The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 24, 1955, No. 1: Abram Blau. 'A Unitary Hypothesis of Emotion. 1. Anxiety, Emotions of Displeasure, and Affective Disorders.'

The psychology of emotion has two facets: affect, which is the inner kinetic reaction, and emotional expression. The faculty of emotional expression is acquired environmentally.

Anxiety is the primary emotion of displeasure. Originally its function is defensive in the visceral sphere, the maintenance of homeostasis. Later it acquires a signalling function and calls forth the more highly organized secondary and tertiary emotions of displeasure.

The secondary emotions of displeasure are rage, fear, and depression, associated respectively with reactions of aggression, evasion, and submission. These reactions are acquired by learning patterns of behaviour to cope with various life situations. The tertiary emotions include guilt, shame, and disgust, and evolve with more complex integration of the personality, including development of the superego.

Affect as here defined is never unconscious. The author believes the emotional component of the affective disorders is to be related to that of actual anxiety neurosis.