The therapeutic aspects of affect

A satisfactory psychoanalytic definition and theory of affects has not yet been evolved. In spite of this, analysts work with affects using, for practical purposes, a common-sense definition leading to a therapeutic advantage in coordinating affective and cognitive structures as they appear in the course of a prolonged analysis. Undoing of defenses facilitates this process, allowing the ego's integrative capacities to function more adequately and satisfactorily in relation to inner and outer reality. A developmental hierarchy of affects emerges in this way ranging from primitive--all or none--affective experiences to adult, modified expression of such ego experiences. A brief historical survey of the changing forms of the theory of affects is included, as are clinical vignettes illustrating the therapeutic aspects of dealing with affective expression in the psychoanalytic situation. The therapeutic gains of such work comes about through the integration of earlier affective experiences into more developed cognitive structures allowing a variety of ego functions greater control over adult experiences.