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Few would disagree with the assertion that emotions are an essential part of our clinical “navigation system.” Further, the way we conceptualize affects is central not only to psychoanalysis but also, one could argue, to all forms of psychotherapy. How exactly do we think of emotions during the clinical hour? If someone were to ask us, would we be able to articulate explicitly the theory we use during our sessions when we are trying to understand our patients' affective struggles? Do we treat emotions as irreducible biological quanta or as entities existing on a dimensional continuum? Do emotions come before or after physiological responses are set in motion? In other words, do we experience fear because our hearts are racing and our palms sweating, or do we end up with sweaty palms because we are fearful? These questions have occupied the minds of researchers since the seminal studies of William James, Carl Lange, Walter Cannon, Philip Bard, and, more recently, Antonio Damasio.
One of the main conceptual frameworks in affective research, the theory of basic emotions, holds that all emotional experiences are derived from a set of core emotions that are distinct and independent. According to this theory, anger and sadness, for instance, are thought to be produced in different neural structures and to be associated with discrete sets of behavioral, physiological, and psychological responses. Dimensional models of affect, by contrast, hypothesize that all emotions derive from a combination of psychological dimensions. One such model, the circumplex model of affect, holds that all emotional experiences result from a combination of two underlying dimensions, valence and arousal. While valence is the “hedonic tone” of the subjective experience (how pleasant or unpleasant an emotion is), arousal denotes the level of “internal energy.” In this theory, sadness is conceived as an emotion of negative valence characterized by low arousal, while fear is still an emotion of neg