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Several interesting panels were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association held at Atlantic City from May 8 to 11, 1952. In accordance with our usual procedure we present reports of the panels, the latter prepared by the secretaries of the individual panels. The minutes of the business sessions will appear in the next issue of the Bulletin.
Panel: Ralph R. Greenson, M.D., Chairman
Leo Rangell, M.D., Reporter
This panel consisted of the following presentations:
An Attempt to Systematize the Fragments of the Psychoanalytic Theory of Affects, by David Rapaport, Ph.D.
The Speed Pace in Psychic Discharge Processes and Its Influence on the Pleasure-Unpleasure Qualities of Affects, by Edith Jacobson, M.D.
The Defensive Function of Some Affective States, by Ralph R. Greenson, M.D.
The breadth and scope of the subject taken up at this panel can be gleaned from the title, for a consideration of affects of necessity courses its way through the entire psychoanalytic structure. The subject was begun with a presentation by Dr. David Rapaport, who spoke on “The Psychoanalytic Theory of Affects.”
In this paper Dr. Rapaport organized the existing fragmentary psychoanalytic literature on this subject and elaborated upon it a systematic and concrete elucidation of a theory of affects. He began by pointing out the wide variety of phenomena which are included under the concept of affect, varying from primary and isolated ones to the most complex states, and from momentary to chronic ones. The use and understanding of affects has an important application not only