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Freuds Theory of Affect: Questions for
NeuroscienceMark Solms
a& Edward Nersessian
b
aAcademic Department of Neurosurgery, Royal London Hospital London E1 1BB, England,
e-mail:b72 East 91st Street, New York, NY 10128, e-mail:
Published online: 09 Jan 2014.
To cite this article:Mark Solms & Edward Nersessian (1999) Freuds Theory of Affect: Questions for Neuroscience,Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 1:1, 5-14, DOI:
10.1080/15294145.1999.10773240
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.1999.10773240
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Freud s Theory of Affect: Questions for
Neuroscience
Mark Solms (London) and
Edward Nersessian (New York)
Our focus on Freud s classical theory of affect for this
preliminary interchange reflects our desire
to
clarify,
in the first instance, the anatomical and physiological
correlates of the
b sic
ideas and
most gener l
concepts
of psychoanalysis. We shall make no attempt here to
address subsequent developments and current theoreti
cal controversies in the psychoanalytic understanding
of affect.
Freud s affect theory is poorly understood and
frequently misrepresented. This is attributable largely
to the fact that he never published a definitive, compre
hensive statement
of
this theory. It evolved in piece
meal fashion, over a long period
of
time (more than
40 years), and his various formulations, which fo
cused now on one aspect of the problem and now on
another, were not always consistent. The following
schematic summary aims only to provide a didactic
outline of the theory as a whole. Therefore our account
focuses on Freud s theoretical conclusions, not the
clinical observations upon which they were based.
Initial Orientation to the Theory
According to Freud, the mental apparatus
s
a whole
serves the biological purpose of meeting the impera
tive internal needs of the subject in a changing (and
largely indifferent) external environment. These needs
are expressed through drives .: quantitative demands
on the mental apparatus to perform work (i.e.,
to
bring
about the specific changes that are necessary to relieve
Mark Solms, Ph.D., is Hon. Lecturer, Academic Department of Neu
rosurgery, St. Bartholomew s and Royal London School of Medicine; and
Associate Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.
Edward Nersessian, M.D., is Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst,
New York Psychoanalytic Institute; and Clinical Associate Professor of
Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College.
current internal needs). The general functioning
of
the
apparatus is governed by a regulatory mechanism
known as the pleasure principle. With this princi
ple,
v lue
is assigned to mental performances ac
cording to a formula whereby the successful meeting
of inner needs in the external world (a quantitative
reduction in drive pressure) is felt qualitatively s
pleasure. Unsuccessful performances or deteriorating
external circumstances (a quantitative increase in
drive tension) is felt qualitatively as unpleasure. This
s the origin and purpose (the evolutionary why? )
of affect. It assigns value to the state
of
the mental
apparatus, by registering its biological consequences
n
consciousness. Although the assigning of affect
value is an innate mechanism crucial for reproductive
survival, it is necessarily registered in the form
of
personal experiences ( what does this mean to
me? .
This feedback
of
affect, in turn, modifies (motivates)
the subsequent behavior of the individual. The mecha
nisms by which this process is achieved (the functional
how? of affect) will now be discussed in detail, in
successive sections.
Affect
Is
an Internally Stimulated Perceptual
Modality
Perhaps the most fundamental
of
Freud s ideas about
affect is the notion that felt emotions are a conscious
perception of
something which is, in itself, uncon
scious. According to Freud, affects are perceived in a
distinctive modality of consciousness that is irreduc
ible to the other perceptual modalities. The qualities
of this modality are calibrated in degrees of
ple sure
and
unple sure
which are distinct from the qualia of
vision, hearing, somatic sensation, taste, and smell.
Affect is further distinguished from the modalities of
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6
vision, hearing, somatic sensation,
l
etc., by the fact
that its adequate stimuli arise from within the subject,
not from the outside world. Felt emotions are the con
scious perceptions of an internal process, although that
process may be triggered by both external and endoge
nous events. If the process is triggered by an external
event, the felt emotion is a perception of the
subjective
response
to that event; it is not a perception of the
external event itself.
Freud s (1926a) paradigmatic
example in this regard was the act of birth, which
apparently arouses anxiety in the neonate, not due to
the perception of an objective danger to life but rather
the perception of a subjective state of helplessness
(need; heightened drive tension).
These two points (i.e., that affect is a perceptual
modality and that it registers the state of the subject
rather than that
of
the object world) are succinctly
stated in the following passages from
The Interpreta-
tion Dreams
(Freud, 1900):
For consciousness, which we look upon in the light
of
a sense organ for the apprehension of psychical
qualities,
is
capable in waking life of receiving excita
tions from two directions. In the first place, it can
receive excitations from the periphery of the whole
[mental] apparatus, the perceptual system; and in ad
dition to this, it can receive excitations of
pleasure or
unpleasure, which prove to be almost the only psychi
cal quality attaching to transpositions
of
energy in the
inside of the apparatus po 574].
The psychical apparatus, which is turned towards the
external world with its sense-organ of the Pcpt. [per
ceptual] systems, is itself the external world in rela
tion to the sense-organ of the
Cs
[conscious system],
whose teleological justification resides in this circum
stance. . . . Excitatory material flows in to the
Cs
sense-organ from two directions: from the Pcpt. sys
tem, whose excitation, determined by qualities, is
probably submitted to a fresh revision before it be
comes a conscious sensation, and from the interior of
the apparatus itself, whose quantitative processes are
felt qualitatively in the pleasure-unpleasure series
when, subject to certain modifications, they make
their way to consciousness [pp. 615--616].
Including the somatic submodality
of
nociception, which is not syn
onymous with affective unpleasure. Clinical psychoanalysis suggests that
physical pain is pleasurable to some people.
Differences in methodology have resulted in a greater emphasis on
internally generated affective states in psychoanalysis than in experimental
branches
of
mental science, where the application of an objective emo
tional stimulus is usually central to the research design.
Solms-Nersessian
A number of interrelated questions might use
fully be put to neuroscience at this point. Are felt emo
tions perceptions
of
an internal process, which is
unconscious in itself? LeDoux (1998) seems to suggest
that they are. Can elementary affective qualia (emo
tional feelings of pleasure and unpleasure) be elicited
by stimulating the brain at specific sites? Can these
sites be dissociated from those that are linked with the
classical sensory modalities of vision, hearing, somatic
sensation, taste, and smell? If not, how do the two
classes of perception relate to each other? Since con
scious awareness of the externally directed modalities
of
perception is conventionally correlated with
corti-
cal
activity, can the conscious registration of affect,
too, be correlated with cortical activity?3 For example,
is affective experience correlated with activity in lim
bic corticoid tissue (i.e., amygdaloid complex for ele
mentary unpleasure perception, substantia innominata,
and septal area for elementary pleasure perception)
and, perhaps, paralimbic cortex (anterior cingulate gy
rus, ventromesial frontal surfaces, for more complex
emotions -in a manner analogous to the classical pri
mary and secondary unimodal cortices in relation to
the external sensory modalities? If so, are the affect
specific tissues in question attached to internally di
rected receptor mechanisms which might be analogous
in some way to the peripheral sensory organs of the
externally directed modalities?4 If not, what
are
the
major afferents
of
affect-specific corticoid and corti
cal tissues?
If an anatomical sense organ
of
affect percep
tion could, indeed, be localized in some way, we
would be well placed to confront the all-important
question
of
what it is that affects are a perception
(or, to put it differently, what
causes
emotions to be
felt). It should be clear already (from the above quota
tions) that Freud framed some definite hypotheses in
this regard.
Affects Are Perceptions of Oscillations in the
Tension
of
Instinctual Needs
Freud answered the question what are affects per
ceptions of? in the following way:
3 Freud repeatedly localized the system Pcpt. Cs. in the cerebral cor
tex (e.g., 1920, 1923, 1939, 1940). (From 1920 onwards, the systems Pcpt.
and Cs were collapsed into a single functional entity, the combined system
Pcpt. Cs.
4
Certain changes in its interior, especially oscillations in the tension
of its instinctual needs,
become conscious as feelings in the plea
sure-unpleasure series. It is hard to say, to be sure, by what means and
with the help
of
what sensory terminal organs these perceptions come
about (Freud, 1940, p 198).
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Freud s Theory ffect
We
relate pleasure and unpleasure to the quantity
of
excitation that is present in the mind but not in any
way
bound ;
and we relate them in such a manner
that unpleasure corresponds to an
increase
in the
quantity
of
excitation and pleasure to a diminution
What we are implying by this is not a simple relation
between the strength of the feelings of pleasure and
unpleasure and the corresponding modifications in the
quantity
of
excitation; least
of
all in view of all
we have been taught by psycho-physiology-are we
suggesting any directly proportional ratio: the factor
that determines the feeling is probably the amount
of
increase or diminution
a given period
of
time
5
[1920, pp. 7-8].
A number
of
assumptions are implicit in this
statement, two of which need to be fleshed out. The
first is the very idea
of
a
quantity
of
excitation that
is present in the mind. The second is the distinction
between bound and free excitation. We will dis
cuss the first distinction here and the second one in
the following section.
The notion of a quant ity
of
excitation in the
mind reflects a fundamental distinction that Freud
drew between quantitative and qualitative as
pects
of
mental life. The qualitative aspect describes
representational
processes, which are ultimately de
rived from sensory perception:
Consciousness gives us what are called quali-
ties sens tions
which are
different
in a great multi
plicity
of
ways and whose difference is distinguished
according to its relations with the external world. . . .
po
308].
Where do these differences
spring from? Every
thing points to the sense-organs [Freud, 1950, p 310].
The quantitative dimension, by contrast, describes the
nonrepresentational activities
of
the mind; the endoge
nous mechanisms which
drive
it. According to Freud,
these quantitative processes ultimately derive from the
internal milieu
of
the organism; they are
the
psychi
cal representative
of
the stimuli originating from
within the organism and reaching the mind,
as
a mea
sure
of
the demand made upon the mind for work in
5
This las t point (which is repeated in Freud, 1920, p 63; 1924,
p
160; 1940, p 146) is frequently overlooked by critics
of
Freud s affect
theory (e.g., Stern, 1990; Schore, 1994). Also frequently overlooked is the
point that pleasure-unpleasure feelings relate to the degree
of
drive energy
that is present in the mind but not in any way bound not the absolute
height of this tension (Freud, 1940, p. 146).
consequence
of
its connection with the
body
(1915a,
p. 122).
Freud always emphasized that the quantitative
processes which stimulate the drives into action would
one day be accessible to chemical methods
of
investi
gation. Following
on
from this, and equally important
from the viewpoint
of
affect theory, is the fact that
Freud foresaw a time when it would be possible to
treat mental illnesses by intervening directly in these
endogenous forces.
6
It is evident that the physiological and chemical
correlates
of
drive theory, and their pharmacological
implications, deserve a comprehensive treatment
of
their own (perhaps in a future issue
of
this journal).
Any comments at this point from our neuroscientific
correspondent on the physiological and chemical cor
relates
of
the concept of drive will be gratefully
received. However, for present purposes, we need only
concern ourselves with the
effect
that fluctuations in
these processes exert on consciousness. For this, ac
cording to Freud, is what affect
is:
Feelings of pleasure
and unpleasure are the psychical quality attaching to
transpositions of energy inside the apparatus
(1915a); they are the qualitative form in which oscil
lations in the tension
of
instinctual needs become
6
Consider the following quotations:
is the therapeutic technique [of psychoanalysis] alone that is purely
psychological; the theory does not by any means fail to poin t out that
neuroses have an organic basis though it is true that it does not look
for that basis in any pathological anatomical changes, and provisionally
substitutes the conception
of
organic functions for the chemical changes
which we should expect to find but which we are at present unable to
apprehend. No one, probably, will be inclined to deny the sexual function
the character
of
an organic factor, and it is the sexual function that I look
upon as the foundation
of
hysteria and
of
the psycho-neuroses in general
[1905, p 113].
Supposing, now, that it was possible by some chemical means, perhaps,
to
interfere in this mechanism [the instinctual dispositions, their relative
intensi ties in the const itut ion and the devia tions in the course
of
their
development], to increase or diminish the quantity
of
l ibido present a t a
given t ime or to strengthen one inst inct a t the cos t of another this then
would be a causal therapy in the true sense
of
the word, for which our
analysis would have carried out the indispensable preliminary work of
reconnaissance. At present, as you know, there is no question
of
any such
method
of
influencing libidinal processes [1916-1917,
p
436].
All too often one seems to see that it is only the t reatment s lack
of
the
necessary motive force that prevents one from bringing the change
about.
It is here, indeed, that the hope for the future lies: the possibility
that our knowledge of the operation of the hormones (you know what they
are) may give us the means
of
successfully combating the quantitative
factor
of
the il lness, but we are far from that today [1933, p 154].
The future may teach us to exercise a direct influence, by means
of
particu
lar chemical substances, on the amounts
of
energy and their distribution
in the mental apparatus. It may be that there are still undreamt-ofpossibilit
ies
of
therapy [1940,
p
182].
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8
conscious (Freud, 1940, p 198). Around this core, all
the other aspects of affect are organized.
Does Freud s distinction between the qualitative
and quantitative aspects
of
mental functioning have a
neurological equivalent? For example, could the quali
tative dimension be linked with differences in neu
ronal connectivity and the quantitative dimension with
differential degrees
of
neuronal activation? Or perhaps
Freud s distinction could be equated with Mesulam s
distinction between the channel and state func
tions of the brain (Mesulam, 1985), with the modalities
of external perception and the various representational
processes derived from them (memory and cognition)
being channel functions, and the internal percep
tual modality of affect being a state function? Since
these two aspects of consciousness are mediated by
two different anatomical and physiological systems
(namely,
the relatively discrete
modality specific
and
relatively diffuse modality nonspecific systems respec
tively), this distinction might have some considerable
bearing on our quest for putative anatomical and phys
iological correlates
of
Freud s affect theory.
If the above correlation has any validity, it would
seem to imply that affect perception is somehow
linked with degrees (or patterns)
of
activity in the
modality nonspecific nuclei (and other neuromodula
tory mechanisms, discussed below) which regulate the
state dependent functions of the cortex.
This, in
turn, would imply that the activities of these nuclei
are central physiological correlates of Freud s quan
titative psychical processes. They would therefore
be neurological equivalents of the psychical repre
sentative
of
the stimuli originating from within the
organism and reaching the mind, as a measure of the
demand made upon the mind for work in consequence
of its connection with the body (1915a). This would
certainly make sense of the fact that most psychophar
macological agents (affect altering drugs) act on the
single neurotransmitter systems sourced in these nu
clei. It would also explain the compulsive motivational
(addictive) properties of some
of
those drugs.
7
For example, the intralaminar group
of
thalamic nuclei (which proj
ect diffusely to widespread cortical regions); the cholinergic neurons of
the septal area and the substantia innominata (Chl-Ch4, which project
to
the entire cortical surface); neurons in the lateral and medial hypothalamus
(which project to widespread areas of cortex); serotonergic neurons in the
brainstem raphe nuclei (which project to the entire cortical surface); the
cholinergic neurons in the pontomesencephalic reticular formation (which
project to the entire thalamus, and to a lesser extent, the entire cortical
surface); the noradrenergic neurons in the nucleus locus coeruleus complex
(which project to the entire cortical surface); and the dopaminergic neurons
in the substantia nigra and in the ventral tegmental area (which innervate
the entire striatum as well as many limbic, paralimbic, and heteromodal
cortical areas).
Solms-Nersessian
Any comments on these putative correlations
from our neuroscientific correspondent would obvi
ously be
of
considerable interest. To this end, the fol
lowing specific questions might be posed: Is affect
generation linked with activity in the modality nonspe
cific core-brain nuclei that modulate the quantitative
dimension
(the
level or
state )
of consciousness?
If it is, would it be appropriate to say that affect is a
modality specific (qualitative content) reflection of a
modality nonspecific (quantitative level) dimension of
mental activity?
In view
of
Freud s hypothesis to the effect that
the latter dimension is
t he
psychical representative
of the stimuli originating from within the organism
and reaching the mind, as a measure of the demand
made upon the mind for work in consequence of its
connection with the body, the following additional
questions arise.
Are
the nuc le i which modulate the
quantitative dimension
of
consciousness structurally
and functionally linked with the internal milieu of the
body?
And are the activities
of
these nuclei related
in any way to the functional concept of drive? Or,
to put the question in more general terms, does the
neuroscientific evidence suggest that affect and drive
are intimately related?
These latter questions concerning the relation
ship between affect on the one hand and the functional
concept of drive (and therefore the internal milieu of
the body) on the other, remind us
of
another important
mechanism by means of which the state dependent
functions of the cortex are modulated by endogenous
processes. We are referring to the pivotal role that is
increasingly assigned to peptides and hormones
9
which, unlike the classical neurotransmitter systems
discussed above, partly influence brain activity
through nonnervous circulatory mechanisms which
seem to create an unexpectedly direct link between
brain and body (Damasio [1994], in particular, makes
much of this link). It would therefore be important for
us to know what role quantitative variations in these
endogenous secretory processes play in the neuromo
dulation of affective processes.
The last mentioned substances do not,
of
course,
only represent a quantitative influence of the bodily
economy upon the brain, they are also secreted
y
the
8
The anatomical connections depicted on
p
732 of BrodaI s (1981)
authoritative textbook
Neurological Anatomy
seem to suggest that at least
some
of them are (as indeed are other nuclei not mentioned by Mesulam
[1985], which are equally interesting in this context, such as the nucleus
of the solitary tract).
Cf. Freud s remark that endogenous stimuli consist of chemical
products,
o which there may be a considerable number
(1950, p 321;
emphasis added).
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Freud s
Theory of Affect
brain and are an important means by which it, in turn,
influences the bodily economy. This leads
us to
the
next aspect of Freud s affect theory, the
motor
(or
discharge
)
aspect, which takes us more deeply into
the psychological complexities of affect.
Affective Perceptions Release Ideomotor
Patterns of Discharge: Expression of the
Emotions
In accordance with the compulsive power
of
the plea
sure principle, emotionally salient perceptions imme
diately trigger reflexive patterns of motor discharge
( expression
of the emotions ).l0 These patterns of
discharge are directed primarily toward the subject s
own body rather than the external world. Affectivity
manifests itself essentially in motor (secretory and
vaso-motor) discharge resulting in an (internal) alter
ation in the subject s own body without reference to
the external world; motility in actions designed to
effect changes in the external world (Freud 1915b,
p
179n). Freud believed that fixed patterns of af
fective motor discharge are, for the most part, innately
prewired, although some basic emotions are appar
ently forged during early development by momentous
biological events of universal significance which
bind
the sensations of [the affect] and its [motor]
innervations firmly together We assume, in other
words, that [a basic emotion] is a reproduction of some
experience which contained the necessary conditions
for
discharge along particular paths, and that from
this circumstance [each emotion] receives its specific
character (Freud 1926a, p 133). See also Nunberg
and Federn (1967, pp. 323-324): every affect
is
but the reminiscence
of
an experience. Thus, for ex
ample, the act
of
birth triggers a pattern of respiratory,
10 Incidentally, Freud considered repression to be one of these stereo
typed, reflex responses to unpleasure (i.e., a mental flight from an
unpleasurable internal stimulus, directly analogous to the behavioral flight
response which is triggered by unpleasurable external stimuli). It is im
portant to note thatthe basic regulatory mechanism
of
the pleasure-unplea
sure principle (which guides mental processes in general on the basis of
emotionally salient perceptions) triggers but is not identical with,
the
expression
of
the emotions (which are ideomotor discharge patterns).
In the case
of
anxiety, for example, the redirection of blood away
from the skin and gut to the cardiac and voluntary musculature, increase
in the respiratory rate, heart rate, and blood pressure, and reduction in
salivatory and mucous secretions, may be described as secretory and
vaso-motor discharge (1915b). Similarly, internal changes (Freud,
1950) such as these presumably underlie the characteristic somatic symp
toms
of
anxiety: palpitations, perspiration, nausea, diarrhea, faintness, diz
ziness, urinary frequency, muscular tension, tremor, chest pain, fatigue,
choking sensations, shortness
of
breath, headache, paraesthesia, sensory
hyperreactivity, etc.
9
cardiac, and other motor responses. This pattern of
discharge (subsequently known as an anxiety at
tack ) will then be reevoked whenever a similar
situation (sudden, overwhelming experience of help
lessness) is recognized in the future. These stereotyped
motor discharge patterns, together with the primary
affect perceptions attached to them, define the various
basic emotions, each of which would be associated
with slightly different patterns of motor discharge, un
folding over different associative circuits. In short,
each of the basic emotions is the normal equivalent of
an hysterical conversion symptom :
In my opinion . . . [all the basic emotions are] repro
ductions
of
very early, perhaps even pre-individual,
experiences
of
vital importance; and I should be in
clined to regard them
as
universal, typical and innate
hysterical attacks,
as
compared to the recently and
individually acquired attacks which occur in hysteri
cal neuroses and whose origin and significance
as
mnemic symbols have been revealed by analysis
[1926a, p 133].
The Inhibition
n
Taming ofAffect Discharge
Freud conceived
of
the stereotyped patterns
of
af
fective discharge above described as being the devel
opmental antecedents of goal directed motor action:
A new function was now allotted to motor discharge,
which, under the dominance of the pleasure principle,
had served as a means of unburdening the mental
apparatus
of
accretions
of
stimuli, and which had car
ried out this task by sending innervations into the
interior of the body (leading to expressive movements
and the play
of
features and to manifestations
of
af
fect). Motor discharge was now employed in the ap
propriate alteration
of
reality; it was converted into
action
[Freud, 1911,
p
221].
On this basis, Freud (1926a) distinguished between
two forms
of
affect-generated motor action. The first
was the automatic, stereotyped form of ideomotor dis
charge described already. The second form was voli
tional (goal directed) action. This form of discharge
develops out of, and to a large extent replaces, the
more primitive, automatic form. The transition from
the one form of discharge to the other coincides with
the partial replacement (or inhibition)
of
the pleasure
principle by the reality principle, which is critically
mediated by the influence of the adults upon whom
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the human infant is almost totally dependent. This last
fact has momentous implications for human psychol
ogy and psychopathology.
Freud (1926a, 1950) also made the point that, for
the dependent infant, the automatic form of affective
ideomotor discharge ( expression of the emotions )
serves a communicative function (however uninten
tionally). It has the effect
of
eliciting from the adult
caregiver the specific external action that is required
to satisfy the pressing internal need that triggered the
affective display 2 Through a process
of
internaliza
tion (the facilitation
of
memory traces), the child grad
ually learns to perform the required specific actions
for itself. In this way, drive energy gradually comes to
be employed in the appropriate alteration of reality
(Freud, 1911, p. 221) rather than in affective displays.
This developmental sequence implies mastery over the
drives, through a process
of
delay
of
motor discharge,
which necessarily implies a capacity for
inhibition.
Here we have the distinction between free and
bound energies mentioned previously.
Free
drive excitation (in conformity with the pleasure prin
ciple) presses for immediate discharge, which, de
pending on the biological result
of
the stereotyped
behavior thus generated (i.e., whether the drive need
is consummated or frustrated), will cause further affect
perceptions of pleasure or unpleasure. Given the de
grees of freedom in the external world, automatic
forms of discharge more often than not fail to produce
the desired effect. This is the biological impetus for
the transition to the second (volitional) form of dis
charge. To this end, motor release is delayed; that is,
the excitatory process is inhibited or bound. This
produces a state of tonic activation in which the bound
energy can be employed in the service of
thinking,
instead of being discharged in reflexive action. Ulti
mately this leads to discharge in the form of an expedi
ent action.
Anticipatory ( Signal ) Affects
Crucially, the outcome
of
thinking (which Freud
looked upon as an experimental form of acting,
i.e., imagined external activity) is determined by antic
ipatory affect discharges (i.e., by im gined expres
sion of the emotions : signals of affect which assign
differential pleasure-unpleasure valence to different
Clinical psychoanalysis demonstrates that variation in the perfor
mance
of
this function by the caregiver is an important factor in psycho
pathogenesis.
Solms-Nersessian
potential actions). This involves experimental dis
charges
of
small quantities of affect which is only
possible due to the inhibited (bound) state of the un
derlying drive energies. Freud attributed this develop
mental process, too, to the taming of affect.
Ego inhibition thus renders possible various
forms of defense against affect (and the drives that
lie behind them). However, affects arising from the
activation of
repressed
ideas (i.e., ideas which are ex
cluded from the tonically activated ego complex) can
not be inhibited in this way. They therefore play an
important part in psychopathology.
From the neuroscientific standpoint, the gradual
development
of
these anticipatory executive control
functions in relation to affective discharge presumably
correlates with the maturation of frontal lobe inhibi
tory mechanisms. The clinical facts
of
the (ventrome
sial variant
of
the) frontal lobe syndrome certainly
appear to suggest that inhibition
of
motor discharge
(delayed response) and mastery over affectivity (emo
tional inhibition) are correlated functions. If this is so,
it raises the question: What is the (physiological and
maturational) relationship between frontal inhibitory
and executive mechanisms and the putative affect-per
ceiving and affect-generating mechanisms discussed
previously? (See Schore s [1994] comprehensive re
view of the relevant experimental literature.)
If
it is
possible to specify these relationships, a further, more
general question arises: Is it now possible to identify
in precise physiological terms the mechanism by
means of which free (id) energy is transformed
into bound (ego) energy? Clinical psychoanalytic
studies of patients with bilateral ventromesial frontal
lobe lesions have suggested that this brain region is
indeed an anatomical locus
of
drive inhibition
(Solms, 1998).
Central Mechanisms Underlying the Expression of
the Emotions
The functional mechanisms underlying the motor
aspect
of
Freud s affect theory were explicitly stated
only in his earliest formulation of the theory, which
was framed in quasi-neurophysiological terms:
[O]wing to the cathexis [activation] of [traumatic]
memories unpleasure is released from the interior of
the body and freshly conveyed up [to the brain]. The
mechanism of this release can only be pictured as
follows. Just
as
there are motor neurones which, when
they are filled [i.e., activated] to a certain amount,
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Freud s Theory ffect
conduct Q [neuronal excitation] into the muscles
and accordingly discharge it, so there must be secre
tory 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
[the memory
systems] neu-
rones which thus influence the production
of
endoge
nous
Qll,
and accordingly do not discharge
Qll
but
supply it in roundabout ways. We will call these [se
cretory] neurones
key
neurones. Evidently they
are only excited when a certain level [of arousal] has
been reached. . . .
Support is leant to this puzzling but indispens
able hypothesis by what happens in the case of sexual
release. At the same time a suspicion forces itself on
us that in both instances the endogenous stimuli con
sist of chemical products of which there may be a
considerable number [Freud, 1950, pp. 320-321].13
Freud then went on to describe how traumatic
4
and
consummatory experiences influence emotional pro
cesses:
The residues of the two kinds of experiences [of pain
and satisfaction] which we have been discussing are
affects and wishful states. These have in common the
fact that they both involve a raising of
Qll
tension in
tV brought about in the case of affect by sudden re
lease and in that
of
a
wish
by summation. Both states
are
of
the greatest importance for the passage of [exci
tation] in
for they leave behind them motives for
it which are of a compulsive kind. The wishful state
results in a positive attraction towards the object
wished-for, or, more precisely, towards its mnemic
image; the experience
of
pain leads to a repulsion, a
disinclination to keeping the mnemic image ca
thected. Here we have primary wishful attraction and
primary defence [fending off] [1950, pp. 321-322].
The same essential mechanisms can be recognized in
one of Freud s last formulations of this aspect
of
his
theory, which is framed in more familiar psychoana
lytic terms:
As regards internal events, in relation to the id, it [the
ego] performs that task [self preservation] by gaining
control over the demands
of
the instincts, by deciding
Cf. Freud (1900): I am compelled
to picture the release of
affects as a centrifugal process directed towards the interior of the body
and analogous to the processes of
motor and secretory innervation (pp.
467-468).
4
Trauma is defined as ego helplessness in relation to drive needs.
whether they are to be allowed satisfaction, by post
poning that satisfaction to times and circumstances
favourable in the external world or by suppressing
their excitations entirely. It is guided in its activity
by consideration of the tensions produced by stimuli,
whether these tensions are present in it or introduced
into it. The raising of these tensions is in general felt
as unpleasure and their lowering as pleasure It is
probable, however, that what is felt as pleasure or
unpleasure is not the absolute height of this tension
but something in the rhythm of the changes in them.
The ego strives after pleasure and seeks to avoid un
pleasure. An increase in unpleasure that is expected
and foreseen is met by a
signal
anxiety;
the occa
sion
of
such an increase, whether it threatens from
without or within, is known as a danger [1940, pp.
145-146].
These psychological mechanisms are spelled out
in detail in Freud (1926a, pp. 136-138, 160-168).
Here, once again, we see the intimate connection in
Freud s affect theory between visceral functions, en
dogenous drives, instinctual behaviors, personal mem
ories, and emotional feelings. It would be of
considerable interest to know whether these same
functional interdependencies are evident from or con
tradicted by the available neuroscientific evidence.
It remains only to say that in this schematic ac
count of Freud s affect theory we have discussed only
the most elementary
of
emotional processes. An ac
count of the (narcissistic and superego) mechanisms
underlying complex emotions like depression, guilt,
and shame, and the means by which the underlying
processes are defensively transformed in the genera
tion of conscious emotions, would lead us too far
afield, into other functional problems which require
detailed neuro-psychoanalytic consideration in their
own right.
Summary
Freud s affect theory consists essentially in the follow
ing propositions:
Felt emotions are a form of
perception;
that
is, conscious emotions
are
perceptual representations
of deeper mental processes which are, in themselves,
unconscious.
2
The affective modality of consciousness dif
fers from the other perceptual modalities (visual, audi-
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12
tory, somatosensory, gustatory, olfactory) in one
crucial respect: affect perceptions register the
internal
state of the subject whereas the other forms of percep
tion reflect aspects of the external world. Even if an
affect is triggered by something that occurs in the ex
ternal world, what is actually perceived in the affective
modality is the reaction
of
the subject to the external
stimulus in question, not the stimulus itself.
3
What is meant by the statement: Affect regis
ters the state of the subject? What this means
is
that
affects register the
personal significance value
or
meaning ,
to the subject,
of
a particular external or
internal situation.
4 This assignment of value is calibrated in de
grees of
pleasure
and
unpleasure,
according to a for
mula whereby more pleasure equals more likely
to satisfy my inner needs, and more unpleasure
means less likely to satisfy them, or more likely to
frustrate them. The needs in question are of various
kinds, but ultimately they are reducible to relatively
few universal ones, which are grouped together under
the heading
of
what Freud called drives.
5
Drives are defined as
the
psychical represen
tative[s] of the stimuli originating from within the or
ganism and reaching the mind, as a measure of the
demand made upon the mind for work in consequence
of its connection with the
body
(Freud, 1915a,
p
122). So ultimately, what emotions are perceptions
are oscillations in the tension of instinctual needs
(1940). Whatever the cause of these oscillations in
tension may be, the oscillations themselves are inter
nal events.
6 The above propositions comprise the
percep-
tual
aspect of Freud s affect theory; but there is a
mo-
tor
aspect too-an aspect dealing with the
expression
of the emotions. According to Freud s pleasure princi
ple, in general, we seek out pleasure and we avoid
unpleasure. Following this principle, perceptions of
increased drive tension (i.e., sensations
of
unpleasure)
result in a
discharge of
that tension. The perceptions
generated by the pattern of this discharge form an
integral part of the mechanism of affect. That is, emo
tionally salient perceptions (of situations which pre
viously evoked the primary sensations of pleasure and
unpleasure) are associatively connected with charac
teristic patterns of discharge, which give rise to spe
cific sensations, which in turn characterize the basic
emotions themselves.
7
The motor discharges in question are
of
two
types: First there are
internal
discharges (secretory
and vasomotor processes) which produce visceral
changes; and second there is motility proper (musculo-
Solms-Nersessian
skeletal discharge) which is designed to effect changes
in the
external
world. The two types
of
discharge are
intimately connected and are frequently indistin
guishable.
8
The external manifestations
of
internal dis
charges (e.g., crying, blushing) have the important sec
ondary function of alerting external observers to the
internal state of the
s ~ j e c t
that is, they serve a
com-
municative
function (however unintentionally).
9
There is a third aspect implicit in Freud s af
fect theory. This might be called the
memory
aspect.
Freud s view was that pleasure and unpleasure sensa
tions are associatively connected with certain charac
teristic patterns of internal and external motor
discharge. These patterns are bound together in the
basic emotions. The question therefore naturally
arises: Where do the characteristic patterns come
from? Freud s answer was: They are either inherited
predispositions (phylogenetic memories or they
are forged in early development by events of univer
sal significance.
1
Freud likened these experiences, which
bind the sensations of [the affect] and its [motor]
manifestations firmly together (1926a) and function
as
mnemic symbols, to the reminiscences which
famously underpin hysterical attacks. In other words,
Freud considered the basic emotions to be universal,
typical, or innate
conversion symptoms.
11
The final aspect of Freud s affect theory may
be termed the
inhibitory
or
executive
aspect. The ste
reotyped patterns of motor discharge regulated by the
pleasure principle, just discussed, were originally ex
pedient reactions to personally (and biologically) sig
nificant events. Such, for example, are the cardiac and
respiratory changes associated with the act of birth,
which are bound together as the basic emotion of anxi
ety, which becomes a mnemic symbol for danger.
However, the automatic discharge
of
a full-blown anx
iety attack is not equally appropriate in all future dan
ger situations. This pattern of discharge is nevertheless
liable to be repeated whenever a danger situation is
reencountered (i.e., a situation
of
helpless need,
of
separation from the object of drive satisfaction). For
this reason, with the maturation of the ego, inhibitory
mechanisms are developed which enable the subject
to
delay
motor discharge. This produces a state of dy
namic tension, in which the bound drive energy can be
employed in the service of
thinking
(instead
of
being
discharged in reflex fashion). This (thinking) ulti
mately leads to delayed discharge in the form of an
expedient action designed to serve a useful purpose in
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Freud s Theory
of
Affect
relation to the current real situation (as opposed to the
prototypical phantasy derived from the past).
12
Crucially, the outcome of thinking, which
Freud looked upon
as
an experimental form of act
ing (i.e., imagined motor activity) is determined by
anticipatory
affect discharges (i.e.,
im gined
'expres
sions of the emotions' '):
signals of
affect which assign
pleasure-unpleasure value to the different
potential
motor actions. This involves experimental discharges
of small quantities of affect, which
is
made possible
by the inhibited state
of
the underlying drive energies.
Freud described this developmental process
as
the
taming of affect.
13 Affects arising from repressed ideas (i.e.,
from ideas which are excluded from the tonically acti
vated ego networks) cannot be inhibited in this way.
They therefore play an important part in psychopa
thology,
as
they are apt to produce full-blown, unin
hibitable affective attacks.
This, then, is Freud's theory of affect. The whole
theory is succinctly stated in the following passage:
And what is an affect in the dynamic sense? It is
in any case something highly composite. An affect
includes in the first place particular motor in
nervations or discharges and secondly certain feel
ings; the latter are
of
two
kinds perceptions of
the
motor actions that have occurred and the direct feel
ings of pleasure and unpleasure which, as we say,
give the affect its keynote
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, 1916-1917, pp. 395-396).
Conclusion
It may well be that the questions we have posed for
our neuroscientific correspondent in the course of this
summary of Freud's views are the wrong questions. In
this case, we fully expect him to reframe the questions
where necessary, in order to answer the broader ques
tion: What are the possible neuroanatomical, physio
logical, and chemical correlates of Freud's functional
theory of affect?
The establishment of such correlations is a neces
sary prerequisite for neuroscientific methods to be
13
used (validly) to test, refine, and correct Freud's clas
sical theory (and for the resultant revisions to be val
idly retested, in turn, using psychoanalytic methods).
It is not our aim to reduce Freud's psychoanalytic
terms and concepts to those
of
another science. Rather
we hope that we are opening a second observational
perspective on the underlying (unconscious) functions.
There is every reason to believe that this second per
spective will lead us to reconsider some, and perhaps
many, of Freud's theoretical conclusions; but the value
of
the original observational perspective
of
psycho
analysis should in no way be diminished by that possi
bility. The subjective perspective of psychoanalysis
can (and, we believe, should) be supplemented by
other observational perspectives, but it can never be
replaced by the methods of physical science. For the
singular fact remains that emotions only exist, as such,
in the form
of
subjective experiences, which is where
patients with emotional disorders locate their suf
fering.
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Mark Solms
Academic Department
of
Neurosurgery
Royal London Hospital
London E11BB England
e mail: [email protected]
Edward Nersessian
7
East
9
st Street
New
York
10128
e mail: [email protected]
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