284 Book Reviews / Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 38 (2007) 278316

Solomon, R. (2006). True to our feelings: What our emotions are really telling us.
New York: Oxford University Press, 286 pp., ISBN, 0-19-530672-4, $28.00
(hardcover).
Reviewed by Janet Etzi, Immaculata University
Robert Solomon wrote a book on emotions that brings together what is known
about emotions from the perspectives of neurology, evolutionary psychology, psy-
chology and philosophy. The result is a much larger and deeper understanding of
emotions than is possible when viewed from any one of these disciplines. We are
given a rich understanding of specic emotional experiences like anger, fear and
happiness. In addition, a comprehensive view of emotions as essential to human
nature, the good life and to well-functioning societies is provided. Not only does
Solomons philosophical perspective and writing style give the text depth and
thoughtfulness, it also provides psychology, especially clinical psychology, with a
means of deepening and broadening its questions and analyses. Philosophy can
counterbalance psychologys tendency to ask only empirically testable questions
and this is benecial in the face of psychologys habit of losing sight of the fact that
asking deep and thoughtful questions usually leads to the most fruitful testable
hypotheses.
The book begins with the emotion, anger, to show how an emotion is a way of
engaging the world. Anger tends to be seen as a negative emotion, even dangerous
or sinful. Yet it has a place in our functioning eectively in the worldfor exam-
ple, it helps us in nding justice. When we are wronged unfairly, anger informs us
that we are being treated unfairly and aids us in protecting ourselves. Anger aids
us in lifting us from a one-down to a one-up position and it energizes us. Current
scientic research tells us that anger is common to all human beings, a basic emo-
tion. Solomon denes a basic emotion as one that is essentially neurological (or
rather, neuro-hormonal-muscular) (p. 14). So while we learn that an emotion
like anger is an evolved, neurological response, we also go beyond its physiological
substrate to address other aspects, e.g., subjective experience, thoughts and behav-
iors as being essential to the emotion itself. In other words, anger is a process. It is
a way of interacting with others or with a situation. Solomon characterizes it as a
way of situating oneself in the world (p. 19).
Fear is another basic, universal emotion. Solomon shows it as an engagement
with the world in that it provides information about a dangerous world. Fear, like
all emotions, is not just a self-contained feeling; it is about something. Solomon
works hard to show us that reductionistic understandings of fear are incorrect and
limited. When fear is expanded to a concept of engagement, our ability to see it in
action, and as a psychotherapist to work with it in practice, is strengthened since
its complexity, depth and nuance are all highlighted and illuminated. As a result

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/156916207X234310

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 Book Reviews / Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 38 (2007) 278316 285

of this type of structural analysis of fear, we learn that emotions do not function
in opposition to rationality or cognition. Emotions are necessary to rationality
(p. 36), and we would not be able to think rationally without them. Instead of
dichotomizing emotion and thought, Solomon shows emotion as the ongoing
structure of a persons experience and personality (p. 37).
An important question raised in Chapter 3, Varieties of Fear and Anger: Emo-
tions and Moods, is the following: Is there any single phenomenon that is clearly
designated by the term emotion? Solomons answer: The category of emotions is
indeed something very like a mixed salad (p. 50). He goes on to say that what
emotions have in common is their signifying function in our lives. They tell us
about our own physiological states, they tell us about people and events in our
world, they tell us how the world matters to us. Chapter 3 also includes a history
and some philosophy of the concept of emotions. Currently, the neurology of
emotion is getting the most attention. Therefore, Solomons discussion of psycho-
analytic and existentialist conceptualizations of anxiety is both interesting and
benecial to psychologists and psychotherapists.
Solomon uses a discussion of love as an opportunity to address how the world
is revealed to us in varying ways through emotions. Love reveals the world to us as
wonderful. Love is about beauty and sexual desire (Eros). Love is about identity,
who one is, it is about the self but in relation to an other. Solomon states, What
all forms of love share is a peculiar intentional structure, the conception of ones
self as intertwined and fused with another (p. 60). Not only do emotions involve
and dene the self in relation to others in dierent ways, they involve and dene
the self in relation to the culture at large, and the culture shapes and constitutes
dierent emotions in dierent ways. In Chapter 6, Extremes of Emotion: Grief,
Laughter, and Happiness, it is interesting to think of cultural factors in the con-
stitution and expression of emotions. Our culture over-emphasizes happiness as
an individual emotion but grief is part of a rich, deep emotional life. In analyzing
grief, Solomon points to the importance of distinguishing between what causes
an emotion and what function it plays psychologically. Grief is a way of suering
loss and also a way of keeping love alive. Like love, grief involves a shared self . . .
(p. 76). Mourning rituals reect the cultures in which they exist. American culture
is losing its mourning rituals, reecting a lack of community and the shared
signicance of the loss, also reecting the denial or the inability or unwillingness
to acknowledge the reality of death and inevitable loss. Therefore, in Solomons
discussion of happiness, it is transcended as a simple, individual feeling state. He
explores the dierence between living a happy life and feeling a happy emotion.
He notes the relationship between momentary states and the objective facts of
ones life. As a result of the discussion, we can see a relationship between American
cultures tendency to equate material wealth and possessions with objective proof

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 286 Book Reviews / Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 38 (2007) 278316

of ones success and happiness, and as a result, an impoverished, supercial under-

standing of happiness.
The purpose of Part Two is to move us toward a general theory of the emotions
and Solomon does this by spelling out the many myths about emotions, which
have their roots in folk psychology. It is important to be aware of the folk theories
of emotion and of our common sense understanding of emotion since they form
the basis for more scientic theories. Phenomenology is introduced in Chapter 9,
What an Emotion Theory Should Do, as the study of the structures of experi-
ence. Solomon is interested in observing and exploring what is not obvious to
everyday, common sense awareness. This may be particularly important to do in a
theory of emotions because of the diculty in studying emotions. This diculty
is due to the fact that the way we view, recognize and account for emotions
inuences the experience of those emotions. Emotions cannot be separated from
the language we use to describe them. Moreover, a critical point for Solomon is
that understanding and reecting on emotions is due to the fact that humans are
inherently social beings. Reection, he tells us, turns passive emotion into emo-
tional intelligence or integrity, and is as much a part of being human as having an
emotional experience. Reecting on emotional experience is about taking respon-
sibility for ones emotions, owning ones emotions or knowing oneself in relation
to others and to ones social environment via ones emotions.
In the listing of several myths about emotions, we learn that emotions are in
fact much more complex than mere feelings and that they are not so passively
experienced as the hydraulic model of emotion would suggest. In addition, we see
that emotions are not in the mind, rather they are acts of consciousness. They
involve concepts and conceptualization, values, evaluative judgments, and insight.
Emotional intelligence includes personal and interpersonal skills that are ratio-
nally enacted. We have more choice regarding our emotions than folk psychology
suggests, particularly when addressing the passions.
Solomon explores how emotions t into, give shape to, and function in our
lives. The many variations in emotional experiences indicate their complexity and
nuance. Illuminating the complex nature of emotions helps us to understand
emotional integrity as the unity of emotional life as it is lived in the world. A
central point about emotional integrity is that it can accommodate conict. Indeed,
the ability to manage conict is essential to emotional integrity. Solomons com-
parison of emotional integrity to the existentialist concept of authenticity is useful
here; the latter is less able to manage conict since it does not include the notion
of accommodating or engaging with others and the world. Authenticity happens,
so to speak, within and unto the self.
Solomon leads us to a position where we can address spiritualitys place in our
emotional and psychological lives. Solomon denes spirituality as that which

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 Book Reviews / Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 38 (2007) 278316 287

transcends the merely personal by taking into account our larger place in the
universe (p. 268). Gratitude is taken to be essential to spirituality in that it is
about putting ones life in perspective, not taking oneself too seriously as an auton-
omous, lone individual and appreciating how others come into play in ones life.
Gratitude in turn is viewed as intricately connected to a sense of humility regard-
ing ones place in the world.
The strength of True to Our Feelings includes its weaving together of philo-
sophical, historical, psychological and phenomenological explorations of the emo-
tions, both individual emotions and emotional functioning as a whole. There were
instances of confusion in following Solomons thinking, especially when he ana-
lyzed nuances and complexities of emotion. I lost the overall point at these times
but also found shining philosophical gems regarding the emotions along the way.
After this confusion occurred a couple of times, I learned to trust the author and
sure enough, he reliably tied up all loose ends by the end of each chapter. The
book is a thoughtful articulation of the philosophy and phenomenology of emo-
tions, of the nature of emotional experience and of the function that emotions
serve in our lives, and of what it means be human. The text answers a need within
clinical psychology in that psychotherapists work with lived emotional experience
on truly intimate, personal and ethical dimensions. Their presuppositions about
emotions, those of their own and those of their clients, have far-reaching implica-
tions for the well-being of their clients and for the success of therapy. True to Our
Feelings reminds us of the central role emotions have in our lives and of the impor-
tance of reection on our emotional lives as we work towards increasing emotional
well-being and integrity.

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