The Preconceptual Organization of Emotion

Abstract

The suggestion is made that emotions organized on a preconceptual level are psychic constructs different in kind, as well as degree, from emotions organized on a more abstract conceptual level. For many people the regressive alteration in ego functioning that gives rise to these emotional constructions represents a characterological way of handling conflict. Emotions organized on a preconceptual level and rigidly maintained through primitive defenses ward off a host of fears ranging from castration to dedifferentiation. The shift from the preconceptual world of sensation to the conceptual world of abstraction complements the resolution of oedipal themes and is essential for free and easy movement between reality-based interactions and the imaginary experience of both self- and object representations in the transference. Structural and dynamic aspects of these emotional constructions are discussed and their relation to a person's experience of reality is explored through transference material taken from different points in an analysis. The problem of the analyst's use of concepts to refer to preconcepts is also discussed, as is the issue of enactments.

Points of contact and divergence between psychoanalytic and attachment theories: Is psychoanalytic theory truly different

“…His third level was verbal thought, which he considered the most distant from bodily processes. Similar distinctions have been proposed by Green (1975), Segal (1957), McDougall (1978, and more recently in the United States by Frosch (1995), Busch (1995), and Auerbach (1993;Auerbach and Blatt, 1996).…”

Alexithymia, Negative Feelings in the Patient and Pejorative Feelings in the Clinician

“…Alexithymia, however, was more strongly associated with a low tolerance of negative emotions than use of defense styles, in particular the primitive defense style. These results are consistent with the view that alexithymia is a deficit in psychological functioning comprising not only difficulties in identifying and describing feelings but also the suffering from more intense and negative feelings [1 , 2] that must be warded off with more primitive defense mechanisms [3,13] .…”

Childhood Adversities as Risk Factors for Alexithymia and Other Aspects of Affect Dysregulation in Adulthood

“…In the normal process of development, emotional life is thought to develop qualitatively in a number of hierarchical steps, starting with the act of experiencing undifferentiated physical sensations and a tendency to act out to these sensations until the realization of a complex association of differentiated and subtle feelings and the ability to empathize with others. If the primary caregivers are insufficiently empathic or responsive due to internal predisposition (for example, low frustration tolerance) or external circumstances (for example, long-term illness), this may result in impaired development of the regulation and expression of affects [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. …”