The author discusses the system of affects and terminology in connection to theories of affective monitoring, especially Krause's description of the relationship between discrete affects and actions and Tomkins classification of positive, neutral and negative affects. The relationship between the affective system, the intensity of affects and the experience of mental pain, including different qualities of anxiety is explored as well as the ways in which mental pain can be modulated and transformed to symbols, depending on the empathic capacity of the object. A process which in its turn contributes to the forming of internal objects and the integration of the specular object and the emotional object as it is described by Bollas.