Affect and Emotion (Ideas in Psychoanalysis)

In psychoanalysis, emotions have a central place, and 'affects' are seen as emotions which have ideas attached to them. This book examines how psychoanalysis can illuminate the emotional and affective aspects of our beings. Using everyday examples, it describes the ways in which early experience can influence our emotional capacities, and how patterns of relating become ingrained and repeated, often unconsciously.

Graham Music considers the key emotional issues in our lives, including the ways in which loss and grief are avoided. Some people manage by denying their feelings, some cannot control their emotions, and others seem unable to feel very much at all. He explains the idea that some feelings are unconscious, and how emotions and thought processes are closely linked. He shows how psychoanalytic thinking aims to enable us to tolerate a broader range of emotional experience, both positive and negative, and consequently to enhance our capacity to accept ourselves and relate to others.