern differentiation and development and are patterned by them. The feeling response is psychologically meaningful as part of more or less enduring psychic structures with conscious and unconscious components. Feelings do not exist in isolation. They have definite stable associations withsymbolic, cognitive, experiential representations as well as with instinctual derivatives, unconscious fantasies, and drive discharge. Such stable associations (structures) are motivational and may become involved in conflict, symptom formation, secondary autonomy, and signal relationships. The feeling response may be the onlyconscious representative of a structuralized relationship, or it may signal the impending gratification of prohibited or defended-against impulses which in the past have led to unpleasant consequences or may potentially do so. The very fact of conflict within the psychic apparatus, depending on its extent, creates unpleasant tensions relating to previous situations of danger, pleasure, and self-esteem. Characteristic feeling states relate to enduring intrapsychic structures, conflicts, and self representations. Feelings are categorized, codified, classified, and have definite associative links. The affective response implies a certain tone to the ego and a particular degree and type of equilibrium in the psychic apparatus. The clinical significance of the feeling response is in its reflection of the sum total of many concomitant psychic processes. It is, in a sense, a vector which is the resultant of many underlying processes, functions, conflicts, defenses, and integrations.

The complex internal perception which we call an affect relates to immediate stimulating factors and their intrapsychic representations and responses, integrated and evaluated along lines of past experience. The evaluation is along many vectors simultaneously,
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e.g., danger, trauma, safety, pleasure, well-being, self-esteem, instinct gratification, mastery, function pleasure, guilt, shame. The result of the comparison, evaluation, and integration is a new psychic state and "feeling" which may be transient and used as a signal, or enduring and integrated with existing structures. Such responses provide an ongoing signal feedback whereby the ego evaluates its responses (adaptive, defensive, integrative) as well as present and potential outcomes. Derivatives of structures having the potential to elicit painful affects and associations may be barred from consciousness or dealt with by a variety of defensive maneuvers. It is not only the associated affect but also the conflictual implications which reinforce repression. The understanding of human motivation depends upon the understanding of concepts of instinctual drive, conflict, and basic affect states in their historical relational context. Although there are many indices of psychic integration and functioninge.g., adaptive behaviors, object relatedness, sublimationthe stability and quality of an individual's feeling life is of such importance as scarcely to be doubted. It is an ongoing perception of the self, a "state-of-the-self message," a vector summation of drive discharge, need satisfaction, conflict resolution, self-esteem, security, and function pleasure as viewed in the context of past experience. The feeling states (as representatives of their organized relationships) must remain within manageable limits in order for development to proceed and for structural differentiation to be maintained. The experiential (feeling) component has been present "from the beginning" and is the base, along with inborn motor and secretory functions, from which subsequent structures have developed (Sandler & Joffe, 1969). Feeling states (implying associated structure) exist at varying levels of awareness or potential for awareness as well as in different degrees of complexity and integration. The affective state of well-being is the background to everyday experience and relates initially to the state of bodily well-being which the infant experienced when his instinctual needs were satisfied. This state, although presumably distinct from the pleasure in the need satisfaction itself, must become related to it in terms of primitive associations. The state of well-being becomes localized in the self and is an essential componentof feelings
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of self-esteem and safety (Sandler, 1960). Grafted upon and integrated with basic feeling states are subsequent experiences occurring in the course of libidinaldevelopment. The introjection of libidinal objects and early identifications are important modes whereby the child maintains internal feelings of "well-being" and "being loved." With increasing differentiation of the self from the mother, the infant's state of well-being is threatened. Subsequently, the regulation of self-esteem and infantile omnipotence are given over to omnipotent and admired objects which are duplicated in the self and which subsequently regulate self-esteem (Sandler, 1960). With the development of the (ego) function of anticipation, feeling states are used by the psyche as signals for its various adaptive and defensive operations. Such structuralized relationships may be used for a variety of adaptive functions only indirectly involved in instinctual gratification. On the other hand, the closer the organism is to the direct discharge of instinctual impulses, the more primitive is the perceived feeling state and associated images and the more direct its connection with earlier danger or traumatic situations (Sandler & Jaffe, 1969). Such responses produce the greatest danger to the structure and integrity of the ego, potentially tending toward severe regression with loss of structural differentiation, primitive sensations, evaluations, and responses. In most situations such responses are not suffered. Rather their potential is recognized and the potential is used as a signal to call into play defensive measures and initiate substitutive and alternative responses.

REFERENCES
Freud, S. 1923 The ego and the id Standard Edition 19 3-66 London: Hogarth Press, 1961 [] Freud, S. 1926 Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety Standard Edition 20 87-175 London: Hogarth Press, 1959 [] Freud, S. & Breuer, J. 1893-1895 Studies in hysteria Standard Edition 2 London: Hogarth Press, 1955 []

Hartmann, H. 1958 Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation New York: International Universities Press. [] Jacobson, E. 1953 The affects and their pleasure-unpleasure qualities in relation to the psychic discharge processes In: Drives, Affects, Behavior ed. R. Loewenstein. New York: International Universities Press, pp. 38-66 Joffe, W. G., & Sandler, J. 1968 Comments on the psychoanalytic psychology of adaptation with special reference to the role of affects and the representational world Int. J. Psychoanal. 49:445-454 [] Kaywin, L. 1966 Notes on the psychoanalytic theory of affect Psychoanal. Rev. 53 111-118 [] Pine, F. 1970 On the structuralization of drive-defense relationships Psychoanal. Q. 39:17-37 [] Rapaport, D. 1953 On the psychoanalytic theory of affects Int. J. Psychoanal. 34:177-198 [] Sandler, J. 1960 On the concept of superego The Psychoanal. Study Child 15:128-162 New York: International Universities Press. [] Sandler, J. & Joffe, W. G. 1969 Towards a basic psychoanalytic model Int. J. Psychoanal. 50:79-90 [] Strachey, J. 1966 Notes on some technical terms whose translation calls for comment Standard Edition 1 XXIII London: Hogarth Press. []

SUMMARY
Affect is not "a thing" which can be qualitatively or quantitatively measured, but rather an abstract concept referring to theoretical psychic states, one aspect of whichfeelingsare subjectively experienced. Such psychic states or structures, of greater or lesser stability, have instinctual referrents, a hierarchal structure, cognitive representations, subjectively perceived "feelings," objectively observable physiologic and somatic concomitants, some degree of stability and permanence, and of instinctualization. Such structures (feeling states) may be used, with emphasis on one or another
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aspect of that structure, by the ego for signal, conflictual, defensive, synthetic, structural, regulatory, object evaluational, or adaptive purposes. Such feeling states regulate and structure subsequent experience and are themselves structured by that experience. Unconscious structuralized relationships have the potential to evoke "feelings." Even the highest form of symbolic representation is meaningful only through its direct and indirect links with feelings. In this sense there is no such thing as a purely cognitive or intellectual process. Although affects are frequently referred to as "signals" or as if they were themselves motivational, this is true only in terms of their relational context with instinctual, cognitive, and genetic components.
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Leaff, L.A. (1971). Affect Versus Feeling: On the Concept of a Structuralized Ego Response. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 19:780-786

Brenner, C. (1974). Depression, Anxiety and Affect Theory. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 55:25-32.

(1974). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 55:25-32

Depression, Anxiety and Affect Theory

Charles Brenner
'Depression' as a diagnostic entity is characterized by an alteration of affect. It is, indeed, often referred to as an affective disorder. The most common and most obvious symptoms of depression, the symptoms which have given it its name, are what are commonly called depressive affects: grief, despair and guilt, in varying degrees and combinations. Not only are these affects painful in themselves; they are also often associated with an inability to function normally and with self-injurious or even with selfdestructive tendencies. It is doubtless this factthat the emotions of depression are both painful and associated with serious behavioural abnormalitiesthat has resulted in their being used as a basis for diagnostic classification. Similar considerations account for the place of anxiety in currently accepted diagnostic schemas. Anxiety as an affect is also painfulat times, intolerably soand associated with an incapacity to function normally. Like 'depression', 'anxiety state', 'anxiety hysteria' and 'anxiety neurosis' are diagnostic entities in current usage. Depressive affects and anxiety are also often present in the same patient, as witness the diagnostic category of agitated, i.e. anxious depression. It may be recalled in this connexion that Freud (1926, app. C) paid some attention to the fact that grief and anxiety may both originate in, or at least make their first appearance in connexion with, the same infantile experience, an experience which he proposed to call a traumatic state. We shall return to this suggestion later. First, however, we shall devote our attention to some other aspects of depression. We shall begin with nosology. The consensus among analysts at present is that 'depression' or 'depressive illness' is a valid diagnostic category. If not an illness, it is at least 'a specific psychiatric syndrome' (Zetzel, 1960) that can be readily recognized in the majority of cases by an experienced clinician. Many analysts support the view that it is in fact properly divided into two separate categories: the categories of neurotic depression and psychotic depression (Jacobson, 1971, p. 182). It may be noted that all of these views derive from generally accepted academic teaching in psychiatry. They are the views of Kraepelin, Bleuler and their pupils. But psychoanalysts have not merely adopted the teachings of psychiatry in the field of depression. They have made their own contribution to it, beginning with Abraham and Freud, a contribution which has dealt essentially with the elucidation of the psychopathology of depression, i.e. with the study of the unconscious mental forces and conflicts which are present in patients suffering from depression. Since these unconscious factors derive from the instinctual wishes and conflicts of early childhood, psychoanalytic formulations concerning the psychopathology of depression include consideration of the crucial childhood experiences which cause or underliedepression in later life. It is impossible to do justice to the voluminous psychoanalytic literature on depression in the brief compass of a single paper, but the following remarks are relevant in this context. Most analysts are in general agreement with Fenichel's (1945) summary of the psychological factors which he considered to be of major importance in the psychopathology and pathogenesis of depression. He included orality, object loss, self-directed aggression, identification with an ambivalently loved object, guiltand preoedipal fixation or regression, or both. M. Klein (1935), (1948) and others date the pre-oedipal fixations of patients with depressions in later life to the depressive position or phase which, they believe,

Presented at the 28th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Paris, July 1973. Copyright Charles Brenner
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is a normal feature of mental development in, roughly, the middle of the first year of life. Most other authors, without sharing this view, likewise date the crucial infantile traumas in such patients in the first year or two of life, i.e. in the pre-oedipal or prephallic phase. In keeping with these formulations, the role of oedipal factors in the pathogenesis and in the psychopathology of depression has generally been considered to be secondary. There have been some exceptions to this. For example, Abraham (1924) noted the importance of a major disappointment in love in the early oedipal period as a trauma which predisposes to later depression. Jacobson (1943) and Rochlin (1953) also emphasized the importance of phallic, oedipal conflicts in later depressions. All of these authors, however, subscribed to the view that pre-oedipal, especially oral, conflicts and traumas are essential predisposing factors in patients who are later depressed. It is, in fact, generally accepted at present that (1) the characteristic content of the pathological conflicts of patients with depression is oral, and that (2) the characteristic history of patients with depression is of trauma or fixation, or both, in the oral phase of development. Put in other words, it is generally accepted that the symptoms of patients with depression are principally related to conflicts over instinctual wishes to eat mother, to be eaten by her, to be inside her, or vice versa, to be close to or separated from her, to have her always or to be rid of her forever; and that the origin of these pathogenic or pathologic conflicts was a disturbance (fixation or trauma, or both) in the relationship between mother and infant in the first year or two of life. Even those patients whose oedipal conflicts and traumas have played an obviously important part in the pathogenesis of later depressions, are generally accepted to have been predisposed by earlier traumas or fixations, that is, to have entered their oedipal phase already damaged or burdened. As Rochlin (1953) put it, the seeds of their disorder had germinated 'throughout the pregenital course' of their development. To summarize this very condensed survey of pertinent literature: (1) 'Depression' is a useful diagnostic category. It is either a disease entity or an easily identified syndrome. (2) Patients suffering from depression have (a) a uniform psychopathology, i.e. oral conflicts, and ( b) uniform psychopathogenesis, i.e. oral fixations or traumas, or both. The literature seems to contain no significant disagreement with the first of these two ideas, though the criticism by Rangell (1965) and others of psychiatric nosology in general would doubtless include 'depression' in particular. There have been some recent divergences from the second point, however. Both Beres (1966)and Jacobson (1971, p. 171) observed that patients diagnosed as suffering from depression are not always uniform with respect to psychopathology and psychogenesis. Beres observed that depressive affects, i.e. sadness, grief, pessimism and the like, may be the result of a variety of underlying conflicts and other predisposing factors. He suggested that the diagnosis 'depression' be reserved for patients with such affects in whose psychopathology guilt plays a major role. Jacobson stated that, in her experience, patients who are properly diagnosed as suffering from depression do not all have principally oral conflicts. They are not, as she had earlier (1943) said, 'psychologically identical'. According to her, the mental life of a patient suffering from a depression may in some cases be dominated by conflicts over wishes of phallic and anal origins rather than by conflicts over oral wishes. Thus, in her view, patients with depression are not a uniform or homogeneousgroup with respect to their pathologic mental conflicts, even though she believes that they do constitute a disease entity, or, to be exact, two disease entities, neuroticdepression and psychotic depression. What more may be said concerning the two ideas summarized above? With respect to the first of them, is 'depression' in fact a useful diagnostic category? Is it more than a symptomatic designation? There is no question that there are many patients who resemble one another in the respect that in each the symptomatic picture is dominated by the affects of grief, guilt, despair, and the like. The question is whether the symptomatic similarity points to an underlying, aetiologic similarity or not. All patients who have a high fever, for example, resemble one another in that very important
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respect. They do not constitute a useful diagnostic category, however, since the aetiology and treatment of one may be so different from the aetiology and treatment of another with precisely the same symptom, i.e. the same degree of fever. There have been many attempts, beginning with Kraepelin, to establish the usefulness or validity of the diagnostic category of 'depression', i.e. to establish that patients with the symptom of

depressive affects resemble one another in other, more fundamentally important aspects as well, either with respect to prognosis, to immediate precipitating factors, to degree of resultant functional disability, to neurophysiology, or to general body chemistry or heredity. A detailed review of these attempts would be both tedious and out of place. It need be said only that none has been convincingly successful as yet. An indication of the unsatisfactory nature of the results so far attained is afforded by the fact that able and experienced clinicians can be so at odds with one another in trying to decide how to diagnose a particular patient. Whatever criteria are used, one finds many too many patients who are diagnosed one way by one clinician and another way by a second. The following example will serve as a typical illustration. When I was a psychiatric resident, the staff of the acute hospital in which I worked made the diagnosis of schizophrenia in about 65 per cent of the cases that were committed, and of manic-depressive psychosis in about 35 per cent. Most of the committed patients were sent for long-term care to another hospital which was located about three miles away. There the figures were exactly reversed: 35 per cent were diagnosed schizophrenia, and 65 per cent manic-depressive. Observations such as this one underline the inadequacy of 'depression' as a diagnostic entity. At the very least, one must say that the burden of proof is on those who maintain that it is a useful entity, i.e. on those who maintain that 'depression' is more than a symptom, more than a constellation of affects. Turning now to the second of the points in the summary above, it must be noted that psychoanalysts, almost without exception, have accepted the traditional psychiatric view that 'depression' is a useful diagnostic category. Psychoanalytic investigations of the psychopathology of 'depression' have all proceeded on that assumption. Psychoanalysts have formulated a list of unconscious fantasies, traumas, conflicts and fixations alleged to be characteristic of patients suffering from 'depression', starting with the implicit assumption that 'depression' is in fact a valid diagnostic category. What is more important for the moment, however, is what is, in a certain sense, the reverse of this fact. If patients who are depressed do, indeed, show a substantial degree of uniformity in their psychopathology and psychogenesis (2 aand b, above), this speaks in favour of the view that 'depression' is a useful diagnostic category. If, on the other hand, Beres (1966) and Jacobson (1971) are correct, if the content of the fantasies and conflicts associated with depressive affects is not uniform, this speaks in favour of the view that 'depression' is only a symptomatic grouping, and that the burden of proof rests on those who think it is something more. Clinical psychoanalytic experience seems to support Beres and Jacobson. The following case may serve as an illustration of a depressed patient whose psychopathology and pathogenesis do not conform to the currently accepted formulation. The patient was a woman of thirty who was chronically 'depressed'. She spoke slowly, wept frequently, felt miserable, could find no happiness in any love affair, and reacted adversely to every slight improvement in her life situation. It gradually became evident, in the course of analysis, that she was overwhelmed by penis envy, and had been so ever since the birth of a brother who was five years her junior. He bore their father's name and succeeded to his position as head of the family as time went on. The patient's jealousy of her brother was intense, but largely unconscious. Consciously she felt loving and protective of him, and her ambivalence toward him, and toward her parents for loving him better than they did her, and for having made him a boy and her merely a girl, was a major source of her unconscious need to suffer and to punish herself, i.e. of her unconscious guilt. To give an idea of the strength of her feelings, she remarked on one occasion that she had never felt comfortable with herbody since the age of 12. She had no idea why this should be so. Her body had just never felt
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right after that age. It turned out that she had first menstruated when she was 12. When she was grown she worked in the family business which her father headed. All was well as long as her brother was not in the business also. When he entered the business, it became apparent that he was to succeed his father as the latter's son and heir. My patient left the business abruptly as soon as she saw what was about to happen, and for years would not set foot inside the building which housed it. Again I must emphasize that she was not consciously jealous, bitter, or angry. She knew only that she could not stand the place. As a further illustration of how she felt about beingwithout a penis, she came into my office one day indignant because when she had gone to use the lavatory just before, she had found both halves of the toilet seat up. No one, she said, had any right to leave a toilet seat in that position. 'Why not?' I asked. 'Because', she said, 'it looks so ugly that way!' She went on to explain that she had always felt that one of the ugliest things in the world is a toilet with the seat up. If half or all the seat is down, it looks presentable, but she could never stand the

way it looks with the seat up. Her sexual life was also profoundly influenced by her unconscious envy of men. She had her first affair with a man at the age of 18. Thereafter she had many, but she could never bring herself to marry any of the many men who wished to marry her. To marry meant to her to be irrevocably a woman. To remain unmarried meant unconsciously to be a man, or as good as a man a gay blade with a stable of sexual partners to pick from. It was a pattern she could not give up until after five years of analysis, when she finally married a man with whom she had lived, off and on, for many years. He was nearly old enough to be her father, and was blind in one eye. Abbreviated though it is, this report illustrates the fact that severe depression in later life may be related to phallic, narcissistic trauma, rather than to object loss andconflict with mother in the first year or two of life. Other illustrations are present in the literature. The case Jacobson reported in 1943 was also characterized by phallic, oedipal conflicts, as well as by anal ones. Similarly, Rochlin (1953) reported four cases, in each of whom depression corresponded to an unconscious fantasy of beingcastrated, while the onset of elation coincided each time with an unconscious fantasy of phallic triumph. Fenichel (1945, p. 404) also referred to a case in which a three-year-old girl became severely depressed when her younger brother was born, a reaction which persisted as the unconscious basis of her neurotic difficulties in later life. It is noteworthy that both Fenichel and Rochlin accepted the view that 'the disposition for the development of depressions consists in oral fixations', despite the lack of confirmatory evidence for this view in their own clinical material. It is not difficult to find other reported examples which illustrate the same divergence between observed data and theoretical formulation. It appears, in fact, that clinical experience not only supports the thesis which Jacobson (1971) advanced, that the psychopathology of depressed patients is variable rather than uniform in the sense generally accepted at present; clinical experience also seems to support the view that the principal unconscious conflicts associated with depressive affects, although they are quite varied, are in most patients associated with the phallic, oedipal phase of development. This is to say that clinical evidence supports the view that most adult patients who are depressed have not had more severe oral traumas or fixations in the first two years of their lives than do infants in general. All infants have some traumas in the oral phase. The question is whether all those who are later depressed begin the oedipal phase of life with more than the usual share of oral fixation and trauma. In my experience, the clinical facts contradict the view that unconscious conflicts associated with depressive affects in later life must be pre-oedipal. For most individualsnot for all, but for mostit is the oedipal phase that is crucial for future mental health or mental illness. Patients with 'depressions' do not appear to be exceptions to this general rule. The oedipal phase seems to have been crucial for most of them, too. The following point should be borne in mind in this connexion (Arlow & Brenner, 1964). Oral, and for that matter anal, wishes do not disappear at the onset of the oedipal period. Children between the ages of two and a half and six years have very active oral and anal wishes. Oedipal fantasies are often expressed in oral and anal
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terms, not necessarily as a result of regression. It is often more appropriate to speak of displacement than of regression with respect to an oedipal child's fantasy of analbirth, for example, or of oral impregnation. The fact that a wish or fantasy is expressed in oral terms is not proof, nor always a good indication, that its origin was pre-oedipal. It is often assumed that oral and anal wishes must have originated during the oral and anal phases, i.e. that they must be pre-oedipal in the literal, historical sense. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that this assumption is incorrect. Oedipal wishes are often expressed in oral and anal terms. The instinctual mode in which a wish or fantasy is expressed is not a sure guide to its time of origin in infantile development. The foregoing discussion, concerning depression as a diagnostic category and its presumed psychopathology and pathogenesis, is of importance on two counts. The first has to do with clinical practice. If an analyst subscribes to the view that 'depression' is a useful diagnostic category, and that patients who are depressed suffer principally from oral conflicts which date from the pre-oedipal phase, he will necessarily look for evidence of such conflicts and traumas in any patient who has been diagnosed as a case of 'depression'. He will concentrate on whatever such manifestations are present in his patient, and they are present in every patient to some extent, and he may, in consequence, focus unduly on his patient's orality and on his conflicts over wishes to be close to or separated from his mother. In doing so, he may, relatively speaking, neglect conflicts over wishes, whether phallic, anal or oral, which date chiefly

from the oedipal phase. He may thus, for example, assume a priorithat in any patient who has been diagnosed 'depression', the manifestations of separation anxiety must be more important, and therefore more urgent to deal with clinically, than are those associated with penis envy or castration. If, as clinical experience indicates, these views on the psychopathology of depression are incorrect, it follows that their application to clinical practice carries with it potential disadvantages, disadvantages which in some cases may well be serious for the patient and hisanalysis. This is one of the many situations where theory and practice are intimately related. Unless theory conforms to the significant, observable facts, practice is apt to suffer in effectiveness. The second count on which the foregoing discussion is important is its relevance to the theory of affects. If depression is not a useful diagnostic category, as is maintained here, it is certainly an important symptomatic one. The affects of grief, hopelessness, remorse, and the like, which constitute what are called depressiveaffects, are important clinically by virtue of their frequency, their painful nature and their frequent association with disruption of normal mental functioning. As was noted in the introductory paragraphs, they are similar in these respects to anxiety, and it is at this point that certain aspects of the similarity between the two will be examined. One may safely assume that early in life, before any substantial degree of ego development has taken place, all affects can be divided into pleasurable and unpleasurable (Glover, 1947); (Brenner, 1953). It seems likely that the entire range of subjective emotional experiences of later life derives from feelings of pleasure or feelings of unpleasure, or from some mixture of the two. In the discussion that follows, however, we shall limit ourselves to unpleasurable emotions, and specifically to those which come under the headings of depression and anxiety. Freud (1926) suggested, on the basis of available evidence, that there is a genetic or developmental connexion between all the manifestations of anxiety in later life and those experiences of infancy which he proposed to call traumatic states. He also expressed the opinion (1926, app. C) that grief, for example, may be related to infantile traumatic states in a similar way. The following discussion is essentially an amplification of an earlier one (Brenner, 1953), in which this suggestion of Freud's was examined. To recapitulate briefly, Freud (1926) pointed out that there must be times in every infant's life when he has instinctual urges which he can neither control nor gratify, and when no adult (usually mother) is present who can gratify them for him. At such times unpleasure develops and, if the situation persists, unpleasure becomes intense. Freud called such intensely unpleasurable experiences traumatic states. The process of development from traumatic states to anxiety as
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a signal of danger is, in summary, as follows (Brenner, 1953). As a child grows, his ego functions mature and develop. Among other consequences of these developmental processes, the child gradually acquires a store of memories, as well as the capacity to relate those memories to one another. He begins to anticipate thedevelopment of a traumatic state, to react to what has often preceded it in the past, e.g. his mother's departure. In other words, certain experiences, like his mother'sabsence, become situations of danger and he reacts to them with unpleasure, the same emotion which characterizes a traumatic state. An important difference between the unpleasure felt in a traumatic state and that felt in a danger situation is that the first is independent of ego development and of experience, while the second is possible only after a certain level of ego development has been achieved, and after a certain experience of life has been acquired. Freud (1926) called both kinds of unpleasure 'anxiety'. The first, he called automatic anxiety; the second, signal anxiety. The advantage of this nomenclature is that it focuses attention on the close relationship between signal anxiety and instinctual life, between anxiety and those inevitable experiences of unpleasure that are such an important part of man's lot in life (Hartmann, 1950). However, there is a disadvantage to this nomenclature which may, perhaps, outweigh the advantage to which Hartmann called attention. It leaves one in the position of being unable to explain satisfactorily the equally close relationship that exists, as Freud noted (1926, app. C), between the unpleasure of the traumatic state and the later unpleasurable emotions of grief and sorrow. These emotions, too, no less than the emotion of anxiety, are genetically related to the unpleasure of the traumatic state; in some way they develop out of it. If one reserves the term 'anxiety' for the unpleasurable affect connected with the anticipation of danger, i.e. for what Freud called 'signal anxiety', and if one calls theaffect associated with a traumatic state 'unpleasure' rather than 'anxiety', one may be better able to understand grief and sorrow,

because this nomenclature calls attention to the fact that for unpleasure to be called specifically 'anxiety' in later life it must be associated with a particular set of ideas. An adult or an older child who is anxious is experiencing unpleasure which has a particular ideational content: something bad is going to happen. His unpleasure is never without ideational content. It is not simply a result of instinctual tension, as is the case in a traumatic state in infancy. It involves, in addition to its relationship with instinctual life, ego functions as well; for example, perception, memory and anticipation. The same is true of other unpleasurable affects, like grief and sorrow. Grief, for example, is unpleasure associated with ideas that in general have to do with instinctual frustration, i.e. with disappointment, with ideas of inadequacy and inferiority, with ideas of loneliness, and often with the idea that things will never be any better, that frustration, loneliness, and inferiority will persist, that they are inevitable. One may say, in fact, that psychologically (i.e. subjectively) speaking, affects are distinguishable from one another on only two grounds. First, whether they are pleasurable or unpleasurable, and, second, what thoughts are connected with themwhat their ideational content is. It may be added in this connexion that what has been referred to by many writers as taming of the affects, or their modulation, by the progress of ego development in later childhood and adult life, is just this process of increasingly complex and varied ideational content associated with experiences of pleasure or unpleasure as the result of ego maturation and development. It is not only the variety of pleasurable experiences that is multiplied by increasing ego development, as Jacobson (1971, p. 32) pointed out. The occasions for unpleasure are also increased, and the distinctions among them become increasingly subtle and varied. Without attempting to review the psycho-analytic literature on affects in detail, it may be noted that a few authors since 1953 have expressed similar ideas on the importance of ideational content in understanding affects. Thus Novey (1959, p. 102) wrote that 'affect states and ideational process mutually influence each other, and it is unlikely that we are warranted in assigning precedence to one or the other of them in the adult'. Lewin (1965, pp. 33 ff.) said that 'anxiety, sadness and
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elation' are never free from ideas; they are never 'pure', except maybe in very early life. Both these authors, as one can see, did, however, retain the notion that affect and thought are to be distinguished at least in theory, or, perhaps better, in principle. Schur (1969) came the closest to repeating the view expressed here concerning the role of thought in emotional experience. Thus (p. 651): ' all affects consist on the one hand of a cognitive process and on the other of a response to this process ; the cognitive process and the response to it occur simultaneously and are therefore inseparable components of the affect.' The considerations advanced here concerning the nature of affects and their evolution in the course of mental development accord well with the clinical phenomena to be observed in patients in whom depressive affects are prominent. Clinically, one observes that in one patient the conscious experience of bitter grief is related to unconscious conflicts in which memories of having been left by mother at an early age and of rage at her for her faithlessness are of principal importance, whereas in the next patient the conscious experience of bitter grief is related to unconscious conflicts which are chiefly concerned with infantile reactions to having been born a girl, and in a third patient, to guilt over the death of a sibling. Each of the three may weep bitter tears, yet each does so for a different reason. Each, to be sure, experiences intense unpleasure. Each, in Abraham's (1911) words, is responding with unpleasure to a disaster that has occurred. In this respect, they are alike, and they may therefore be properly grouped together by saying that they are all depressed. But the ideational content of the unpleasure which oppresses them all, the 'disaster' to which each is responding, is different for each one, not only as far as conscious thoughts are concerned, but, more importantly, with respect to the pathological unconscious wishes and conflicts, as well as the infantile traumas from which those conflicts sprang. It appears, therefore, that the emotions of two depressed patients may be very different from one another, even though their behaviour appears very similar to an observer, just as two anxious patients may be very different from one another dynamically and genetically, even though their behaviour looks the same. The analogy is not lightly drawn. It is intended to point to what appears to be an important relationship between the genesis of the affects of anxiety and depression. When an experienced psychoanalyst undertakes to evaluate and to treat a patient with anxiety as a prominent symptom, he attempts in every case to learn from the patient's communications, both verbal and non-verbal, what the

unconscious wishes are which are frightening the patient, what the content of his fears is, and what defences areactive in the resultant conflict over his frightening wishes. The patient's thoughts and actions at the time he is consciously anxious are understood to be multiply determined, i.e. to be a compromise among the various wishes, fears, defences, self-punitive trends and external environmental pressures which are active at the moment. All this is so well known that it hardly needs repetition. The reason for repeating it is that the same considerations apply to the phenomena of depression. For example, following a bit of successful analytic work, a patient, with a long history of repeated episodes of depressive affect and self-destructive behaviour, became depressed, i.e. he felt conscious unpleasure which had the conscious ideational content that his analysis would doubtless fail and would leave him as helpless to pursue his adult ambitions successfully as he had felt himself to be when he had first started analysis. This depressive emotion (unpleasure with a specific ideational content) was, in his case, a transference reaction, and was, as would be expected, multiply determined. In brief, it had the following double meaning. The experience of successful analytic work had produced in the patient feelings of admiration for his analyst which led to the unconscious revival of childhood wishes to be loved by persons he had admired then. Since his childhood wishes involved his being a girl, they were associated with intense castration anxiety. As a consequence, when they were reactivated in the transference, they were defended against by something akin to reaction formation: 'I don't admire my analyst for his professional skill. On the contrary, I'm sure he will fail to help me professionally.' Thus, being depressed was a defence against his unconscious
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wish to be a girl whom his analyst would love. At the same time, being depressed gratified his feminine wishes symbolically in what might be called a masochistic form. To be tearful and unhappy, to feel weak and helpless, symbolized for him the idea of actually being a girl, while being treated professionally symbolized being sexually gratified. This example illustrates that the affect of a depressed patient has the same complex structure as does any other fantasy, thought, action or symptom. It is the end result of many forces, of which some are instinctual derivatives, some are defensive, some result from superego trends, and some reflect external influences. In each case, the particular features of that patient's depressive affect reflect the historically and constitutionally determined features of his instinctual life, of his ego and superegodevelopment, and of his life situation. The differences between one depressed patient and another with respect to the content and genesis of their unconscious wishes and conflicts reflects the fact that the unpleasurable affects which we group together under the heading of 'depressive' can have a different origin and a different ideational content from patient to patient. The quality of unpleasure is the same in each patient. In each it is a response to the unconscious memory of a childhooddisaster, to the unconscious fantasy or conviction that a similar disaster has occurred in the present. Yet the individual features of the 'disaster' to which each patient is responding will vary substantially from patient to patient, i.e. the conscious and unconscious ideational content of each patient's depressive affect is special and unique for him. In one case the emphasis may be on object loss, in another, on narcissistic injury, in a third, on guilt, and in a fourth, on despair. In each case it is important to determine as far as possible how large a role is played by each of these factors and what the individual childhood experiences were from which they sprang.

REFERENCES
ABRAHAM, K. 1911 Notes on the psychoanalytical investigation and treatment of manic-depressive insanity and allied conditions In Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis London: Hogarth Press, 1927 ABRAHAM, K. 1924 A short study of the development of the libido, viewed in the light of mental disorders In Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis London: Hogarth Press, 1927 ARLOW, J. A. & BRENNER, C. 1964 Psychoanalytic Concepts and the Structural Theory New York: Int. Univ. Press. BERES, D. 1966 Superego and depression In R. M. Loewenstein. et al. (eds.), Psychoanalysis: A General Psychology New York: Int. Univ. Press. BRENNER, C. 1953 An addendum to Freud's theory of anxiety Int. J. Psychoanal. 34:18-24 [] FENICHEL, O. 1945 The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis New York: Norton. FREUD, S. 1926 Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety S.E. 20 []

GLOVER, E. 1947 Basic mental concepts: their clinical and theoretical value Psychoanal. Q. 16:482506 [] HARTMANN, H. 1950 Discussion of Brenner 1953 New York Psychoanalytic Society. JACOBSON, E. 1943 Depression: the Oedipus conflict in the development of depressive mechanisms Psychoanal. Q. 12:541-560 [] JACOBSON, E. 1971 Depression New York: Int. Univ. Press. KLEIN, M. 1935 A contribution to the psychogenesis of manic-depressive states In Contributions to Psychoanalysis 1921-1945 London: Hogarth Press, 1948 KLEIN, M. 1948 On the theory of anxiety and guilt In J. Riviere. (ed.), Developments in Psycho-analysis London: Hogarth Press, 1952 LEWIN, B. D. 1965 Reflections on affect In M. Schur. (ed.), Drives, Affects, Behaviour vol. 2 New York: Int. Univ. Press. NOVEY, S. 1959 A clinical view of affect theory in psychoanalysis Int. J. Psychoanal. 40:94-104 [] RANGELL, L. 1965 Some comments on psychoanalytic nosology and recommendations for improvement In M. Schur. (ed.), Drives, Affects, Behaviour Vol. 2 New York: Int. Univ. Press. ROCHLIN, G. 1953 The disorder of depression and elation J. Am. Psychoanal. Assoc. 1:438-457 [] SCHUR, M. 1969 Affects and cognition Int. J. Psychoanal. 50:647-653 [] ZETZEL, E. R. 1960 Introduction to symposium on depressive illness Int. J. Psychoanal. 49:476-480 []
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Brenner, C. (1974). Depression, Anxiety and Affect Theory. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 55:25-32

Brenner, C. (1975). Depression, Anxiety and Affect Theory: A Reply to the Discussion by Pa... Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 56:229-229.

(1975). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 56:229-229

Depression, Anxiety and Affect Theory: A Reply to the Discussion by Paula Heimann
Charles Brenner
I thank Dr Heimann for her response (Heimann, 1974) to my paper (Brenner, 1974). I appreciate particularly the clinical example which she included. It seems to me that there is little substantial difference between Dr Heimann's expressed view and my own. The difference is rather one of languageof adherence to traditional, generally accepted modes of thought and expression. Dr Heimann writes, What decides the issue between health and illness is the intensity and duration of the pathological episodes and the degree to which they destroy the individual's psychic and bodily functioning. At some dynamic moment quantitative factors induce a qualitative change. Is this not the same in substance as saying that the symptom of depression is found in mental disorders of every degree of severity from very mild to very severe, but that as a practical matter one must draw the line somewhere between what one will call 'neurotic' and what one prefers to call 'psychotic', just as one must, for equally good practical reasons, arbitrarily draw a line between 'normal' and 'neurotic'? I believe that the answer to this question is an affirmative one. If I am correct in this belief, I can only say that I welcome Dr Heimann's support of the ideas I have advanced concerning depression, even though the language in which she expresses her views is different from my own. A second question which Dr Heimann raised is a more familiar one: is depression in later life always related to traumata (or, more generally, to unfavourable psychological influences) in the first 12 18 months of life? Dr Heimann is in agreement with most psychoanalysts who have written on the subject in saying that such a relationship is at least the rule and may even be invariable that it may be a necessary condition for later depression. In my paper I urged that this view be reconsidered and that a fresh and unprejudiced review of the available clinical evidence is in order. I cannot help but be impressed by the fact that the case which Dr Heimann presents is that of a patient who, she tells us, was severely traumatized at the age of four years. Such a case does not seem to be suitable for use in an attempt to substantiate the view that depression in later life is related to trauma in the first one to one and a half years rather than to trauma in the oedipal period. If, as Dr Heimann tells us, her patient was significantly traumatized both at the age of 4 years and during his first year, how can his history, or the histories of others like him, help to decide about the relative importance of oral and oedipal phase trauma for the genesis of depression? And as I tried to emphasize in my paper, it is their relative importance that is in question. No one passes through either phase of mental development without sometrauma. The question is whether oral traumata are of decisive importance in the genesis of every case of later depression, as all of us were taught and as most of us still believe, or whether, in some cases at least, it is oedipal traumata which are the more significant.

REFERENCES
BRENNER, C. 1974 Depression, anxiety and affect theory Int. J. Psychoanal. 55:25-32 [] HEIMANN, P. 1974 A discussion of the paper by Charles Brenner on 'Depression, anxiety and affect theory' Int. J. Psychoanal. 55:33-36 []

Copyright Charles Brenner

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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Brenner, C. (1975). Depression, Anxiety and Affect Theory: A Reply to the Discussion by Paula Heimann. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 56:229-229

Basch, M.F. (1976). The Concept of Affect: A Re-Examination. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 24:759-777.

(1976). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 24:759-777

The Concept of Affect: A Re-Examination

Michael Franz Basch, M.D.
PSYCHOANALYSIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN AWARE of the focal significance of affect and, at the same time, of its inability to define and describe the nature of that concept satisfactorily. David Rapaport (1953) in his now classic paper on the subject says, "We do not possess a systematic statement of the psychoanalytic theory ofaffects" (p. 476). In the most recent panel (Panel, 1974) on the topic, the chairman, Rangell, is quoted as saying that twenty years after Rapaport's presentation " we still do not have a complete psychoanalytic formulation regarding affects and, moreover, any comprehensive theory of affects needs to include the physiologic segment as well as the psychoanalytic" (p. 612). In this paper I seek to show that Freud's later metapsychologic formulations in the area of affect gain considerable support from and are enhanced by recent findings in other fields, bringing us closer to the goal of a viable theory of affect. I shall first discuss the findings in question and then return to their significance for psychoanalytic theory.

From the Center for Psychosocial Studies, Chicago. The author gratefully acknowledges the seminal and valuable criticism contributed by Dr. Virginia Demos and Mr. Bernard Weissbourd while this paper was in preparation. An earlier version was presented at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, February 6, 1974. Submitted December 15, 1975
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"Affect" and Communication

Other animals are more mature at birth than we are. Their muscular and nervous systems are sufficiently developed so that some form of self-preservative motorbehavior is already present at birth. Man is in a different situation; during his early years he is not capable of assuring his survival. The execution and control of his self-preservative motoric behavior patterns seem woefully inadequate during this early period. His life depends, for years, on a form of symbiotic relationship with hismother and/or other caretakers, since he cannot coordinate himself sufficiently to move about effectively, evaluate and remove himself from danger, or actively seek, follow, and attach himself to the caretaking individual. He does, however, manifest a relatively complete range of so-called affective behavior. Parents usually have no difficulty in identifying the mood of their infant by observing his face and listening to the sounds he makes. Practically speaking, this is of course very helpful in caring for the infant, and it also affords "psychic payment" for the doting parents' efforts on behalf of the baby. But what does it mean to say that the baby is "happy" or "angry"? What sort of activity and what mental states must we attribute to this otherwise underdeveloped infant to ascribe such feelings to him? Over a hundred years ago Darwin (1872) investigated facial expressions in man and animals and concluded that they were remarkably similar, especially when man and the nonhuman primates were compared. He believed that certain basic facial expressions were inherited and inherent, representing dispositions to engage in one or another form of survival behavior. These expressions were originally part of larger action patterns, but they evolved into an independent signaling or communicative function which was important for social adaptation. It is more economical to signal rage, for example, indicating a readiness to fight, than to join battle on every occasion that seems to call for it. (In many instances the show of anger is enough to win the day, or, as may also
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happen, an antagonistic reaction may be provoked that makes it advisable for the animal to back off.) Only rarely are the potential combatants so evenly matched that an actual physical encounter is needed to settle the point of contention (Darwin, 1872); (Ekman, 1973); (Izard, 1971). That facial expressions associated with emotional states are not learned by imitation is readily demonstrated in blind children, in whom the same basic expressions are involuntarily elicited, though they have trouble voluntarily "play-acting" the same emotions. Duchenne, as early as 1862, showed that the various facial expressions indicative of affect are automatic, stereotyped, and independent of subjective experience. He electrically stimulated the face of a man insensitive to pain and was able to produce and photograph facial expressions typical for various emotional states by activating trigger areas for various muscle groups. Chevalier-Skolnikoff cites the neurologic evidence explaining Duchenne's findings, which indicates that "facial expressions of emotion are mediated by subcortical structures, relatively stereotyped in form" (Ekman, 1973, p. 54). Silvan Tomkins (1962-1963), maintaining that what we identify by observation as affective behavior in infants consists primarily of the patterned activity of the facial muscles, lists eight modalities with their main identifying features: Surprise-startle: eyebrows up, eyes blink. Interest-excitement: eyebrows down, tracking behavior, attitude of looking and listening. Enjoyment-joy: smile, lips widened and out, slow deep breathing. Distress-anguish: crying, arched eyebrows, corners of the mouth turned down, tears and rhythmic sobbing. Contempt-disgust: sneer, upper lip lifted. Anger-rage: frown, jaw clenched, face red. Fear-terror: eyes frozen open, pale, cold sweaty, facial trembling with hair erect. Shame-humiliation: eyes cast down, head down (Vol. 1, p. 337).
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The first five reactions are present from birth; the last three imply a more advanced integration of experience with response. This does not mean these last three modes are not inherited, just that their manifestation requires learning. Of course these behavior patterns involve much more than the easily identifiable activity of the facial musculature. The observable expressions reflect an underlying more general muscular and glandular response of the body, including the general physiologic reactions mediated by the autonomic nervous system, which, in later life, are associated with "feelings," so-called. Indeed, we have here a series of inherited response patterns through which the organism is mobilized to respond to external or internal stimulation. As has already been mentioned, neurophysiologic studies have corroborated that affective behavior is automatic (not voluntary) and under the direct control of the subcortical centers. In evolutionary terms, the older, more primitive parts of the brain control this type of behavior. For this reason, stroke victims may retain their capacity for automatic affective responsiveness even though voluntary muscular control is gone. Similarly, anencephalic monsters, when stimulated, demonstrate appropriate affective facial expression in the absence of a neocortex (French, 1957). Most important, this explains why infants, long before there is advanced development of their neocortical associational capacity, seem to possess the full range of behavior associated with adult emotion. I would like to emphasize that the apparent equation between infantile behavior and adult emotion is misleading, obscuring the true significance of infantile affective behavior. Herewith is my comparison of the facial behaviors listed by Tomkins with those adaptive reactions necessary for survival: Reaction of surprise-startle: readies the organism to focus on stimuli so these may be converted into messages preparatory for adaptation to a new situation. Interest-excitement reaction: indicates the pursuit of the message's significance.
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Enjoyment-joy: becomes manifest if there is successful pattern matching and/or creation indicating that the stimuli have been successfully integrated into the sensorimotor matrix.

Distress-anguish: inability to organize stimuli into meaningful patterns. Contempt-disgust: reaction to stimuli that are inherently noxious or become so through association (withdrawing, or rejecting by spitting out). Anger-rage: recognition or cognition of pattern experienced as immutably frustratingorganized but not congruentwith active attempt to ward off frustrating stimuli, i.e., change relation of message to organism (of sender to receiver). Fear-terror: readiness to cope with nonfitting stimuli or negative patterns by flight, i.e., change relation of organism to message. Message is organized, but along lines that threaten the perceptual set and/or the coping capacity. Shame-humiliation: cognition or recognition that there has been a failure in establishing or maintaining contact with those other human systems needed forassimilation or accommodation. Viewed in these terms, it is clear that the infant is equipped with a total set of adaptive patterns long before his capacity for the exclusively human kind of cognitive operation and adaptation, based on symbolic operations, is developed. However, these inborn adaptive patterns don't operate in the same manner as they do in otherspecies. In animals more totally developed at birth, these programmed responses, which Tomkins calls affective behaviors, are probably already firmly linked to sensorimotor components in the primitive cortex. These patterns determine the imprinting mechanism, specify the perceptual releasors that may trigger response, and set the environmental goal that serves as the reference point for behavior. We do not usually associate the human infant's response with self-preservative activity; nevertheless, the
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human infant, too, is concerning himself with attention, attraction, and repulsion, as well as with fight or flight. When we compare other animals with man, we find that they have a highly effective executive capacity but relatively limited communicative development, while in man the reverse situation obtains. We pay so much attention to the development of speech and the capacity for fractionated, sequential communication of technicalknowledgewhat Langer (1942) calls discursive speechthat we tend to overlook the fact that in terms of total communication, especially in terms of motivatingcommunication, purely discursive speech plays a relatively small and belated role in our human lives. Right from birth the infant, through his organized behaviorpatterns, communicates effectivelyhis wants, needs, and distress. Through his facial expression, reinforced by accompanying sounds and bodily attitudes, he puts hismother under what communication scientists call "feedback," thereby engaging the parent's more effectively coordinated capacities for his own ends. Even though our gross musculature is more poorly coordinated and our relative strength inferior to that of other animals, we survive, indeed, eventually become masters of theenvironment, through our ability to describe and to communicate. Dramatic as it is, speech manifests itself relatively late in our individual development, and we tend to overlook the fact that already at birth and for the rest of our lives our ability to communicate through the facial, mimetic musculature is uniquely and highly developed. We are born equipped with the basic requirement for a complex social existence, i.e., an effective, though nonverbal, method for communication. Indeed, of the eight patterns mentioned by Tomkins, there are two that become highly developed in man but are weak or not present in other mammals. The enjoyment-joy reaction of gratification as indicated by the smile, and the later-appearing shame-humiliation pattern are both peculiarly human. The smile, as Tomkins points out, has the
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advantage of communicating at a distance with the mother, of getting her to smile in return and thus extend her protection to the infant even when she isn't in physical contact with him. It should be noted, however, that the smile itself appears as early as three to four weeks while the recognition response to another's face does not occur until about three months. This suggests that the first smile is not one of recognition, but has an additional significance in guiding the caretaker: just as the infant's cry of distress serves as a signal to activate the mother's anxiety, so the smile signifies that all is well and that his needs are being met appropriately. The infant communicates with his mother and is not simply the passive recipient of her signals.

The infant's behavioral adaptation is quite totally dependent on maintaining effective communication with the executive and coordinating part of the infant-mother system. The shamehumiliation response, when it appears, represents the failure or absence of the smile of contact, a reaction to the loss of feedback from others, indicating social isolation and signaling the need for relief from that condition. The baby's fixing of the mother's eyes and face with his eyes is his way of clinging to the maternal person. The shame-humiliation reaction in infancy of hanging the head and averting the eyes does not mean the child is conscious of rejection, but indicates that effective contact with another person has been broken. Later in life this same reaction occurs under similar circumstances, i.e., when we think we have failed to achieve or have broken a desired bond with another. However, after infancy, this reaction may also occur in response to frustration of symbolic and/or anticipated needs. We speak of such a symbolic bond as woven by the transferring of emotional values, needs, hopes, etc. from one person to another, and, basically, this consists of and is communicated through facial expression accompanied by appropriate general bodily reaction. Therefore, shame-humiliation throughout life can be thought of as an inability to effectively arouse the other
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person's positive reactions to one's communications. The exquisite painfulness of that reaction in later life harks back to the earliest period when such a condition is not simply uncomfortable but threatens life itself.

Affective Communication and Psychological Development

In communication theory the concept of order always expresses an actual or potential relationship between the sender and the receiver of a message. The involuntary patterns of facial configuration listed above are reactions expressive of a number of classes of events, all of which are intimately connected with the physical and social survival of the individual. Insofar as the mother or mother surrogate creates an atmosphere in which what happens to and with the baby is related to the signals the baby emits, he is receiving proper mothering. How significant an infant's messages are in bringing about whatever takes place within and to him must play an important part in determining the eventual sense of confidence and "basic trust" in his transaction with the environment. That is, the substrate or anlage for a future conviction that he can create meaningful order from experience and that a temporary disorganization does not herald unmanageable trauma, or threaten chaos, depends on the efficacy of the system of communicationbetween mother and infant. The language of mother and infant consists of the signals and cues produced by the autonomic, involuntary nervous system in both parties. These transactions generate an experiential pattern that influences later character development. The baby's observable behavior is therefore not simply a dischargephenomenon, an affective release which is only incidentally informative for the mother, but a form of communication whose significance is either understood or misunderstood with similar consequences that adequate or inadequate communication has for conflict and adaptation in
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later life. The work of David Freedman (1968), (1972a), (1972b), (1975) comparing the characterologic development of blind with deaf children, and that of sensorilydeprived children with physically healthy infants whose communications are not comprehendingly received, dramatically highlights the effects of failure in mutualcommunication. His research shows that the baby, no less than the mother, has a job to perform in establishing the necessary and appropriate interchange for healthy psychological development. Because man is not born with many preprogrammed links between environmental stimuli and behavioral response, establishing these connections is the function of experience. If the infant's environment, that is, his interaction with his caretaker, is not of an optimal sort, the experience he encounters and records in sensorimotor form may program him to react inappropriately to both environmental and internal stimulation. When the capacity for symbolic conceptualization develops, it must use an already flawed vehicle for exercising control over behavior (Basch, 1975). Whether the adaptation to internal and external needs through the capacity for symbolic thought and logical reasoning (Piaget and Inhelder, 1969) is an adequate and effective one depends on the patterns laid down in the first two years of presymbolic life. If those early patterns are reasonably gratifying, interesting

without beingoverstimulating, and appropriately attuned to the needs of a given situation, then the symbolic capacity will call upon and strengthen those patterns. Very often, however, the early interactions are records of inadequate communication, frustration, or over- and understimulation, and, in that case, the attempt at symbolic control over such patterns creates pain and avoidance reactions leading to psychic conflict. In a psychoanalysis we remobilize the ancient adaptive patterns in undisguised form through the transference. We arouse once again the intensity of the interest, attraction-avoidance patterns of the earliest years as expressed in the now
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transformed behavior of the adult patient and, in the reliving, make it possible for a new, more appropriate symbolic control to be exercised over these ancient vicissitudes. Clinically, we have always known that the genetic reconstruction of an analysis is, in a sense, a set of inferences about the vicissitudes of adaptive behaviorin earliest life; now, by conceptualizing affective behavior as a system of communication, antedating and independent of verbal language, it becomes possible to explain systematically how it is that the paradigmatic patterns for later adaptation as well as for later psychic conflict are already laid down in infancy, long beforelanguage and the kind of reasoning it makes possible can be brought to bear on experience.

"Affect," Emotion and Cognition

Probably the infant's inborn automatic behavior patterns with which he responds to stimulation have always been called "affective" because they provide the substrate for the eventual development of emotional experience, which is an outgrowth of the lateracquired symbolic function. Operationally, emotions express dispositional states (Ryle, 1949). Just as discursive, logical thought is a way of planning for goal-directed behavior and anticipating its results, so emotions are a manner of anticipating the consequences of a potential course of action. Emotions are subjectively experienced states and always related to a concept of self vis--vis some particular situation. It is premature to attribute an emotional life, in the strict sense of the term, to infants, inasmuch as they have developed neither a symbolic concept of self nor the capacity for symbolic operation, which make reflection possible. Yet no one doubts that infants behave as if they were happy, sad, excited, distressed, etc. When an infant is stuck by a diaper pin, the behavioral pattern stimulated is a response to the disorganization created by the stimulus. But this should not be
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called emotion, because, though in all probability a feeling state is experienced, there is as yet no reflection on that state. The infantile distress response is an automatically generated signal which serves to mobilize mother to act on behalf of the as yet motorically ineffective baby. The mother may then identify with the expression on the baby's face and wonder "why is he angry?", but, valuable as such an empathic response is, it is a projection on the mother's part, who assumes that, since she would be angry if her face looked like that, the baby must be experiencing this emotion too. The older child may eventually, though this is by no means a matter of course, learn to abstract particular proprioceptive feedbacks associated with attempts to cope with a situation that frustrates his attempts to organize it adaptively, and let the abstraction, labeled "anger," symbolize the experience. But this does not mean thatbabies, or other animals that are not capable of reflection, are subjectively sharing such an emotional experience when they exhibit similar behaviors; we may infer that they are attempting to cope with some disorder, some frustration of their sensorimotor expectations, but not that they are "angry" in the symbolic sense. In other words, we should modify Darwin's thesis that facial configuration is the expression of emotion, for this conclusion is refuted by the presence of identical patterns in animals and human infants. We may claim only that facial patterns seem to be expressive reactions and then go on to deduce what might be the nature of those reactions. Once conceptualization becomes possible for human beings, after age two, and with the development of the capacity to describe concepts discursively throughspeech, there is a beginning translation of various behavioral patterns into emotional experiences. This is a slow process, however, and, as the work of Demos (1974)shows, the capacity for conceptualizing, describing, and naming their feelings

is still quite incomplete even in older children, though they show the full range of appropriate affective reaction.
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We have ample evidence from everyday life as well as from psychoanalysis that adults can also react affectively without necessarily experiencing emotionthat is, they remain unaware of the significance of their reactions. For example, it is not uncommon for an observer to recognize that another person is responding angrily to a particular situationthe tone of the voice, tightened jaw muscles, flushed face, and narrowing of the eyes signal his affectwhile the subject of these observations may honestly be able to deny that he is conscious of the corresponding emotion. The affective reaction is clearly manifested, but the emotion, the reflective judgment made on the affective experience, is not present. What is termed "emotion"awareness of the meaning of affect for the selfwhen developed, is evidence of neocortical activity of a highly sophisticated sort. The underlying "affective" behavior patterns that support such inferences are under the control of the old brain, are present at birth or shortly thereafter, are not limited to humankind, and are behaviors that mobilize the organism, bringing it closer to some stimuli or causing it to avoid others. These old-brain patterns prepare and propel the individual into fight, flight, aversion, attraction, attention, or into communication with other members of the species. Such patterns of activities in themselves represent an inborn, adaptive, specific program, present at birth, and activated by particular environmental circumstances. Logically, if the old brain performs the same function in relation to stimuli as does the associative cortex of the new brain, i.e., if both organize signals into messages disposing toward adaptive actions, then both forms of pattern organization fall under the heading of what is usually called "cognitive." Affect or affectivebehavior, whether in infancy or later life, is the cognitive contribution of the old brain, or, as Weissbourd suggests (1974), "affect" is another term for subcortically guided adaptation. Affect is not the antithesis of
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thought, and the term should no longer be used as an antonym for reason; affective reactions are part and parcel of the cognitive process (Basch, 1972); (Modell, 1973);(Ross, 1975). The recognition that so-called affective behavior can be understood and studied as are other cognitive functions enables us to escape the "lethal trichotomy," as Ellerbroek (1974) calls it, of mental life into affect, cognition, and volition. Once affect is identified as an adaptive behavior, a form of communication mediated by the autonomic nervous system and relying primarily on chemical transmission of messages, a form of communication that is both more general and rapid in its effects than is the transmission of signals in the associational cortex (Rose, 1973), it ceases to be a mysterious event and takes its proper place among physiologic processes and their psychologic manifestations.

The Concept of Affect in Freud's Writings

For many years Freud considered affect to be the conscious manifestation of instinct, a qualitative transformation of instinctual quantity or energy. Ordinarily the gratification of instinctual wishes gave rise to pleasurable affect, but superego or externally imposed sanctions could turn what had been pleasurable into an experience of unpleasure. It was the aim of repression to "suppress the development of affect" (1915c, p. 178), i.e., to prevent instinctual discharge. The continued demands of the repressed could result in symptom formation which then discharged the original affect, although attached to a substitute idea which concealed its origin in forbidden infantile wishes; or the affective expression itself might undergo qualitative transformation before being released and disguise its origins in that way. Should forbidden affect be directly expressed, in spite of the defenses against it, it would be experienced as anxiety (1915c).
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Through the pleasure-unpleasure principle, Freud sought to explain the motivational aspect of mental life in economic terms by using "affect" synonymously with the quantity of instinct or energic cathexis whose increase generated unpleasure and brought about withdrawal and

whose discharge was experienced as pleasurable(1914, p. 85); (1915a, pp. 119-122); (1915b); (1923, p. 22). However, Freud himself recognized very early that affect could not be explained simply in terms of quantitative accumulation or discharge. For example, having emphasized that unpleasure is the expression of libidinal tension, he goes on to say: "Nevertheless it may be that what is decisive for the generation of unpleasure is not the absolute magnitude of the material event, but rather some particular function of that absolute magnitude" (1914, p. 85). Later he was to say: "Pleasure and unpleasure, therefore, cannot be referred to an increase or decrease of a quantity (which we describe as 'tension due to stimulus'), although they obviously have a great deal to do with that factor. It appears that they depend, not on this quantitative factor, but on some characteristic of it which we can only describe as a qualitative one. If we were able to say what this qualitative characteristic is, we should be much further advanced in psychology. Perhaps it is the rhythm, the temporal sequence of changes, rises and falls in the quantity of stimulus. We do not know" (1924, p. 160). With the recognitionthat ordering, and not energy transformation, is the definitive task of the nervous system (Basch, 1975), (1976), the qualitative characteristic of the pleasure-unpleasure gradient that Freud was searching for may be understood to be, not a measure of tension, but one of "fit" or "congruence" (Hall, 1959), i.e., of the capacity for pattern matching. Pleasure-unpleasure is a measure of organization or disorganization, actual or potential, created by cognitive activity. Therefore, just as Freud suspected, it is not the intensity of neural firing per se that determines pleasure or unpleasure, but the capacity for successfully organizing
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stimuli, regardless of intensity, into a meaningful message, i.e., a pattern that is sufficiently familiar to permit cognition or recognition and also promotes future adaptivebehavior. There need be no argument that, perhaps in the beginning of life, quantity of stimulation may be the major factor in determining whether or not adaptive processing will take place. Tomkins (1962-1963) also suggests that the "affective" behavior of infants is a programmed, inherited, muscular-glandular response to the relative intensity of stimuli; intensity being determined by the number and conductive potential of the nerve fibers involved, as well as by the frequency of impulses transmitted per second. A sharp rise in stimuli brings about the startle-surprise response; more moderate increase promotes interest-excitement; a too sharp prolonged rise is associated with avoidance behavior; a relatively sudden drop in stimuli always results in the joy response. Although it may be that at first the intensity of stimulation alone determines whether the experience can be ordered effectively, it is nevertheless still the ordering process that is central. Once associative chains have been built up, other factors determine what the nature of the reaction to the intensity of stimuli shall be. For example, in the case of the infant, the experience of hunger may not generate unpleasure, provided perception of familiar patterns associated with feeding are forthcoming; the affective distress reaction is not potentiated, but, instead, interest-excitement patterns may be triggered by the anticipation of imminent feeding. If, on the other hand, no response appropriate to the hunger need is present, then a feedback cycle of mounting distress is activated. The ordering process is fundamental for behavior, and tension or harmony may be looked upon as vicissitudes of that process. The hypothetical optimal state for an infant would depend on the effect stimuli have on the ordering process, and unpleasure would be the effect of failure in the organizing function. Freud himself came quite close to postulating that the quality of the affect produced in a given situation depends on
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the efficacy of organization when he suggested that whether an experience is one of pleasure or unpleasure might be related to the degree of quantitative change in a given period of time (1920, pp. 8, 63). In "Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety" (1926), Freud revised the economic theory of affect when he concluded that anxietyoriginated in the ego, not the id, and, at least in the psychoneuroses, heralded the potential discharge of forbidden instinctual wishes. In Lecture 32 (1933) he asserted that anxiety was in all cases a signal of impending danger and not a transformation of libido. In other words, affect had become a communication in the interest ofadaptation rather than an indicator of discharge. With this step Freud implicitly broke down the barrier between affect and cognition. Actually the communicative or signal theory of affect (anxiety) in different form had already appeared in the "Project for a Scientific Psychology" (1895) in the form of the "secretory" or "key" neurone theory. Freud suggested there that the recurrence of traumatic percepts had to be fended off in some way, and he

hypothesized that, once programmed by trauma, "key" neurones were sensitized by any threatened recurrence and created a chemical warning signal of unpleasure (qualitatively different, much milder, and therefore preferable to the original painful experience) which mobilized defensive avoidance. Communication theory as it has developed in our time has enabled us to re-examine Freud's reformulation of the metapsychology of affect with a view toward establishing a more complete and satisfactory theory than was possible in his day. It has already been demonstrated that affects generally lend themselves to the signal theory. It still needs to be clarified that communication theory effectively addresses the concept of motivation, i.e., the clinically observed force of thought, especially that of neurotic ideas, which Freud believed required the postulation of an energy theory of the sort then prevalent in physics. Until 1926 the power that an
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idea or memory exercised on behavior depended on its affective charge, a measure of its instinctual, energic cathexis. When Freud (1933) gave up the economic theory of affect completely, it would seem he left us without an explanation for the motivational force of ideas. This, however, is not the case. As Anatol Rapoport (1963)shows, mental power, or the dispositional force of intelligent systems, does not depend on the transformation of energy per se, but on the influence exercised on its utilization. An idea determines the course of action as a rudder determines the course of a ship, or a string the excursion of a pendulum, by imparting direction to the forces that ultimately accomplish the physical aspect of the work. The recognition that the brain is an autoregulating message-processing system which controls, rather than participates in, energy transformations eliminates the need for many of the metapsychologic concepts that, implicitly, became inoperative when Freud revised the theory of affect. Indeed, as I have elaborated elsewhere (Basch, 1976), a metapsychology based on communication concepts gives new depth to Freud's discoveries, which heretofore had to be explained through models derived from the physical sciences, models which over the years have proven inadequate to the task assigned to them.

Conclusion
Although affect has always been focal in clinical practice, it is generally acknowledged that it has not been explained satisfactorily on the level of metapsychology. Initially, Freud believed that affect was a discharge phenomenon, but he eventually retracted this hypothesis and emphasized affect's signal function. Darwin had already taken a similar position regarding affective expression in animals. The by now well-established finding that there are basic affective expressions common to human infants and adults, as well as to other mammals, that are stereotyped, universal, and involuntary,
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suggests that affect, so-called, is in fact an onto- and phylogenetically early form of communication. It seems that affective communication does not represent a unique class of activity, as has always been assumed, but is basic for cognition and, by exercising a guiding function on later cognitive developments, provides the motive power for both maturation and pathologic adaptation. This view both complements and enhances Freud's final reformulation of affect theory.

REFERENCES
Basch, M. F. 1972 Psychoanalytic interpretation and cognitive development Presented at the Scientific Program of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society, June 27. Basch, M. F. 1975 Toward a theory that encompasses depression: A revision of existing causal hypotheses in psychoanalysis In:Depression and Human Existence ed. E. J. Anthony & T. Benedek. Boston: Little, Brown, pp. 485-534 Basch, M. F. 1976 Psychoanalysis and communication science The Annual of Psychoanalysis Vol. 4 New York: International Universities Press (in press). [] Darwin, C. 1872 The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965 Demos, E. V. 1974 Children's understanding and use of affect terms Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University (unpublished). Ekman, P., ed. 1973 Darwin and Facial Expression New York & London: Academic Press. Ellerbroek, W. C. 1974 Book review Amer. J. Psychiat. 131 478

Freedman, D. A. 1968 On the role of coenesthetic stimulation on the development of psychic structure Psychoanal. Q. 37:418-438 [] Freedman, D. A. 1972a On the limits of the effectiveness of psychoanalysis: Early ego and somatic disturbances Int. J. Psychoanal. 53:363-370 [] Freedman, D. A. 1972b Our hearing, oral language, and psychic structure Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Science 1 57-69 ed. R. R. Holt & E. Peterfreund. New York: Macmillan. [] Freedman, D. A. 1975 Congenital and perinatal sensory deprivations: Their effect on the capacity to experience affect Psychoanal. Q. 44:62-80 [] French, J. D. 1957 The reticular formation Scientific American 196 45-60 Freud, S. 1895 Project for a scientific psychology Standard Edition 1 281-397 London: Hogarth Press, 1966 [] Freud, S. 1914 On narcissism: An introduction Standard Edition 14 67-102 London: Hogarth Press, 1957 [] Freud, S. 1915a Instincts and their vicissitudes Standard Edition 14 109-140 London: Hogarth Press, 1957 [] Freud, S. 1915b Repression Standard Edition 14 141-158 London: Hogarth Press, 1957 []
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Freud, S. 1915c The unconscious Standard Edition 14 159-204 London: Hogarth Press, 1957 [] Freud, S. 1920 Beyond the pleasure principle Standard Edition 18 3-64 London: Hogarth Press, 1955 [] Freud, S. 1923 The ego and the id Standard Edition 19 3-66 London: Hogarth Press, 1961 [] Freud, S. 1924 The economic problem of masochism Standard Edition 19 157-170 London: Hogarth Press, 1961 [] Freud, S. 1926 Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety Standard Edition 20 77-175 London: Hogarth Press, 1959 [] Freud, S. 1933 New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis Standard Edition 22 3-182 [] Hall, E. T. 1959 The Silent Language New York: Doubleday. Izard, C. E. 1971 The Face of Emotion New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Langer, S. K. 1942 Philosophy in a New Key (2nd Edition). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951 Modell, A. H. 1973 Affects and psychoanalytic knowledge Annual of Psychoanalysis 1 125-158 New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co. [] Panel 1974 Toward a theory of affects. P. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, reporter American Psychoanal. Assn. 22:612-625 [] Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. 1969 The Psychology of the Child New York: Basic Books. Rapaport, D. 1953 On the psychoanalytic theory of affects In: Collected Papers ed. M. M. Gill. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967 pp. 476-512 Rapoport, A. 1963 Technological models of the nervous system In:The Modeling of Mind ed. K. M. Sayre & F. J. Crosson. New York: Simon & Schuster, Clarion Book Edition, 1968 Rose, S. 1973 The Conscious Brain London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Ross, N. 1975 Affect as cognition: With observations on the meanings of mystical states Int. Rev. Psychoanal. 2:79-93 [] Ryle, G. 1949 The Concept of Mind New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968 Tomkins, S. S. 1962-1963 Affect, Imagery, Consciousness (Vol. I and II) New York: Springer. Weissbourd, B. 1974 Toward a science of human nature Presented at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, July (unpublished).
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Basch, M.F. (1976). The Concept of Affect: A Re-Examination. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 24:759-777
Green, A. (1977). Conceptions of Affect. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 58:129-156.

(1977). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 58:129-156

Conceptions of Affect
Andr Green
Author's note: The 30th Congress of the International Psycho-Analytical Association will have as its principal theme 'Affects and the Psychoanalytic Situation'. As the title indicates, it is the clinical orientation which will predominate in the discussion. But anotherand not the least importantreason for the choice is that the theory of affect still harbours many obscure issues. The aim of this contribution is to make the task of the authors of the prepublished reports easier and allow them to centre their work on the problems posed by affects in present-day analytic practice by sparing them the task of entering into the historical background of the concept and the theoretical debates to which it has given rise since Freud. This paper will achieve its goal if it succeeds in serving as the preliminary to the current examination of the question. It will not be presented at the Congress. Clearly, the limits of this preamble will permit only an overview of the question in relation to both Freud and the authors who have written after him. I would like to emphasize that I shall have in mind the theoretical background which presided at the defence of a givenconception of affect, rather than the exposition of the conceptions themselves. In so doing, I shall not aspire to an objective account. I alone shall be responsible for the interpretations which I put forward of the work of the authors quoted and for the choice of authors which, of necessity, involves many omissions. It is no exaggeration to say that, in psychoanalysis as it is practised today, work on the affects commands a large part of our efforts. There is no favourable outcome which does not involve an affective change. We would like to have at our disposal a satisfactory theory of affects, but that is not the case. Unable to have such a theory at our disposal, we would prefer it if we did not have to encumber ourselves with previous theoretical conceptions, in order to have an entirely new look at the question. That is hardly possible. These difficulties have two sources. The first stems from the very nature of affects. It is difficult to speak of something which is, in essence, only partially communicable, as affects often are, at any rate more so than any other phenomena observed in analysis. The second difficulty lies in our preconceptions and in the very manner in which the problems were posed from the beginning of Freudian theory. If the first difficulty constitutes an obstacle which is not easily overcome, the second can lead to an enlightening thought. It is easier to talk about what has been said about affect, and the way in which affect has been conceived, than about affectitself. Affect constitutes a challenge to thought.

AFFECT ACCORDING TO FREUD

Freud struggled with the problem of affect all his life, especially from the 'Studies on Hysteria' (Breuer & Freud, 18935) to 'Inhibitions, Symptom and Anxiety'(Freud, 1926). I shall select four 'moments' in time from his work: 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (Freud, 1900), Papers on Metapsychology (Freud, 1915a), (1915b),(1915c), (1917a), (1917b); all written in 1915), 'The Ego and the Id' (Freud, 1923) and finally 'Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety' (Freud, 1926). On these four occasions Freud fashions or refashions a global formulation of his overall conception of psychic activity and each formulation involves

Pre-published paper for the 30th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Jerusalem, August 1977. [Translated from the French by Trevor Hartnup] Copyright Andr Green
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taking a position on affect, a witness to the fact that the theoretical status of the notion cannot be examined in isolation.

I. From the origins of psychoanalysis to 'The Interpretation of Dreams'

Even before the 'Studies on Hysteria', in his work on 'Organic and Hysterical Motor Paralyses' (written in 1888, published in 1893) Freud had introduced the notion of a quota of affect (Affektbetrag) which provides every impression and every psychical event with a measurable quantity, de jure, if not de facto, of which the ego seeks to divest itself either by means of a motor reaction or by associative psychical activity. It can be said that from this moment the Freudian conception of affect implicitly reveals its presuppositions.

1. Affect is a quantity (of energy) which accompanies the events of psychic life. It is a charge more or less comparable to the electric charge of a nervousimpulse. 2. The ego represents the part of the psychic apparatus which serves as the homeostatic 'binding agent' and has a constant cathexis. Its role is to moderate excessive variations in psychic life, by the quota of affect when it appears to threaten its organization, which is secured by an optimal mobility of the cathexes. 3. Two paths are offered to the ego to fulfil its function: motility, that is to say the spending of the quantity by discharge (specific action) and making links by associative work. Associative psychic activity is a means of binding the quota of affect, dividing it up, distributing it whilst fragmenting it and translating it into small quantities attached to an assembly of interconnected representations. However, the work of fragmentation has its failures: a trifling impression of no pathogenic value can afterwards become traumatic. What will weigh heavily on the future of the conception of affect is the subordination of the subjective quality of affect to its objective expression: the quantity whose measurement escapes our knowledge. The 'Studies on Hysteria' (Breuer & Freud, 18935) are centred on the theory of blocked affect. Freud imagines a permanent dialogue between affect andrepresentation, one mobilizing the other and vice versa, according to the circumstances. The solution offered by psychotherapy, 'talking cure', is that language can function as a substitute for action, which offers affect an alternative solution to abreaction. It is in the article on the 'Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' that Freud (1894) gives the clearest formulation, distinguishing in a decisive fashion the quota of affect or sum of excitation, an expression fundamentally quantitive in nature, and the representational memory-traces. In his letter to Fliess in 1894, Freud (1950a) already describes three vicissitudes of affect which are different from those of representations: conversion, displacement and transposition into anxiety. The work of the psychic apparatus in relation to affects is parallel to and different from that of representations. The origin of affects is distinct from that of representations. Referring to Darwin, Freud conceives affect as the posthumous representative of what were, in the dim and distant prehistoric past, adaptive and highly motivated actions. We see that for Freud the organic substratum of affective life is much more pronounced than for the representations. Affect is a mnemic trace of actions which belong to the phylogenetic past of the species. On this point Freud remains faithful to tradition, which has not entirely disappeared, which sets the origin of affect back in biology and the animal basis of Man. The traces of this conception are preserved in the imagery of language. Draft G, (Freud, 1950a) and then the 'Project' (Freud, 1950b), both written in 1895, go a long way into the research of this physiological basis of affect. It is true that when Freud was laying down the main lines of his theory, he worked from clinical experience, but the fundamental fact is that, however new the use he made of the conceptual instruments of the period, their inescapable limitations obliged him to define the new continent, whose structure he discovered, in terms of a duality which raised great difficulties. Seen in relation to consciousness or, rather, to the theories of consciousness current at his time, the Unconscious presents a double picture: on the one hand, a semantic
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system revealing another meaning or another way in which meaning functions and, on the other hand, a system of connotations of the meaning which is more dependent on biology and transforms the emotional quality attached to the conscious meaning not only into another quality (pleasure into unpleasure) but, in the end, into 'pure' quantity. Thus, in the theory, the unconscious will suffer the consequences of the difference in treatment imposed on information coming from outside or inside, giving the latter another meaning (latent, disguised or repressed) and transforming it into pure quantity without quality. These conclusions are not surprising since, for Freud, the role of the psychic apparatus is to divest itself of excessive excitations which interfere with its functioning. However, there is a contradiction, or at least an apparent contradiction, in postulating that the psychic apparatus is disposed to seek pleasure and at the same time to avoid tension. The theoretical solution consists in a greater insistence on the avoidance of unpleasure and envisaging pleasure as a lessening of tension. This solution was to impose itself on Freud till 1924, that is for nearly 30 years. It follows from this that, having put the qualitative dimension of affect second to its quantitive variations, Freud conceives of affect above all as a disorganizing factor in

the psychic apparatus. It is not negligible to recall that the initial example mentioned by Freud in the 'Project' is that of the experience of pleasure against which he sets the experience of pain (and not unpleasure). It then becomes understandable that Freud's theoretical system turns towards the search for solutions to the disorganization induced by the affect of pain, and that quantity appears as the concept most adequate to account for this. Whilst already recognizing the importance of the experience of pleasure, Freud essentially takes his position from the point of view of the detrimental consequences of affect on the functioning of thinking. This point of view enables us to attach the beginnings of Freudian theory to the dawning of a tradition which raises the exercise of scientific thought to a human ideal. One could say that the goal of the psychic apparatus is less to derive the maximum from the wealth of affective experience than to be able to master such an experience by thought and confront it with the known facts of the external and internal worlds. The whole of the third part of the 'Project' makes this clear. Freud's thinking in the 'Project' is intricate and complex. But it is essential to arrive at an understanding of it, for the initial hypotheses determined what followed, whatever changes he brought to them later. I regret that the limits of this study constrain me to extreme condensation. This condensation is inevitable, for each notion links up with the mass of other notions and I must limit myself here solely to the examination of affect. The first time that the term 'affect' appears in the 'Project', that is, in this first attempt at theoretical systemization, it is indicated as the reproduction of an experience (Freud, 1950b p. 320). That is to say that affect is conceived of as one of the modalities of the organism's memory. Freud is obliged to call it into play when dealing with the 'reproduction' of secretory neurones which, when they are excited cause 'the generation in the interior of the body of something which operates as a stimulus upon the endogenous paths of conduction to (p. 320; my italics). Let us hold on to this expression, for it will surface again almost 30 years later. What Freud means is that, on the one hand, the affect is not the emotional state of the primitive experience, but its reproduction, and that the purely mnemic aspect (a recathexis of the perceptive trace), on the other hand, is not sufficient to explain the rise in the observable level which follows the recathexis of the hostile mnemic image in the experience of pain. The connexion which he establishes with the secretory neurones brings in the givens of the interior of the body. It is not a question of the physical body, but of the body in its relation to t he system . The text does not say so very clearly, but there are good reasons for making this deduction as follows. Freud specifies firstly that these secretory neurones, in constrast to the motor neurones, do not conduct the excitation into the muscles in order to divest the psychic apparatus of it. Their stimulus on the endogenous paths of conduction to does not destroy the quantity (i.e. the concept of quantity, cf. Strachey, 1966a , p. 289), (1966b, p. 392) but increases it in roundabout ways. Returning to these neurones,

1 But which neurones? In the manuscript Freud wrote: 'the motor neurones' and the editors, Strachey as well as his

predecessors, adopt the hypothesis that it is a mistake and Freud meant to write 'the secretory neurones'. That is possible. If, however, we were to respect what Freud had written, we might reach the conclusion that Freud wished to give this subcategory of motor neurones the name of key neurones, which is to say that the secretory neurones, about which there is no doubt, have a key command role for motility in relation to the system .
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Freud gives them the name of 'key neurones'.1 Thus, the affect is the liberated product of the friction between the hostile mnemic image and the stimulus occasioned by the products of the secretory neurones, on 'the endogenous paths of conduction leading to '. If we wished to go further into the implications of this theoretical draft on the theory of affect, we must go back in the text. At the end of Section 9 ('The functioning of the apparatus') Freud (1950b) states that the system also received excitation from the interior of the body. He therefore divides the neurones into neurones of the pallium which are cathected from and the nuclear neurones which are cathected from the endogenous paths of conduction (p. 315). At the end of the following section (10), which precisely deals with the 'endogenous paths of conduction', Freud comes to the conclusion that these paths, which in the system transport the excitation arising from the interior of the body, can receive a supplementary investment of quantity Q e and that this new contribution entails a structural modification. He writes: 'Here is at the mercy of Q, and it is thus that in the interior of the system there arises the impulsion which sustains all psychical activity. We know this power as the will the derivative of the instincts' (p. 317). It is Freud's first formulation of the drive.

We are now in a position to understand that in Freud's thinking affect corresponds to the liberating phenomenon accomplished through the medium of the groups of neurones known as secretory, or key neurones, belonging to the nuclear neurones which are excited by the evocation of the hostile mnemic image. It is essential to underline that it is not the mnemic image itself (the representational basis) which induces this excitation, but its facilitation, that is to say its cathexis(compare Freud 1950b, p. 321 and p. 319)and that it is this cathexis which is at the root of drive functioning. To be sure, Freud expresses himself here in confused terms, seeking an intermediary language between the neuronic apparatus and the psychic apparatus and no doubt he presents in but a confused way what he wants to express by the notion of cathexis, but he knows that he must not confuse the image and the cathexis. The affect therefore appears as a result of a previously established trace maintained by facilitations, and liable to be actualized upon the repetition of an experience which threatens to evoke the previous experience, whether of pleasure or of unpleasure. It corresponds to what happens on the level of the wishful states, which result in 'hallucination'. However, what must be remembered is that affect is not a direct emotional expression, but a trace, a residue, awoken by a repetition. Its difference from the desire (or the wish) lies in its manifestation by a sudden liberation, whereas the latter is the product of summation. If more attention is paid to the phenomenon of pain, it is because it is the source of the primary defence (repression). The heuristic interest in this distinction is that as far as the destiny of the wish is concerned (what will later be called hallucinatory wish-fulfilment) the psychic apparatus can allow itself to be deceived by the creation of a representation which satisfies the wish, whereas affect which gives information about the internal state of the body cannot have recourse to this expedient and finds itself obliged to maintain the primary defence. The matter is even more important because the excitation of the system can be confused with internal excitations (Freud, 1950b, p. 334). The pairing of wish and defence indicated to Freud that if he wished to further the elaboration of his theory of the psychic apparatusfor clearly, in my opinion, he was much further forward in relation to the workings of its functioning as manifested in the clinical situationhe would have to deal the cards again. That is to say that he would have to set the affects of the moving quantity within better established limits in order to come to a better understanding of the transformations to which they give rise. Defence has multiple functions: biologicalto
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avoid the disorganizing effects of pain, socialso as not to contravene moral prohibitions. In waking life these two functions are so tightly interwoven that it is difficult not only to distinguish them, but also to extricate the function which is intrinsically psychic. Thus Freud's theoretical strategy would be modified in the following way: on the one hand, by using the space of sleep as a natural limit and considering the role played in it by the wish which has already been fulfilled; and by regarding thedream as a product of hallucinatory wish-fulfilment and evaluating the defence in it, not only in its limiting function, but in its instigation of transformation: the dream work. Freud understood only afterwards what it was that he had done (Freud, 1950a, p. 276). However, there would be not only advantages in this solution which pushed the theory of the psychic apparatus definitively into its proper domain. 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (Freud, 1900) bounded psychic space between its two poles: the pole of perception, curbed by the abolition of information from the outside world, and the pole of motility, reduced to its most simple expression by the relative paralysis of sleep. Freud had reached his objective: the theory of thepsychic apparatus, but it was at the price of a fascination with representations, to the detriment of affects. Although Freud dedicated a section to the examination ofaffects, in the chapter on dream work, their role is at a secondary level. The dream experience is less important than the meaning of the dream from which theinterpretation springs. The expressions of uninhibited affect considered by Freud have little effect in dreams which provoke an orgasm in the dreamer, and much more inanxiety dreams. It seems that, for Freud, affects in their raw state are failures of the dream work. This dream work as applied to affects led Freud to describe diverse mechanisms which, here again, continue to distinguish carefully between the work on representations and the work on affects. A very important differentiation appears here opposing: the repression of the content, and the suppression (inhibition) of affects; although the nonsuppression of affects provokes repression, which makes the differentiation relative. Furthermore, we must note that the principal mechanisms of the dream work: condensation and displacement, influence simultaneously the representations and the affective charges. Why does Freud favour the representations to this extent linking them to repression whose action would render psychicactivity 'more unconscious'

than suppression. My hypothesis is that Freud, at this stage of his work, was subject to preoccupations about demonstrabilityas if, in centring the problem on affect and its subjective quality, he had run the risk of finding himself reproached for a subjectivity incompatible with the demonstration of the proof. In displacing the accent on to the representations, and showing the transforming mechanisms which they are subject to, he thinks that he will be better able to demonstrate in a convincing and scientific fashion the existence of the Unconscious. In this way he offers the account of an objective method, verifiable by everyone, without the analyst being accused of taking his stand on the basis of affective intuitions which are subject to caution. We know that this aim has not been achieved. On the contrary, by exposing, even partially, the resources of subjectivity, he attracted to himself men whose vocation was to respond to psychic human suffering, having understood that the determinisms at work in their own psyches could not, in the name of science, be separated from their therapeutic vocation and their thirst for truthand knowledge. One can say that, from this moment on, affects will not cease to hold an ever uncomfortable position, to the extent that, in contrast to representations, it is impossible to refer to them theoretically outside the relationship to the object, already recognized by Freud in the 'Project', precisely in connexion with the experience of satisfaction. However, the section on 'Affects in dreams' (Freud, 1900) gives us very valuable indications of the transformations themselves on the affective level, which we cannot enter into in detail here. Let us take note however, that Freud already makes the hypothesis that the suppression of affects in the dream might result from the confrontation at the very heart of the dream between contradictory thoughts (Freud, 1900, p. 468). Thus whatever revolution it may have accomplished inrelation to the 'Project' which is so impregnated with Freud's years in the laboratory, the 'Interpretation of Dreams' is still more dependent
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on the ideal of a pure science than is usually said.

II. Metapsychology
Papers on Metapsychology, written in 1915, appears to us as Freud's effort to grasp the totality of his fundamental concepts, just at the moment when he is pressing on with the theoretical change which he is not slow to accomplish by 1919. It is remarkable that in the paper which opens the collection, namely 'Instincts and their Vicissitudes', (Freud, 1915a) it is never a question of representations and even less of affect. As if at the drive level that crossroads between the body and the psyche, it was not possible to proceed with this separation, since the drive is an expression of a link between psychic activity and the body. But psychic activity can only be evaluated in the opposite circumstances, namely the separation between them, and can be estimated by the extent of a demand for work. The article on 'Repression' (Freud, 1915b) allowed Freud to clarify his conceptions and doubtless help his disciples towards a more precise idea of his theories. There he writes: In our discussions so far we have dealt with the repression of an instinctual representative, and by the latter we have understood an idea or group of ideas which is cathected with a definite quota of psychical energy (libido or interest) coming from an instinct. Clinical observation now obliges us to divide up what we have hitherto regarded as a single entity; for it shows us that despite the idea, some other element representing the instinct has to be taken into account, and that this other element undergoes vicissitudes of repression which may be quite different from those undergone by the idea. For this otherelement of the psychical representative, the term of quota of affect has been generally adopted. It corresponds to the instinct so far as the latter has become detached from the idea and finds expressions, proportionate to its quantity, in processes which are sensed as affects (p. 152). I propose to understand this quotation by making the distinctionwhich is not always clearly made in Freudbetween the Triebreprsentanz and theVorstellungsreprsentanz or reprsentant reprsentation(Laplanche & Pontalis, 1967); (the 'ideational representative' in Anglo-Saxon terminology, cf. Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973) . It was therefore the Triebreprsentanz which could be divided into the Vorstellungsreprsentanz and affect which, logically speaking, ought to have been given the name of Affektsreprsentanz. What prevented Freud from coining this word is an internal contradiction which it appears to contain in the conceptual framework of his time. It seems to me that today there is

nothing unacceptable in this contradiction. It is in any case less unacceptable than the contradiction which made Freud conceive of the unconscious state of affect only in the form of a simple quota. Why does Freud give affects a representative status, unless the word links back to a representation or group of representationsa vicissitude of perceptions. The representatives, according to his thinking, are mnemic traces whereas affects aredischarge processes. Indeed, seen in closeup, if every psychic operation mobilizes energy, the ideational representatives (Vorstellungsreprsentanz) have, likelanguage, a discharge function too; less than affects, to be sure, but nonetheless inevitable. In fact, what must be understood is that the economy of representations is on a different scale, or is of a different order from the economy of affect, hence the corollary that the respective destinies of representations and affects are different. Freud describes three possible vicissitudes of quantity which bear witness to the evolution of his early thinking. These are: (1) the suppression of the instinct so that no trace of it is found; (2) the appearance of an affect which is in some way or another qualitatively coloured; and (3) the transformation into anxiety, of the psychical energy ofinstincts. The more his ideas developed, the more explicitly Freud placed anxiety in the context of a theory of affect. This explains the following opinion (Freud, 1915b), which in the end gives pre-eminence to affect: We recall the fact that the motive and purpose of repression was nothing else than the avoidance of unpleasure. It follows that the vicissitude of the quota of affect belonging to the representative is far more important than the vicissitude of the idea, and this fact is decisive for our assessment of the process ofrepression. If a repression does not succeed in preventing feelings of unpleasure or anxiety from arising, we may say that it has failed, even though it may have achieved its purpose as far as the ideational portion is concerned (p. 153).
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If repression in 1900 had, compared with inhibition, the function of rendering the content more 'unconscious', that is to say of keeping it further away fromconsciousness, with 15 years more clinical experience, the role of repression was rather to neutralize the affect of unpleasure in a more radical fashion. Let us note that Freud does not take into consideration the problem of total affective neutralization whose effect would be to impoverish the ego, which could not control the effects ofrepression selectively in relation to unpleasure alone. In 'The Unconscious' Freud (1915c) asks questions about the existence of unconscious feelings. He shows himself faithful to his conception of the inhibition ofaffects, and underlines the contrast between content and affect. The content can appear in disguises which make it unrecognizable in consciousness, or is subject to the incessant play of permutations in the Unconscious. The unconscious processes as a whole are deprived of quality and affect is above all a question of quantity, which, in contrast to the fate of the content, can essentially be diminished (even to extinction) or admitted to consciousness, where it assumes a defined quality. Up to this point, we understand the action of repression as quantitative. But where the problem becomes more complicated is in the theory of anxiety which implies a transformation. It is here, in my opinion, that we must enlarge Freud's economic point of view and understand that it is not only a question of quantitative variations but qualitative transformations pleasure transformed into its opposite: anxiety, a form of unpleasure. At the time the influence of the idea of internal, secretory, vasomotor dischargedominated Freud's thinking. Thus he maintained the idea that to speak of repressed or unconscious affects is an abuse of language. The theoretical problem of affect is conceived from the angle of mastery of the potential excess. If anxiety is the result of an accumulation of repressed libido, we have no way of explaining this transformation, since clinical practice presents us with diverse forms of anxiety and different types of unpleasurable affects which are distinct from anxiety. Hysterical conversion could dispense with an explanation, since the conflict was conducted towards a non-psychic sphere. The anxiety neurosis had also been divorced from the psychic conflict. Phobia, as an evolution and expression of anxiety hysteria, seemed to show the limited capacity of representations to circumvent anxiety. But already obsessional neurosis confronted Freud with the unavoidable problem of transformation, since it gives rise to the infiltration of theconflict into the sphere of action (rituals), of thought (doubt, and the distortion of causal relationships) and moral conscience (remorse), indicating a constant struggle against the instincts.

Many theoretical difficulties could have been removed if Freud had allowed that there were several modes of being in the Unconscious, for representations and foraffects. The latter might either be linked with representations or remain in a floating state, but they could undergo internal transformationsor what Freud called 'affective constructions' without granting them the right to complexity. We could sum up the question by saying that, from the economic point of view, it is affect which has to be made unconscious by inhibition and that, from the topographical point of view, it is the representations which must be kept unconscious by repression. The economic hypothesis and the topographical hypothesis which Freud constantly sets in opposition to each other both fall under the sway of the dynamic point of view. It is impossible not to see that these contradictions are not pure speculations but have their origin in the fact that psychoanalysis is born out of hypnosis and catharsis, where preeminence is openly accorded to affect, which had either to be repressed, by the imposition of another representation in hypnosis, or to be got rid of by cathartic discharge. Freud's concern to keep the originality of psychoanalysis safe from all contamination from the origins from which it had separated is doubtless responsible for this subordination of affect to representation in the beginnings of the discipline which he founded. The fact that today we are present at a renaissance of comparable inspirational methods (bio-energy, gestalt, primal scream) shows that the problem remains ever present. The 'talking cure' founded on the recounting of words could have led Freud to make language play a crucial role in the theory
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of the Unconscious, since it would be logical, within the conceptual horizons of the day, to attach language to the vicissitudes of the representations. He resisted this temptation just as he was vigilant not to let himself become involved with affect, on the paths which he had abandoned. This is the reason for which at the end of 'The Unconscious', Freud (1915c) made clear that the Unconscious is formed only of the representations of things, whereas it is for the Preconscious to link up therepresentation of things and the representation of words. It does not seem like chance to us that the two essays at the end of the collection deal in the first instance (Freud, 1917a) with dreams, dominated by considerations of representability, and in the second place (Freud, 1917b) with mourning in its relationship to melancholia: a narcissistic neurosis, but an affective psychosis par excellence. Nor is it by chance that this paper was the starting point for the work of Abraham and of Melanie Klein. I maintain that Freud had grasped the totality of his conception at the moment when he was preparing to change it. Indeed, no later than 1919, 'The Uncanny' returns to the problem of affect and introduces for the first time repetition-compulsion which announces the final theory of the drives.

III. 'The Ego and the Id'

After the rearrangement of the second topographical model, Freud returned in 1923 to the irritating problem of unconscious affect. If the fact appears uncontestable to him as far as unconscious feelings of guilt are concerned, the general problem remains. We appreciate the evolution of this thinking but also the constancy of his views from the following passage in 'The Ego and the Id' (Freud, 1923): Internal perceptions yield sensations of processes arising in the most diverse and certainly also in the deepest strata of the mental apparatus. Very little is known about the sensations and feelings; those belonging to the pleasure-unpleasure series may still be regarded as the best examples of them. They are more primordial, more elementary, than perceptions arising externally and they can come about even when consciousness is clouded. I have elsewhere[Freud, 1920, p. 29] expressed my views about their greater economic significance and the metapsychological reasons for this. These sensations are multilocular, like external perceptions; they may come from different places simultaneously and may thus have different or even opposite qualities. Let us call what becomes conscious as pleasure and unpleasure a quantitative and qualitative 'something' in the course of mental events; the question then is whether this 'something' can become conscious in the place where it is, or whether it must first be transmitted to the system Pcpt. (pp. 2122). From reading this, it seems that external perceptions and internal perceptions are now brought together rather than contrasted. What Freud underlines in this new formulation is the more primitive, more

elementary character of this type of sensation, and hence their deep bodily location. In fact, it is clear that in the course of Freud's theoretical development, he is led towards more and more similar formulations with which to talk about affects and instinctual impulses, whereas previously it was rather the ideational representative (Vorstellungsreprsentanz) which most often served to denote the representative of the drive (Triebreprsentanz). There is therefore a slide towards affect. It is equally possible to observe this in the definition which Freud gave of the id in Lecture XXXII (Freud, 1933) where all reference to representations is left out of the description. He even goes as far as to maintain that nothing corresponding to an idea or a content exists in the id. Nothing but instinctual impulses seeking discharge. We may wonder what role the introduction of the death instinct into this theory may have played in this re-evaluation of the relationship between the unconscious of the first topographical frame of reference and the id of the second one, if, as I believe, these two theoretical arguments indicate concepts which are much more distinct than is usually stressed. The question of unconscious affect is still not resolved. Returning to the text that we have just quoted and to the mysterious 'something' which Freud mentions, what happens on the pathway which affect seeks towards consciousness. If the way forward is barred, they [sensations and feelings] do not come into being as sensations, although the 'something' that corresponds to them in the course of excitation is the same as if they did. We
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then come to speak, in a condensed and not entirely correct manner, of 'unconscious feelings', keeping up an analogy with unconscious ideas which is not altogether justifiable. Actually the difference is that, whereas with the Ucs. ideas connecting links must be created before they can be brought into the Cs., with feelings which are themselves transmitted directly, this does not occur. In other words: the distinction between Cs. and Pcs. has no meaning where feelings are concerned; the Pcs. here drops outand feelings are either conscious or unconscious. Even when they are attached to word-presentations, their becoming conscious is not due to that circumstance, but they become so directly (Freud, 1923, pp. 2223). In my opinion, it is difficult not to think of the spirit which inspires this text as akin to the spirit of section 1 of the 'Project' on 'The experience of pain'. This passage indicates that Freud's reservations are terminological, and that there are several modes of existence in the Unconscious, which enables us to speak of an unconscious modality for affect. In the end the essential difference between affect and representation is the impossibility of affects being in direct conjunction with the verbal mnemic traces. Thus we come back to the observation which I made at the beginning about the limitations of language in giving an account of affect. Verbalization induces the affect and most often by indirect paths. Affect is an original subjective modality. For all that, its expressive dimension does not exclude it from semantic material. This supposes the transmission of a communication from affect to affect, or a consensus on the spoken messages which refer to it, whilst the information retains an allusive status. Was the way already open towards recognizing the importance of the quality of affect? In any case Freud submitted to this recognition in 'The Economic Problem ofMasochism' (1924a) in which he admits the existence of pleasurable tensions and unpleasurable dtentes. 'Negation' (Freud, 1925) brings great precision to bear on the question: language can, via denial, ease the drain of energy due to repression and surreptitiously allow the repressed into consciousness by a simple change of sign. The intellectual admission of the repressed represents the most unattackable of the defensive manoeuvres. Finally, in his article on 'Fetishism', Freud (1927) comes to the point where, still mindful of the vicissitudes of the representation and that of the affect, he completely reverses his former views. Inhibition no longer comes into it: 'If we wanted to differentiate more sharply between the vicissitudes of the idea as distinct from that of the affect and reserve the word " Verdrngung " ("repression") for the affect, then the correct German word for the vicissitude of the idea would be " Verleugnung" ("disavowal")' (p. 153). In the end it is indeed the affect which is repressed, a term which he formerly reserved for the representation. It is evidently no coincidence that this same period saw the emergence of Freud's two

principal works on psychosis (Freud, 1924b), (1924c). He discreetly gives us to understand that he has perhaps neglected the relationship between perversion and psychosis too much up to now, but the splitting, in fetishism, opens a new way towards understanding this relationship. What is only sketched out in 1927 will be made more clearly explicit in the 'Outline' (Freud, 1940) by a comparison of splitting and fragmentation.

IV. 'Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety'

Unavoidably, the second topographic model led Freud to propose a new theory of anxiety. This theory covers a wider clinical field than previously. It had to endeavour to take account of the limited forms of anxiety in the transference psycho-neuroses, as well as the less circumscribed and more incapacitating forms, the acute repetitive forms (traumatic anxiety), the forms with somatic accompaniment (actual neuroses and anxiety neuroses) and the forms where the anxiety seems to have disappeared (neutralization). It had also to recognize the diverse psychogeneses of anxiety: anxiety aroused by the threat of object loss, anxiety aroused by the loss of the object's love, and anxiety aroused by the superego. And that is limiting ourselves to the aspects met in psychoanalytic experience without getting lost in speculative discussions on the anxiety aroused by the birth trauma, or on the difference between anxiety aroused by real danger and neurotic anxiety. Qualitative considerations henceforth took precedence over
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quantitative ones, although the latter could be neglected and the relationship between quantity and quality still remained obscure. Witness Freud's distinctions betweenanxiety and mourning. I must repeat that the first topographical model of the psychic apparatus was totally insufficient to give an account of these qualitative differences. So as not to overload this exposition I have set a limit on the questions raised in the previous theoretical discussions by the production of an excess ofaffect. If such a thing arises it is, according to Freud in 1926, because the operation of repression withdraws the cathexis from the representation and the affect is thus setfree. We may therefore take the view that the process by which repression succeeds in keeping the drive representative out of consciousness implies that the counter-cathexis (the expenditure of energy for protective purposes) is concomitant with decathexis which consists precisely in 'disaffection' from the drive representation. Freud appears to have hesitated between two ideas. The first is that this disaffection was a consequence of the decathexis of the representation and in this situation the liberation of affect by discharge was secondary in every sense of the word. The second, attested by numerous passages, is that the first and definitive aim of decathexis should bear in the first place upon the affect. The creation of the second topographical model did not abolish the ambiguities. It is remarkable to note that Freud had the same hesitationsalmost the same formulae when he raised the problem of the possibility of id anxiety, i.e. anxiety which is seated in the id, as when he attempted to reply to the question of unconscious affect in 1915 and 1923. 'Addendum A' (Freud, 1926) leaves the question open. Freud's solution to the problem, making the distinction between signal anxiety and traumatic anxiety, and attributing to the ego a role in the unleashing of anxiety, has far-reaching theoretical implications. After the division between the somatic anxiety of actual neuroses and the psychic or psychosexual anxiety of the transference neuroses, and then the conception of anxiety as an effect of the accumulation of repressed libido, the new division contrasts a notifying function in signal anxiety and an energy function in traumatic anxiety which forces the limits of the stimulus barrier and repression. Two systems are visible here: the one which complies with the meaning, and the one which complies with the force. In a way, with the signal function of affect, the theory gave affective life the possibility of functioning in a way analogous to thought. The possibility of dischargein small quantities in signal anxiety is the equivalent of the method by which the psychic apparatus tests the outside world by means of small quantities of energy (cf. Freud, 1933, p. 89). The gulf between affect and thought is reduced, and affect is no longer solely that disturber of thought. But the view is still that excess of affect, the eruption of massive quantities of affect, has a comparable effect to that of an external trauma, when the psychic apparatus is not prepared for it. The final theory ofanxiety permits us to reopen the question of the relationship of trauma or fantasy. Without considering that the theoretical readjustments correspond entirely to this, from now on it is important to understand the interest in a conception of internal trauma created by the inevitable, but quantitatively and qualitatively variable failure of the object to provide mothering. The Hilflosigkeit leaves the baby powerless in face of the demands of his primitive drive impulses, with no possibility of moderating the imperious nature of their demands for satisfaction, which create serious disorder in which all the

sensegiving structures collapse and give way to a disorganization of the ego, which is as yet incapable of putting defences to work which might avert the intolerable anxiety. One may wonder if certain serious semantic distortions ofcommunication might not have a comparable effect. The importance of 'Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety' (Freud, 1926) arises from the fact that Freud displaced the accent from the Oedipus complex, and its corollary of castration anxiety, on to separation anxiety. A parallel movement takes us from the role of the fatherdoes Freud not call the Oedipus complex the 'Vaterkomplex'to the role of the mother who is at the centre of the child's anxieties which follow the catastrophe of the threat of her loss or the despair about her prolonged absence, which is manifested in traumatic anxiety. On the other hand, she also
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plays the opposing role of organizer of the means of re-establishing the continuity of the psychic experience. This she performs by the double role of repairing the less disastrous effects and repairing defences which can be put to work in future situations, which may, for a long time to come, give rise to the threat of danger. Faced with the regressive tendency which follows the internal trauma due to the combined effects and joint action of the disorganization and the defence against it, the mother, in her exchanges with the baby, offers the possibility of bringing anticipation into play via the cathexis of representative and affective mnemic traces which will permit the development of the symbolic function. However, one may be surprised that in this general re-evaluation Freud did not take sufficiently into consideration the relationship between the narcissistic investment and investment in the object and the implications of the role of the destructive instincts in affective development.

V. Conclusion
The initial division between representation and affect bears witness to Freud's care in distinguishing two subsystems in the Unconscious, different both in their nature and in their vicissitudes. If the representation has pride of place in the beginning, it is perhaps because of the possibilities of illustration and above all demonstration which it offers. Furthermore, it is true that representations, being more closely allied to language than affect, which eludes it much more, appear to play a greater role in talking cure. That would explain why Freud discovered the transference relatively late, and early on considered it an obstacle. The representation appears to constitute the psychic material which is most favourable to psychotherapy. The links between affect and the body drew it more to the biological side. Freud's equation of affect = quantity = economy had the disadvantage of neglecting the part played by the mechanisms in the production of quality and at the same time failing above all to recognize the role of the transformations implied in the concept of economy. Thanks to the evolution brought about by analytic experience, affect seems to have acquired more and more importance in Freudian theory. Its proximity to the drive impulse made it a better pointer to drive activity. Modifying the relationship between the Unconscious and the id, the second topographical model puts the emphasis on the drive impulses and consequently on the affects. Furthermore, affect is granted unconscious status. It can be conscious or unconscious, whilst only the representations have, in addition, the preconscious status which links them to language. But analytic treatment using the transference, gives affect an increasingly large part to play. What has been neglected by the critical analysis of Freudian epistemology is the relationship between the undeniable shift of emphasis towards theaffectdrive impulse complex and the final drive theory. Freud makes it clear that the energy at the source of production of anxiety is neutral and the fact that elsewhere he has also envisaged neutralization as a result of the work of the death instinct has theoretical consequences which have not been noticed. Anxiety, the prototype affectof analytic theory, now situated in the ego, works on two fronts: signal anxiety which brings the functioning of affective life more in line with that of thought, and traumatic anxiety which remains the expression of psychic disorganization which is unspeakable, in the strict sense of the word. This final theory of anxiety leads on to consideration of the maternal object as a source of semantic stimuli and at the same time as a solicitor of economic transformations. The meaning and the force combine their effects to help the child create a varied system of qualitatively differentiated affects rich in nuances whose value in communication is inestimable. There remains the displacement of emphasis from the Vaterkomplex on to the mother's role, which necessitates a link between a complex, from which Freud withdraws none of its organizing value in structuralization, and the relationship to the primary object, a link which one cannot reconcile with a strict

genetic point of view. Nevertheless it remains that affect keeps its place as the primary system in Freudian theory, regulated by the pleasure-unpleasure principle, whose possibilities of transformation andevolution offer less room for manoeuvre than the representations, whose evolution leads to the function of language and its relationship to thought. But,
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on the other hand, because the aim of psychoanalysis is to gain access to the most fundamental systems of psychic life, those which regulate the basic functioning of thepsychic apparatus, the place taken by affect in the evolution of the theory is completely justified. As Freud gives us to understand in 'Negation' (1925), there remain to be established the foundations of affective logic so as not to cut off the logic of the unconscious representations from that of affective life.

AFFECTS SINCE FREUD

Even in Freud's lifetime affect gained more and more ground in the clinical, theoretical and technical elaborations of his disciples. This is implicit in the work of Abraham, in some of Jones's work (e.g. Jones, 1929) and above all in the last period of Ferenczi's work (from 1929) to (1933). This orientation accompanied the growing difficulties encountered in the treatment of certain patients, with the result that less importance was given to the search for a solution to an enigma in the infantile conflictas in the case of the Wolf Manand there was pressure to learn more about the early stages of development in the child, especially because analysts were having more and more to do with patients presenting more marked regressions. With the benefit of experience, they were in a better position to discover the foundations of regressions of a neurotic type. But what is most characteristic of the development of postFreudian writing is that the homogeneity of his theoreticalconstruction gives way to a diversified development in directions determined by the theoretical preferences of the dominant figures of the post-Freudian era of psychoanalysis. Hence a certain confusion for the present-day reader who would like to find unity in this diversity. From now on I shall abandon the historical point of view and cite the principal contributions, regrouping them according to the perspective which they take.

1. Hartmann's perspective, the genetic, structural and adaptive points of view

If Hartmann wrote little about affect, his theoretical views have influenced a number of authors, especially Anglo-Saxon ones. The best known is Rapaport (1953). His conception is psycho-biological, endeavouring to reconcile the hereditary predispositions, the function of discharge and the sociocommunicative function. What creates a problem in such a task is the interpretation of concepts which are turned in a psychological direction. Ego psychology rather than psychoanalysis of the ego. The fact that this conception seeks to root its hypotheses in biology takes nothing away from its psychological style of thought, which is equally true of the sociological aspects which are occasionally incorporated. One can wonder if the addition of the genetic, structural and adaptive points of view to the three metapsychological points of view has not increased the movement either by the work of Hartmann himself, or by the fact that the psychologists (like Rapaport) found psychoanalytic theory more acceptable. In wanting to clarify the theory, they have suppressed contradictions which would have been better respected until psychoanalytic experience allowed a better formulation of what they concealed. A fruitful obscurity is worth more than a premature clarification. Perhaps it is paradoxical that we accord such a role to psychologists in a psychoanalytic movement which endeavours, on the other hand, to preserve itself from such an influence. But that is not the question, which is, rather, to ask whether in a psychoanalytical group dominated by medical training, psychology does not appear of necessity as the only compatible discipline to which one would delegate the task of resolving problems to which medical training offers no rigorous approach. It is remarkable that in Rapaport, more faithful to Freud in letter than in spirit, the relationship of the affect to the signal never leads to a reflexion on the sign and in particular on language, in its relation to affects. If the economic point of view is maintained, it is not the object of a reflexion on the processes of psychic transformations. The work as a whole comes under the criterion of a hierarchical development of 'motivations'. Sometimes, however, the genetic orientation enables us to gather some valuable reflexions based on observed facts, as in Engel's (1962) work which divides reactions to trauma into

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two types, active and passive, and describes depression withdrawal, as the ultimate reaction to catastrophe in immobility, and narcissistic withdrawal to a pre-objectstage of undifferentiation. The necessity of speaking of a biological basis is reinforced in the work of Moore (1968). The adaptive function is similarly defended by Schur (1967), who is not afraid to advance the view that certain autonomous apparatuses serve the development of the id as well as that of the ego. It is in this spirit that a cognitive function may be recognized in affect, with signal anxiety as an expression of this. We must also credit Hartmann with the introduction of the concept of theself, understood in a different way by the English school. The exchanges between self and object pose the problem of the respective cathexis of each of them, thecathexis of the selfpresentations and the self-images. The drop in this category of cathexis is that the root of an id impulse responsible for affective storms. Affects inrelation to the narcissistic wound (shame and humiliation) bear witness to the failure in the mastery of the self, an opinion already defended by Fenichel. The role of the maternal object, as an external object, takes a position of importance here and the subsequent internalization is partially explained, but on the other hand, the fantasyexperience seems to be underestimated. According to this line of thinking, the ego becomes more and more a central agent of modulation and affective regulation, serving aims of adaptation to reality. If one can maintain that this orientation is only the development of late Freudian views on the ego, one cannot fail sometimes to have the feeling that the psychic apparatus is reduced to mechanisms whose functioning is simplified to too great a degree. It all happened as if the fundamentalstructure of affect had returned to the domain of biology outside psychoanalysis, and as if ever since Freud placed the seat of anxiety in the ego, it is this instance which has been almost the exclusive object of interest for psychoanalytic contributions of this sort, in which the ego is seen in relation to control of affects rather than inrelation to the rich, varied and contradictory subjective experience of affects. This explains, in particular, the scepticism of American writers about the metapsychological conceptions of the English school, when they take primary affects back to the primitive object relationship instead of abandoning them to biology, and postulate the existence of a fantasy world to which the psychoanalysts from the other side of the Atlantic give but limited credibility, if any at all. The nub of the question is that there is no convergence of views about what is meant by an object in the diverse theoretical orientations. On the other hand, the reference to the mechanics of the psychic apparatus would attract the opposite criticism. It is not reprehensible in itself if one intends to place oneself on the highest level of theoretical generality. But most frequently the question is approached only at an intermediary level which attempts to make thepsychic apparatus as far as possible like a neuro-psychological apparatus, at the level of model construction. So, it is not by chance that Freud always mistrusted this orientation and it is certainly not because he accorded less influence to biology. If we had opted for such an orientation, we would doubtless have had to go much further, as G. Klein (1967) understood. Unfortunately, the stamp of psychological inspiration marks this path too. Other studies, however, whilst based on Hartmann'sthinking, give the feeling, at least as far as I am concerned, of bearing clinical truth. The earliest of them is that of Edith Jacobson (1953) and is justly renowned. If her classification of affects is based on Hartmannian notions (I should rather say those of Hartmann, Kris and Loewenstein) of intra- and intersystemic tensions and if she, too, places the adaptation and mastery frame of reference at the centre of her work, her contribution, born out of remarkable clinical experience of affective psychoses, calls into question once more Freud's idea of discharge, by the substitution of a dynamic view in which the process is more important. In fact, affect must be taken in its evolutionary curve. It is born of tension and develops to discharge. Tensions and discharges coexist simultaneously in diverse parts of the psychic apparatus. Thepleasure principle regulates the variations about an axis of average tension, starting with the extreme swings of the pendulum to pleasurable and unpleasurable affects. Jacobson gives equal interest to pleasurable and unpleasurable affects. Her perspective gives precedence above
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all to a homeostatic view of affective regulation, without confining herself to a purely phenomenological view. Similarly, it is a homeostatic standpoint which defines the point of view of Joffe & Sandler (1968) and of Sandler (1972) who nevertheless insist above all on the constitution of emotional states of safety, whose genesis is envisaged according to their psycho-physiological base. The progressive differentiation of these

states is concomitant with the child's representational world which crystallizes out of his automatic beginnings. These states of safety are learned through the experience of live feeling-states and are enriched by a gamut of nuances which distinguish them from the gratifications of primitive drive impulses, especially after their eruption, and by means of the capacity to differentiate need-satisfaction. The disorganizing role of anxiety lowers the feeling of safety and favours the return of maladaptive reactions. We might say that Sandler has in mind above all the narcissistic roots of affect. Adaptation is necessary for the preservation of a basic state. The function of signal anxiety ensures the individual's safety by adapting its reaction to the circumstances of the danger. A scanning of information from internal or external sources is already constantly active to prevent the appearance of the conscious affective experience. The affective function is in a permanent state of change, one might add a permanent state of alert, evaluating moment by moment the respective images of self and object and striving for ideal states of the ego (the ego ideal). Any excessive departure from this state of grace is rejected, giving rise to a painful experience which for a long time can only be denied. The contradictions can multiply between a body state in disequilibrium and an ego finding its equilibrium in an adaptive solution of a defensive nature, which would take account for certain psychosomatic symptoms. We can relate the preceding work to that of Peto (1967) which is dedicated to the study of affect control. The central idea advanced is also heir to the conceptions of Hartmann and Nunberg on the synthetic function of the ego. But the interest of Peto's work, whose clinical inspiration is tangible, lies in the picture he gives us of the affective processes of the masterysubmission dyad. A dialectic view of the analytic situation allows us to form an idea of the observable variations between the affect, which remains integrated with the other elements of the analytic process on the one hand, and on the other hand archaic and tempestuous affective states which exceed on all sides the means of containment in the psychic apparatus. One can throw down a bridge here between Peto's conceptions and those of Bouvet (1960). Valenstein(1962) produced an original conception of what he calls 'affectualization'. This can be observed when one is present at an agitated dramatization of the affective experience which blocks all insight, turning the analytic situation back into a cathartic experience and preventing any durcharbeiten ('working through'). A sure link unites resistance as a mode of defence to Bouvet's (1956) 'trop eprouver' ('excess of feeling') and also to Lewin's (1964) concept of screen affects, the affective homologue of the blank dream screens he described. Lewin successfully demonstrated the work of affective decondensation to which we devote ourselves inrelation to affective constructions in order to distinguish the functional and structual differences between affect and intellect. Valenstein, however, thinks that once a certain number of affective crises have been passed through, some real analytic work is possible. The theoretical inferences to be drawn from this about the idea affect complex in the Unconsciousand here we find views which are closer to Freud than to Hartmann lead us to take into consideration the type of cognition appropriate to affect. He recommends to our attention the concept of conation, the expression of a wish-force tending towardsaction. The study which seems farthest from the Hartmannian point of view is that of Schafer (1964). This critical article is too phenomenological in inspiration perhaps, but its merit lies in the description of affect from a non-genetic perspective. He underlines the importance of the complexity of affects, the ambiguity with its implications for their expressive value (whose existence is no more proof of authenticity than the absence of affects is necessarily a sign of dissimulation) and the necessity of considering them as part of a configuration. He calls in question the virtues of mastery of affect as a
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criterion of maturity. This purpose, according to Schafer, is served rather by their complex, contradictory and ambiguous nature. Finally, their communicating function is not only in relation to other people. On this point Modell (1971) tried to correct our negligence of the role of affects in collective psychology. But apart from this intercommunicating function, affects are at work in communication with oneself. Rangell (1967) was amazed that affects had too often been absent as a theme in analytic literature. If that is true, it is perhaps because the advancement of our thinking about affect can no longer proceed in isolation, but requires us to pay attention to those difficult cases where the affective dimension of the problem is in the foreground, but is itself subordinate to a perspective which implicitly encompasses it. It is the way followed, for example, by many psychoanalysts of the British Society,

I will now conclude my comments on this orientation of thinking, which I have regrouped somewhat arbitrarily under the heading of Hartmannian influence, because that seems to me to indicate the dominating tendency, and make more general remarks which spring from my reading of the most recent contributions (Pulver, 1971); (Brenner, 1974); and (Castelnuovo-Tedesco's 1974b) report, of a panel of the American Psychoanalytic Association). One may wonder whether the absence of an accepted theory of affects is not due to the limitations of the analytic field. What could be said about affects in the realm of classical analytical knowledge has reached a point where if it is not impossible to exceed it, it is at least unexceeded. Whatever may be the more or less useful clarifications (Pulver, 1971); (CastelnuovoTedesco, 1974a) it all takes place as if respect of clinical facts could not involve more than a phenomenological description, paraphrased in metapsychological terms which add nothing to it. On the contrary, the use which is made of metapsychology in this context does not clarify the problem any more, it restricts it. What transpires from these debates is most frequently the need for unification at any cost. Similarly, when Brenner (1974) proposes a unified theory of affects, he can only do it from aposition which supposes the problem is resolved, since he includes in the structure of affect the combination of feelings and ideas, when the whole question is to know how the 'idea' which forms an integral part of the nature of affect differs from what is conventionally called an idea, the content. If Freud came up against the enigma, it is just because he was fully aware of its implications on the level of mental functioning, that is to say of its repercussions on the unity of psychic processes. Faced with this difficulty, some American writers tend to seek support in paths of research capable of completing knowledge acquired in analytic practice. Quite naturally they go to developmental studies in search of complementary information, when these studies can teach us only about the baby's or child's behaviour and research conditions impose limitations on the researcher's empathy. It follows, among other things, that the implicit conception of the ego is more and more turned towards action, whereas the analytic situation draws the best of its learning from the very fact that the subject is constrained by the analytic relationship to put action in parentheses. When the need is felt to reach a more general degree of conceptualization, three directions present themselves: a. the psychoneurological direction (Moore, 1974) which attaches affect to cerebral or psychophysiological structures (the relation of affect to automatic motor reactions or reflexes); b. the information direction (Rangell, 1974) which seems not to take account of the fact that the theory of information is built on the exclusion of affect; and c. the psychological direction which endeavours to put together the viewpoints of a linear conception of development and phenomenological introspection, which it joins by a disguised behaviourism. The sum of these directions converge around the central concept of adaptation, even though affect, of all the components of the human psyche, is the one whose value to adaptation is the most fragile if one keeps to a strict view of the concept. One remains struck by the reticence of the American authors to call on the role of the analyst's feelings in the analytic relationship, not in the limited perspective of the 'tools' of treatment, but in a context where practice and theory could come together to understand the joint work of affect and verbalization and the
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implications which might be drawn from it as to the domain of communication and intrapsychic and intersubjective semantics. In this respect it must be noted that thisabsence of reference to the analyst's psychic functioning goes along with a very restrictive conception of the concept of object.

2. The object relations perspective and the influence of M. Klein

The way followed by the psychoanalysts of the British Society has been to endeavour to deepen the nature of the affective experience by taking less distance or fewer theoretical precautions in order to restore the quality such as the analyst experiences it through his patient. The piece of work by Jones (1929) which I have already referred to, developed above all the notion of the covering up of diverse types of affects by one another. What we retain is especially the notion he discovered ofaphanisis which already presaged the clinical configurations which have been in question during recent years: the crushing of affect, massive inhibition including a drastic prohibition against experiencing the slightest libidinal gratification, petrification, etc. Although what Jones described does not entirely coincide with the matters in question

today, I think it is legitimate to consider that Ferenczi's work of the same period already saw the precursory signs of what we recognize in the affective weaknesses of our most disturbed patients. But it was above all the affect-discharge relationship which was called in question by Glover (1939) and Brierley(1937). Glover pursued his research towards what Freud, as early as 1915, had called 'affective constructions' but which he would later prefer to define in terms of fusionof affects. The affects Glover took an interest in, probably under the influence of Melanie Klein: bursting, explosive affects of disintegrationare familiar to us today. His description should, in my opinion, be understood in his general conception of the nuclei of the ego. It is with Brierley (1937) that affect will find its best advocate. She was one of the first to understand that one speaks of object cathexes rather than of affective charge of ideas and to underline the inadequacy of the quantitative standpoint. This article reflects remarkably the tendency of the English school to tie primaryaffective development to object relations. The cathexis precedes differentiation and cognitive discrimination. We see that, for writers of the English school, it is not a question of pushing affect back towards biology but, rather, of setting it in a framework of a primitive sensibility, the vestiges of which must be sought by the analyst in the analytic situation through the transference and countertransference. Paula Heimann (1950) demonstrated its role as an affective instrument, which implies that the analyst does not retreat in the face of his own involvement in the relationship and that he undertakes to investigate his own affects as empathic echoes of those of the analysand, and that he lives them in a sort of identification with the self of the analysand or identification with the effect that the self wishes to have on the object. In this sense Brierley's article really opens a new era in the understanding of affect. According to her, the construction of primary affects is linked to their carriers. We are reminded of Winnicott's concept of 'holding'. The recognized role of the primitive mechanisms of introjection and projection as well as the correlations which result from the ego's relations with the good and bad objects are clearly described here. Rather than defend an idea of psychic maturity which might smack of normative morality, she remarks, on the contrary, that no one completes ego integration. There is no doubt about the existence of unconscious affects, or of 'pre-affects', as she puts it. In any case affective language is older than speech. This observation, already made by Freud, is retained in our idea of an affective language. Rycroft (1968) had already pointed out that one of the peculiarities of affects was that they were felt by others and that they induced in other people identical or opposing reactions. And one can subscribe unreservedly to Brierley's formula when she designates the qualities necessary to analytic practice as those of a 'combination of intelligent insight and affective comprehension'. If only a few indications of Melanie Klein's influence are to be found in Brierley's article, one must acknowledge that her thinking has a great influence on her colleagues in the British
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Society. She has written little about affect but she has stated that the imagery which she uses to describe the functioning of the psychic apparatus relates to what she calls, for want of a better term: 'memories in feelings' (M. Klein, 1957). One might think that Melanie Klein has substituted for the classical Freudian opposition ofrepresentation and affect, the elementary unity of fantasied affect underlying what the patient says. Melanie Klein's work is undoubtedly important because of what it contains in itself, but it is even more so because of the impetus she has given to others. Bion, at the heart of the Kleinian group, placed affects in a state of connexion with thought. In the patient's mouth 'I feel that' substitutes for 'I think that' (Bion, 1963). Bion demonstrates in depth how massive amounts of affect, expelled by projective identification, return to the psychic apparatus, which is incapable of mastering these excessive quantities of accretions, which forbid thinking of the no-breastand alter the development of thought. Fairbairn (1952), taking his distance from the Kleinian system, seems above all to challenge the unconscious fantasying whichMelanie Klein uses to picture the infantile psyche. So the paradox is that, in putting more accent on schizoid factors in the personality, that is to say on the defences against expression of affect, he penetrates more deeply into the affective universe by making a radical break with Freud's biologically inclined thinking. In this respect his studies of hysteria have value as a paradigm. The question of orthodoxy or heterodoxy in Fairbairn seems to me secondary to the progress which he enables psychoanalysts to accomplish, who, like Winnicott, saw their work more as an extension of that of Freud. Winnicott (1945), without having strictly speaking elaborated a conception of affect, only talks in fact about primary affective development. The importance that Winnicott accords in treatment to affects in the

two partners in the analytic situation, led him to write his lucid article on 'Hate in the Countertransference' (1949). His approach leads to the thought that, no more than the analytic process can ignore the analyst's affects, the conception of developmentin the first place affective development cannot exclude the mother's affects and her capacity to tolerate, sustain and relay the affective messages to the baby, in a form which can be integrated by his self. Henceforth any conception of affect leaves its individualisolation and enters into the setting of affective communications whose specificity remains to be defined. With Winnicott it is not only the way of conceiving affectwhich changes, but there is also a new inspirational thought which replaces the specialized terminology of the category of affects, by reference to the living experience of the analytic climate, at those moments when regression draws the two partners into a world where it is no longer pertinent to talk of affect as an isolated fact. No more, according to him, than it seems adequate to use in analytic communication Kleinian fantasy structures, which, when communicated to the patient, impose on his living experience a restriction which is potentially damaging to the development of the process in the analytic setting. In the first place this is because these interpretations only permit the patient to make sense of what he lives at the expense of a depersonalization of the relationship, and imprisonment within the interpretative matrices which translate the unknown into the already known, and are revealed as inappropriate to a mode of relating in which the analyst, by his tolerance of the regressive needs of the patient, might facilitate evolution by declining to fix the experience in a mould which limits his freedom of movement in his psychic functioning. For the patients, who are dependent on affective communication, seem to need a sharing of their experience, which does not mean collusion with it, in a nonintrusive exchange which gives them a feeling of existence, in which sufficient space can be formed, albeit manufactured space, for their silent self, and where the defensive meaning of their state can be acquired without there being a compression of their inner world. It is quite possible that the functioning of the psychic apparatus described by Kleinian authors is largely correct. But this correctness is the product of a certain point of view which hides the only question which interests us: namely, how to modify this functioning. This implies that specific powers of communication with the patient should be found which are not unacceptable to him and which require a modification of the means of perception by which we apprehend
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the patient and simultaneously an interpretative technique which does not speak to him from the outside, even if it seeks to communicate what is most intimate to him. What can be admitted by the patient must conform, at least in part, to the way in which he received in himself the gifts of his internal world, as well as those of theexternal world. That is what springs from the contributions emerging from the way opened by Winnicott with Milner (1968) and Khan (1969), (1971).

3. Affect and language in the theoretical debates in France

If it is true that the problem of affect has been tackled above all in France in the context of the controversies around the work of Lacan, two points of view outside this debate must nevertheless be mentioned. Mallet (1969) remains faithful to the classical Freudian conception. The interest of his work rests on two points: on the one hand, the division between appetitive affects (affects appetitifs) and inhibitory affects, of which anxiety is the prototype, which give rise to the division between affectsaccepted by the ego and affects refused by the ego, and on the other hand, the distinction between appetitive affects and reactive affects (affects ractionnels). The complexity connected with affects comes from the fact that it is affect which enables the ego to experience itself by means of its feeling-states and in its relationship to the body. It is, therefore, information for the ego, but information which puts it under an obligation to take up a position. On the other hand, it gets out of the control of the ego which can inhibit action but is constrained to let itself be 'inflamed' by the affect. Whilst the ego can defend itself against the drive by modifications of aim and substitutions of object, defences against affect do not offer the same possibilities of a disguise which also allows indirect satisfactions. It is also by escaping control thataffect assumes value for other people as a communication, which necessitates new defensive measures insofar as it carries inopportune and untimely messages. It is understood that the circuit of affective exchanges between their source (the id) and their domain (the ego), and at the very heart of the ego in relation to the object, gives rise to conflictual tensions more ungovernable than in the case of representations.

Whilst Mallet describes affective functioning at the most general level, Bouvet (1956) endeavours to define the distinctive characteristics of the pregenitalstructures, where the massive, stormy nature of affects is in the foreground. They express absolute demands, unencumbered by nuances and permeated with excessive projections. Like Valenstein, he notes the defensive character of emotional discharge in which affect is dissipated by the discharge so as to avoid elaboration, and the intense revival is accompanied by no work in depth but seeks immediate relief by exteriorization. In fact it is affective lability rather than the intensity of the dischargewhich is responsible for this kind of resistance. The interest of Lacan's (1966) study lies partly in its stimulation of studies of affect. In spite of more and more numerous translations of Lacan's work and the interest aroused by them, this author's thinking remains, on the whole, not very well known. It is not my intention to examine it in detail in this paper, but only to pinpoint his position as regards affect. From this point of view we must remember that Lacan's fundamental thesis, 'The Unconscious is structured like a language', shows links with changing ideas about structuralism in recent years, which has almost nothing in common with the meaning of the structural point of view in contemporary psychoanalysis. Lacan explicitly and clearly maintained that it was fruitless to try to give conceptual status to affect as an expression of undifferentiated psychic functioning (Lacan, 1966, p. 799). The originality of Lacan's position in modern structuralizing comes from his conception of the signifier (le signifiant). This term, which F. de Saussure uses to designate one of the two parts which together compose the sign (the other being what is signified, le signifi) refers to the unity of phonic matter and becomes, in the Lacanian system, the atomic element of the modality of meaning itself in the Unconscious, whose functioning enables us to hypothesize retroactively about the subject. Subject and structure are thus in a dialectic relationship. There is no sense in placing the subject outside the functioning of the structure. According to him, it is important to distinguish
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significance, attached to the performance of consciousness, from the action of the signifier (signifiant). Another of his formulae which has attained fame is: 'the signifier(signifiant) is that which represents a subject for another signifier'. Schematically, there are two 'atomic unities' (unites atomiques) of meaning between which an agent intervenes. The agent is considered in the perspective of the Unconscious but supposes a relationship as in every intelligible connexion and is represented by the very fact that there is a relationship. Finally, Lacan takes up again, in his system, the fundamental theoretical fact of psychoanalysis which Freud calls binding (when he talks of energy) or association (when he talks of analytic material) whilst seeking to give it a conceptual base. Basically, this procedure appears perfectly correctbut it is faulty insofar as Lacan seems obliged to lean on the structure of language to make his theoretical system work. If he is obliged to do it, it is certainly because, for modern linguistics, the classification of signifiers, in the Saussurian sense, is nothing other than the structuring of the system. The question is to know whether thedependence on words of the essential elements in analytic communication is sufficient to justify the creation of a psychoanalytic model whose paradigm is language, even if Lacan's model departs from the type of model which the paradigm relates to in linguistics. For example, one cannot rule out that the future of linguistic research I am thinking of Chomsky's (1968) concept of the underlying structuremay come to consider the connexion of the matrices of language in their relationship to matrices foreign to the language, which might require a revision of the theory of information starting from the concept of a plurality of codes. A psychoanalyst might at this point interpose, alongside the problem of the interaction and the intermingling of the diverse codes amongst each other, the essential hypothesis of conflict. This is a tendency which seems to be indicated in recent interdisciplinary confrontations from which psychoanalysts have unfortunately been missing (the Centre Royaumont Conference, see Morin & Piatelli-Palmarini, 1974). Analysts who have not accepted the postulates of this psychoanalytic approach have sought to show its inadequacy or inaccuracy by taking up what it leaves out. They have defended a different conception of the connexions between the drive and the unconscious (de M'Uzan, 1967a), (1967b), or have re-established the right of affect to better consideration in relation to clinical experience. Thus, David (1966), (1967a), (1967b) even described a new clinical phenomenon which he called 'affective perversion' (David, 1972) where the process of auto-affectation and the pleasure drawn from the bottling-up of affective consummation is preferred to the realization of instinctual impulses. Viderman (1970) reminded us of the indissociable activity of force and meaning in analytic experience and

indicated precisely that the place of language in psychoanalysis could not be conceptualized within the framework of linguistics. My own position (Green, 1962), (1966), (1970), (1973) differs from those who have gone before in that I attempt a critique of the Lacanian system on the basis of its own hypotheses, some of which are accepted by myself. For it is not sufficient to defend affects as if the situation were the product of some neglect on the part of the Lacanian system. On the contrary, this system must be approached as a sign of the necessity to re-evaluate certain of its principal positions. It stresses that takinglanguage as a frame of reference for the Unconscious obliges us to take account of the situation in which words are faced with communicating about an experience which by definition is impossible to translate into words. I underline that if the analysand makes himself known by his words, it is completely impossible to give the words equal weight because of the different states of mind in which they are spoken. So in any case, reference to language implies a homogenous body of phonemes to sentences and a unified structure which is that of language itself. However, the Unconscious is constituted of heterogeneous elements: representations of things andaffects constitute its core. But this core relates to the body, to action and to language. Hence the existence of chains of representations of things and words, affects,body-states and actions. As Freud (1913, p. 177) says: 'the unconscious speaks more than one dialect'. If one considers all the material not as signals but as meanings, one sees that, on the one hand, this borrowed term
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implies such an extension that it cannot belong to the vocabulary of linguistics, and that the 'chain of signifiers' (Lacan: chaine signifiante) implies the heterogeneity of the signifiers. I draw from this the theoretical consequence that since a semantic (rather than cognitive) function is accorded to affect, affect should take the place of meaning, if we cannot find another replacement term to designate the sense element, the word 'sense' being employed here, of course, in the setting of a structural psychoanalytic semantic. The participation of affective forms of communication in analytic material need not lead to language communication and non-verbalcommunication being set in opposition by cutting them off from each other but, on the contrary, should lead to a search for their common foundations from which diverse modes of intelligibility assume different modalities. All this implies the study of different types of liaison or concatenation and conflictual interaction which results from it, and which is itself subordinate to the fundamental conflicts of the psychic apparatus, which our conceptual tools translate unskilfully into theory, obliging us to make more or less appropriate theoretical choices. Take as examples the ego and adaptation in Hartmann, unconscious fantasy and object relations in M. Klein, the being and the experience in Winnicott. Reference to language, if it has the merit of putting the accent on the structure which is indeed of decisive importance insofar as it relates to the structure of unconscious intelligibility avoids the essential questions posed by structuration: What can be structured, by what, by whom? to arrive at what type(s) (in the singular or the plural) of structuring? Is it necessary to finish up with a more general structure, a place to accommodate the diverse structuringsor should one, on the other hand, accept the juxtaposition of structures which do not communicate with each other except by intermittent links? What is the meaning of pragmatic, if not theoretical, reference to the notion of integration in psychoanalysis? Is it only a question of a meeting between the subject and his structure, or is some new functioning installed? All these questions lead back to the process of meaning in relation to the Other. But, then, the process of meaning is linked to the existence of the 'chains' of affect, a reformulation of Freud's concept of 'binding' whether this applies to energy or to representations. However, this chain is not as in linear language: it is at the same time polygraphic (by virtue of the heterogeneity of the material in the communication) and polyphonic, putting diverse types of code into communication with each other: affective, representative and linguistic. This structure implies that affect is understood, like language, as a product of psychic work. Indeed, the economic point of view cannot, in these circumstances, be understood only as the expression of quantity but, rather, as the principle of transformation of quantities and of quantities and qualities between each other. Language without affect is a dead language: and affect without language is uncommunicable. Language is situated between the cry and the silence. Silence often makes heard the cry of psychic pain and behind the cry the call of silence is like comfort. Clinical structures demonstrate convincingly that affect does not play there the role that Freud restrictively assigned to it, and that one must distinguish the different types of danger to which the defence mechanisms have found more or less precarious solutions. There are no doubt connexions

between castration anxiety and unthinkable anxieties, fear of annihilation, and of nameless dread, but it is the differences which are important to us. The same observation can be made of positiveaffect, the theoretical elaboration of which has not been pursued to the same extent, because it apparently poses less of a problem to the analyst. But is is significant that the field of perversion attracts our attention today in a very different way (Stoller, 1975). Lacan's concept of the symbolic as the key to the Unconscious system would be much more acceptable if it could be related to a paradigm other than that of language, but one which makes language possible. This seems to have been best understood by Winnicott (1971). In fact it is certainly because this concept is indispensable to any authentic renewal of theory that criticism of the exclusion of affectbecomes a serious one. In the end I distinguish two types of affect: 1. Affect which is integrated as solid material into the other significant material in the unconscious
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(and preconscious) chainin this case affect is subordinated to the organization of the chain and its meaning lies in the sequence which it belongs to. Hereaffect takes on the function of signifier (signifiant) like the representation or any other material coming into unconscious formations. 2. By its intensity and its meaning (signification) affect overflows from the unconscious chain, like a river which leaves its bed and disorganizes communications, destroying the sense-making structures. In this second case, we are dealing not with a signal affect in the ego, but perhaps with real instinctual impulses from the id which have broken the ego's barriers and are advancing in force towards the heart of the ego in the manner of a Blitzkrieg. The disorganization of the chain is responsible for the traumatic affect which may paralyse or have a tendency towards compulsive action, if they do not bring in their wake a reaction of stupefied immobility. Thus in the preceding case, affect remains in the framework of a relationship susceptible totransformation by the work of elaboration in analytic association. In the second case, however, the possibilities of analysisat least classical analysisare overrun, driving the patient into defences which disable his psychic life. If it is easy to agree with Lacan (1973) when he seems to imply that the problem of affect is linked to a body 'whose natural habitat is language', the question remains untouched insofar as there exists no consensus on the relationship between psychic reality and the bodyde M'Uzan (1970) presented a psychoanalyticalconception of this relationship in a dynamic perspective, surely guided by his competence in psychosomatics, when he differentiated between affect as a psychic phenomenon and psychosomatic economy (cf. also McDougall, 1974). The reader will doubtless not fail to be struck by the fact that I make as little reference as possible to the hypotheses of child development for the comprehension of affective phenomena, which seems strange and, to say the least, paradoxical. I abstain from it on purpose, in order not to add to the confusion which appears to me to reign in this domain. This confusion consists in mixing a model of understanding analyticcommunication with the implicit hypothesis of its relation to the earliest history of development. Discussions about the necessity for distinguishing between repetitionof the past and later restructuring of this past add nothing to our understanding, but simply reveal our temptation continually to bring our difficulties in conceptualizing what goes on in the actualization of communication back to a temportal conception of unconscious psychic mechanisms which is only a little bit psychoanalytical in nature. The here and now is not the alternative solution, for it rests on the same implications: only the technique is different.

PERSONAL COMMENTS
If I can be allowed to end this contribution by some pointers towards the orientation of future research, I would like to underline the following points: Because Freud has characterized affects as discharge processes, there has often been a tendency to understand them as physiological phenomena accompanied by their corresponding psychical expression as a whole. In fact, a simplification has taken place, replacing a more subtle conception present in Freud's work, even though his explanatory hypotheses remain doubtful. In his 'Introductory Lectures' (Freud 1917c) we find the most precise definition: And what is affect in the dynamic sense? It is in any case something highly composite. An affect includes in the first place particular motor innervations or discharges and secondly

certain feelings; the latter are of two kindsperceptions of the motor actions that have occurred and the direct feelings ofpleasure and unpleasure which, as we say, give the affect its keynote (p. 395) This distinction between the sensation of the internal movement and the quality of affect seems, at first sight, of little importance. It may be significant in those patients whose analysis shows difficulties related to a fear of being invaded by their affective experience. The character of strange indetermination of their affectsappears to them dreadful, threatening their relationships with their objects. In this case, it may be less the quality of the affect, frequently felt as inexpressible or unutterable, what is the source of their discomfort, than the feeling of the internal movement and of its
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tendency towards diffusion. The appearance of a more specified affect of unpleasure of the destructive type, whether projected or not, seems to be an attempt to stop the diffusion more than the fullest expression of the original affective quality. The above quoted descriptive statement is not enough. This was also Freud's own impression about his definition: But I do not think that with this enumeration we have arrived at the essence of an affect. We seem to see deeper in the case of some affects and to recognize that the core which holds the combination we have described together is the repetition of some particular significant experience. This experience could only be a very early impression of a very general nature, placed in the prehistory not of the individual but of the species (Freud, 1917c, pp. 3956). He then alludes to the well-known analogy between the construction of affect and that of hysterical attacks, of which he reminds us here as he will repeat it later on. But what we have to retain from it, is their function of reminiscence. Therefore one can only be surprised when in 'Constructions in Analysis' (Freud, 1937) he gives toaffects, to affective impulses and emotional connexions, a great significance in the material and does not evoke this very function when he comes to the question of the different types of remembering. The reason for this seems to lie in the fact that Freud, at that point, identifies the affect with the 'upward drive' partly expressed in the compulsive belief in the delusions. In this instance one could understand that the fear of the perception of the internal movement is linked with affective diffusionand not only because of its quality, but more on account of the delusional potentiality of the diffusion. The hypothesis of the phylogenic nature of affect, though open to doubt, underlines the fact that if the ego is the seat of affects, what it may be forced to admit within itself is of the most alien nature as compared with its structure. On the other hand, the idea of an affective status belonging to a model comparable to hysterical attacks enables us to think that the more primitive affects do not derogate them from the claim to a complex form of organization. The whole question seems to me to lie in the wasteland between the two types of affects, already sensed by Freud, and in respect of which I have put forward a theoretical reformulation: affect with a semantic function as an element in the chain of signifiers (chaine signifiant), and affect overflowing the concatenation and spreading as it breaks the links in the chain. The analytic situation offers the opportunity for a meeting with an object, resulting in the birth of a projective transference, which finds its meaning in situ, and which the analyst enables the patient to reintegrate into his communication by making it retroactively acceptable in the analytic setting. On the other hand, in difficult cases, the analyst's interpretation has the effect of unleashing an autotraumatic process of internal defence, a reactive defence against an internal void in which intense affect, usually painful, is the only proof of his own existence that the analysand can give himself, and where affect, rather than serve to carry the meaning, takes care of the function of externalizing the self, within the limits of internal space, to all the parts of the psychic apparatus in which the object threatens to intervene inopportunely. It is here that the major conflictualization of affect is revealed. The effects of two distinct phenomena are superimposed upon one another. On the one hand, affects penetrate into the ego, which fears not only their violence or their crudity, but also their contradictory nature like opposite pairs of instinctual impulses. The ego feels endangered by the introduction of these tensions which threaten to compromise the homogeneity which it seeks to establish in its midst. On the other hand, it creates confusion in itself between affect and object cathexis, as if the affect threatened the ego's narcissism necessary for the establishment of the ego's self-observation. This function cannot be suspended in cases where affect leaves a choice only between separation-anxiety, leading to the death

of affect, and anxiety about intrusion, which is experienced as a need to abandon self-observation and let the object take possession, and bring it face to face with projected driveimpulses to which it must submit. The special quality of the analyst as object, and the inevitability of the relationship established with him through the ever-insufficient medium of the movement of words, can only reactivate, in a
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snowball effect, the impossibility of transforming affect into action without shattering the analytic setting, that fragile container of potentially dispersed relatedness. The limits of speech and the formal conventions of language then act only like additional internal excitations which increase internal tension. The solution then appears to be the evasionor to be more accurate, the extravasation of affect, by a series of repetitive internal reactions which modify the functioning of thought. It is not a question of primary process functioning, for if such were the case, the analyst involved in deciphering them would not share the patient's tension. The invasion, the impotence, the distress, all give rise to an internal panic which drives the subject to exceed the limits of psychic space by various mechanisms: confusionwhich is in fact a dissemination and dilution of conflictual tensions; cathartic action operating like a massive affective storm; somatization; perverse excitation; or the overcathexis of external perception which monopolizes all psychic attention. All these manoeurves arise from an attempt at dissociation and splitting, which can function in an isolated state resulting in the installation of a dead space in the heart of the subject. I am aware that I am not going beyond the level of a descriptivemetaphor in this attempt at clarification. It is tempting to think that all these defensive operations correspond to unconscious fantasies and to attribute an important role to projective identification. To that, I would reply that our theory of projection still masks many obscurities that I refuse to raise by schematizations, which often lead analysts to mirror, in their scientific contributions, the psychic activity of the patients who put us in difficulties, by recourse to stereotypes which become a kind of acting out in the theory. It seems important to underline that unconscious fantasies are psychic elaborations which require work to have been accomplished by the psychic apparatus. Patients' functioning as it appears through their material, makes one think that, if the crudest unconscious fantasies described by Kleinian writers were at the disposal of thepsychic apparatus, these patients would not need to present the transference reactions which they show us. I think that there are serious disadvantages in the hypothesis that the translation of communications to the analyst into interpretations couched in terms of unconscious fantasies, has precisely the aim of promoting work which the patients appear unable to accomplish themselves. Instead of giving rein to the relationship, and creating a feeling of freedom in the patient, the relief from the invasion of affect seems bound to be paid for by precipitate understanding, which enters upon a straight but narrow way. Interpretations in Kleinian technique come down in the end to saying that such and such an element in the material 'represents' the mother, or the object, and to supplying verbal support intended to induce this representationwhich is not the same as suggesting it. The remarkable understanding of archaic structures by the followers of M. Klein is not in question, nor are their therapeutic intentions. The real problem is to recognize that the representation, which is in effect indispensable material for mental elaboration, must by formed by psychic work in which there can be no short-cuts, and which cannot be accomplished by the analyst's communicating 'ready made' representations (i.e. the verbalization of unconsciousfantasies). This elaboration of the representation remains at the centre of our analytic work and we should recognize this from the fact that, more than three-quarters of a century after the invention of psychoanalysis, we still consider that the dream (nightmares included), whatever approach we have to it, remains a personal creation of psychic activity, whose value as a pointer to the capacity of the psychic apparatus for work, remains irreplaceable. For the problem is not to inject representations already elaborated by someone else, but to favour the processes which will enable these representations to be put at the disposition of the analysand. One of the paradoxes in these complex affective structures is that, whilst they are themselves under the influence of the most massive primitive and archaic reactions, they remain extremely sensitive to the nuances of the most subtle and differentiated qualities of affect in other people. That is to say these qualities can be intuitively recognized in someone else without the subject being able to take the risk of adopting them for himself.
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The problem is therefore to help the patient to distinguish in his internal psychic reality, a representation of the other person, so that co-existence with him can become an experience that will not

cease to be conflictual, but which will be conflictual in a tolerable and mutually desirable way. This is only possible through an awakening of the self to psychic reality and by the establishment of live intrapsychic communication. What seems to separate our point of view from Freud's, as far as affect is concerned, is not, in my opinion, what has been called his hydraulic model of the psychic apparatus, nor his references to biology or the economic point of view. On these questions, his formulations impede us more than his ideas. By contrast, it seems that where we differ from him considerably is over his postulation that 'all presentations originate from perceptions and are repetitions of them' (Freud, 1925, p. 237). Today I think that we would accord a much larger role to affects in the transformation of mnemic traces, if not in their creation. We implicitly question ourselves on the mnemic traces of affective experiences. It is possible that the problem lies in the fact that the psychic apparatus registers the traces of affective experiences before it is ready to establish mnemic traces of perceptions and that the whole aim of the work is to separate out the representations from the contradictory affective infiltrations, whose general tendency is towards diffusion, whilst the representations seek articulation. Supplying content to what is experienced only in unrepresentable form, is a fundamental task of the psychic apparatus. If content is connected to sense, we must nevertheless remember that nonsense has two different meanings: chaos andnothingness. The confusion of these two is at the root of many of our misunderstandings. For sense to emerge from the dilemma requires us to abandon our theoretical preconceptions, which have now demonstrated their heuristic limitations. For my part, I see no way out of our difficulties except by research into what I call primary symbolization, where the matrices of experience, unaware of the distinction between affectand representation, are formed on the basis of a primary logic, the expression of a minimal unconscious semantic, where we would find the figures of psychoanalytic rhetoric: repetitioncompulsion, reversal (turning into the opposite and turning against the self), anticipation, mirroring, inclusion, exclusion, formation of the complement, mediation between inside and outside, the emergence of the category of intermediary, the situation between the same and the other, the constitution of movable limits, temporary splitting, the creation of substitutes, the setting up of screens and finally projective identification. The reader will notice that I can only indicate the direction of current research. These are the prerequisites for connexions between symbolization and absence, as indicated in my London Congress paper(Green, 1975). In order to comprehend the reason of the irrational, we must rid ourselves of the psychoanalytic realism which infiltrates all our theories, even those which we judge the most unreal. And if we are in agreement in saying that for our patients it is a question of transforming a mode of survival into a living experience, we will not achieve this result by our good intentions alone, nor by our intuitive abilities. We shall only achieve it by doing justice to that complexity of the human mind, which Freud taught us how to reach, by breaking with the routines of traditional thought. I recall, in conclusion, that sentence from the 'Project' which was to guide our thoughts: 'Thus quantity in is expressed by the complication in ' (Freud, 1950b, p. 515). It is for us to draw out the implications of that statement from contemporary clinical experience.

SUMMARY
By way of summary, it can be said that Freud's study of affect started from a point of view founded on coherent symptomatic groupings of neurotic symptoms, as a criterion for a discriminating study of the different vicissitudes of representations and affect, in the realms of the Conscious and Unconscious. As his work unfolded and his clinical experience grew, he progressively came to reverse the balance, in his final drive theory and the second topographical model, in favour of affects in relationto representations, as sell as extending the role of anxiety and differentiating aspects of it. Above all, he began to think of the drive as more and more independent
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of the idea of content. If it is true that he came to recognize the value of the notion of quality (in pleasurable and unpleasurable states) late in the day; the economicpoint of view, on the other hand, was to be constantly recalled, so that its importance should not be neglected. Finally, his last period of work was to be marked by aninsistence on the primitive distress of the young child, on the general psychological immaturity of the ego at birth and on a shift of emphasis towards the primary object, which, in the first part

of his work, was conceived primarily as an object of pleasure (and a force for repression) and subsequently became an object of survival, for building the ego up against the disorganizing power of the drives when it failed against them. Nevertheless, Freud remains faithful to the end to the opposition ofrepresentation and affect. In the second period, a new way of seeing the problems developed. The development of categories of syndromes no longer constituted the pertinent boundaries for evaluating psychic functioning. If allusion is still made to them, it is in order to stress the differences between the classical neuroses and clinical aspects of modern practice, where differentiated groups of syndromes carry less interest than types of functioning which are no longer distinguished in nosographical terms but according to general types of structure (character neuroses, limited states, depression, psychotic or psychosomatic structures, etc.). Whilst reference continues to be made to the substance of the second topographical model, clinical formulations are more often made in terms of object relations and defence mechanisms. The distinction betweenaffect and representations gave way to another distinction, implicitly considered to be more in accord with the analytic situationthat between cathexis andunconscious fantasy, whilst one theme emerged predominant: the study of the prehistory of the motherchild relationship, examined from different angles and in different ways, but with affective factors to the fore. Finally, the concept of the self emerged from various directions, having been, so to speak, suppressed by the object-relations approach. Similarly, without denying its specificity, the function of fantasy is connoted by that of experience. Both are found again in the setting of communication between analyst and patient and inside each of them, which obliges us to consider the value, function, effects and specific modes of the affective exchanges at the core of mental functioning, and of the changes which appear desirable in the context of transformations expected in analyses. But then the question arises about the different sorts of meaning carried in thematerial, the different means of transmitting them, and the type of response which they induce or call for in the analyst. All of which comes down to three questions: What is the most appropriate form of response to the patient's affective communication, in order to secure better intrapsychic communication in him? What sort of logic is implied by this type of exchange on both sides? What is the connexion between affect in this relationship and what might be called affective logic?

REFERENCES
2BION, W. R. 1963 Elements of Psychoanalysis London: Heinemann. []

BION, W. R. 1977 Emotional turbulence (Unpublished paper, presented at the Topeka Conference on 'Borderline disorders', 1976) BLAU, A. 1955 A unitary hypothesis of emotion: I. Anxiety, emotions of displeasure and affective disorders Psychoanal. Q. 24:75-103 [] BOUVET, M. 1956 La clinique psychanalytique: la relation d'objet In Oeuvres psychanalytiques vol. 1 Paris: Payot, 1967 BOUVET, M. 1960 Dpersonnalisation et relations d'objet In Oeuvres psychanalytiques vol. 1 Paris: Payot, 1967 BRENNER, C. 1974 On the nature and development of affects: a unified theory Psychoanal. Q. 43:532556 [] BRENNER, C. 1975 Affects and psychic conflict Psychoanal. Q. 44:5-28 [] BREUER, J. & FREUD, S. 1893-5 Studies on hysteria S.E. 2 [] BRIERLEY, M. 1937 Affects in theory and practice In Trends in Psychoanalysis London: Hogarth Press, 1951 CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO, P. 1974a Affects, sensory experience, and time: a clinical view (Unpublished paper, presented at panel on 'Toward a theory of affects'; summarized in CastelnuovoTedesco, 1974b) CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO, P. (reporter) 1974b [Panel on] Toward a theory of affects J. Am. Psychoanal. Assoc. 22:612-625 [] CHOMSKY, N. 1968 Language and Mind New York: Harcourt, Brace. DAVID, C. 1966 Reprsentation, affect, fantasmes (Roneotyped manuscript, Enseignement de l'Institut de Psychanalyse.)

2 Here I give an almost complete list of references on affect, some of which are not mentioned in the text. The

interested reader can consult my book Le Discours vivant(Green, 1973) in which the first two chapters are devoted to a detailed critical analysis of Freud's notion of affect (chapter 1) and to most of the studies which, owing to lack of space, it has not been possible to refer to in this paper (chapter 2).
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HEIMANN, P. 1950 On counter-transference Int. J. Psychoanal. 31:81-84 [] JACOBSON, E. 1953 The affects and their pleasure-unpleasure qualities in relation to the psychic discharge processes In R. M. Loewenstein (ed.), Drives, Affects, Behavior vol. 1 New York: Int. Univ. Press. JOFFE, W. G. & SANDLER, J. 1968 Comments on the psychoanalytic psychology of adaptation, with special reference to the role of affects and the representational world Int. J. Psychoanal. 49:445454 [] JONES, E. 1929 Fear, guilt and hate Int. J. Psychoanal. 10:383-397 [] KAYWIN, L. 1960 An epigenetic approach to the psychoanalytic theory of instincts and affects J. Am. Psychoanal. Assoc. 8:613-658 [] KHAN, M. M. R. 1969 Vicissitudes of being, knowing and experiencing in the therapeutic situation In Khan 1974 KHAN, M. M. R. 1971 'To hear with eyes' In Khan 1974 KHAN, M. M. R. 1974 The Privacy of the Self London: Hogarth Press. KLEIN, G. 1967 Peremptory ideation structure and force in motivation In R. Holt (ed.), Motives and Thoughts New York: Int. Univ. Press. KLEIN, M. 1957 Envy and Gratitude London: Tavistock Publ. [] LACAN, J. 1966 Ecrits Paris: Le Seuil. LACAN, J. 1973 Television Paris: Le Seuil. LAGACHE, D. 1958 Vues psychanalytiques sur les motions Psychol. franc. 3 66-75
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LANDAUER, K. 1938 Affects, passions and temperament Int. J. Psychoanal. 19:388-415 [] LAPLANCHE, J. & PONTALIS, J.-B. 1967 Vocabulaire de la Psychanalyse Paris: Presses Univ. de France. LAPLANCHE, J. & PONTALIS, J.-B. 1973 The Language of Psychoanalysis [trans. of Laplanche & Pontalis, 1967 ] London: Hogarth Press. [] LEWIN, B. 1964 Reflections on affect In M. Schur (ed.), Drive, Affects, Behavior vol. 2 New York: Int. Univ. Press. LFGREN, L. B. 1964 Excitation, anxiety, affect: some tentative reformulations Int. J. Psychoanal. 45:280-283 [] LFGREN, L. B. (reporter) 1968 [Panel on] Psychoanalytic theory of affects J. Am. Psychoanal. Assoc. 16:638-650 [] MALLET, J. 1969 Formation et devenir des affects In La Thorie Psychanalytique Paris: Presses Univ. de France. McDOUGALL, J. 1970 The psycho-soma and the psychoanalytic process Int. J. Psychoanal. 1:437459 [] MILNER, M. 1968 The Hands of the Living God London: Hogarth Press. MODELL, A. H. 1971 The origin of certain forms of pre-oedipal guilt and the implications for a psychoanalytic theory of affects Int. J. Psychoanal. 52:337-346 [] MOORE, B. E. 1968 Some genetic and developmental considerations in regard to affects (Unpublished paper, presented at panel on 'Psychoanalytic theory of affects'; summarized in Lfgren, 1968.) MOORE, B. E. 1974 Toward a theory of affects: the affects in search of an idea (Unpublished paper, presented at panel on 'Toward a theory of affects'; summarized in Castelnuovo-Tedesco, 1974b.) MORIN, E. & PIATELLI-PALMARINI, M. 1974 L'Unit de l'Homme Paris: Le Seuil. M'UZAN, M. DE 1967a Discussion of J. Rouart, 'Les notions d'investissement et contrainvestissement' Rev. Fran. Psychanal. 31 238-240 M'UZAN, M. DE 1967b Exprience de l'inconscient L'Inconscient No. 4 35-54 M'UZAN, M. DE 1970 Affect et processus d'affectation. Discussion of A. Green, 'L'affect' Rev. Fran. Psychanal. 34 1197-1202 NOVEY, S. 1959 A clinical view of affect theory in psychoanalysis Int. J. Psychoanal. 40:94-104 [] NOVEY, S. 1961 Further considerations on affect theory in psychoanalysis Int. J. Psychoanal. 42:2131 [] PETO, A. 1967 On affect control Psychoanal. Study Child 22 [] PULVER, S. E. 1971 Can affects be unconscious? Int. J. Psychoanal. 52:347-354 []

RANGELL, L. 1967 Psychoanalysis, affects and the 'human core': on the relationship of psychoanalysis to the behavioural sciences Psychoanal. Q. 36:172-202 [] RANGELL, L. 1968 A further attempt to resolve the 'problem of anxiety' J. Am. Psychoanal. Assoc. 16:371-404 [] RANGELL, L. 1974 Affects and the signal process (Unpublished paper, presented at panel on 'Toward a theory of affects'; summarized in Castelnuovo-Tedesco, 1974b.) RAPAPORT, D. 1942 Emotions and Memory New York: Int. Univ. Press, 1950 RAPAPORT, D. 1953 On the psychoanalytic theory of affects Int. J. Psychoanal. 34:177-198 [] RYCROFT, C. 1968 Imagination and Reality London: Hogarth Press. SANDLER, J. 1972 The role of affects in psychoanalytic theory In Physiology, Emotion & Psychosomatic Illness (Ciba Foundation Symposium 8, new series). Amsterdam-London-New York: Elsevier, Exc. Med. SAUSSURE, F. DE 1916 Cours de Linguistique Gnrale 5th ed. Paris: Payot, 1960 SCHAFER, R. 1964 The clinical analysis of affects J. Am. Psychoanal. Assoc. 12:175-299 [] SCHMALE, A. H. 1964 A genetic view of affects with special reference to the genesis of helplessness and hopelessness Psychoanal. Study Child 19 [] SCHUR, M. 1960 Phylogenesis and ontogenesis of affect- and structure-formation and the phenomenon of repetition compulsion Int. J. Psychoanal. 41:275-287 [] SCHUR, M. 1968 Comments on unconscious affects and the signal function (Unpublished paper, presented at panel on 'Psychoanalytic theory of affects'; summarized in Lfgren, 1968.) SCHUR, M. 1969 Affects and cognition Int. J. Psychoanal. 50:647-653 [] STEWART, W. 1967 Affects Chapt. 6 in Psychoanalysis: The First Ten Years, 1888-1898 New York: Macmillan. STOLLER, R. 1973 Perversion New York: Pantheon Books. STRACHEY, J. 1966a Editor's Introduction to S. Freud's 'Project for a scientific psychology' S.E. 1 [] STRACHEY, J. 1966b Appendic C to S. Freud's 'Project for a scientific psychology' S.E. 1 [] VALENSTEIN, A. F. 1962 Affects, emotional reliving, and insight in the psychoanalytic process [Contribution to Symposium on 'The psychoanalytic situation'.] Int. J. Psychoanal. 43:315-324 [] VIDERMAN, S. 1970 La construction de l'espace analytique Paris: Denol. WEINSHEL, E. 1968 Some psychoanalytic considerations on moods (Unpublished paper, presented at panel on 'Psychoanalytic theory of affects'; summarized in Lfgren, 1968.)
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Green, A. (1977). Conceptions of Affect. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 58:129-156