On the Psycho-Analytic Theory of Affects

We do not possess a systematic statement of the psycho-analytic theory of affects.1 The attempt I shall here make to piece together the existing fragments of this theory encounters two major difficulties. The first is that we have to deal with formulations originating from all three phases of the development of psycho-analysis: the beginning phase in which the theory of catharsis and the theory of psycho-analysis were not as yet sharply separated; the middle phase in which the id was in the centre of interest; and the recent phase in which interest is increasingly concerned with the ego. The treatment of the formulations of three such disparate origins is the more difficult partly because each of them persists into the later phases, and partly because most of the later formulations are to some extent anticipated in the earlier phases. The second difficulty is that the fragments to be put together are only too familiar, and culling them will thus appear to many just as superfluous as their systematization will seem unpalatable and unacceptable officiousness to others.

In view of these difficulties it will be worthwhile to remind ourselves, before going on to the task set for this paper, that an attempt at systematizing the theory of affects is not merely a theoretical nicety, but has eminent practical importance. Freud (28) wrote (p. 109):

If the instinct did not attach itself to an idea, or manifest itself as an affective state, we could know nothing about it.

Indeed, it goes without saying that in his everyday work the transference affects are the guide of the therapist, and that, though affect-storms of abreaction and catharsis are no longer the aims of psycho-analytic therapy, 'recall' and 'insight' without affective experience do not usually yield therapeutic advance. But it is less obvious how we can explain theoretically that affects serve as such guides and that without them insight is ineffective. We know that when—in therapy in general, and particular