On Affect Control1

This paper is an inquiry into the first noticeable phases of affect mobilization, affect change, and affect control as observed in the analytic session. The patients had already settled down in their transference neurosis and had acquired the necessary introspection for reporting their inner experiences. As a matter of course, the analytical set-up contributed to a slow-down and to a better registration of what was going on. The spontaneity and immediacy of the communications enhanced the directness of the patients' reports. In the first part of the paper, some clinical-theoretical aspects of control and mobilization of the affect of being "sad" are investigated.

As a point of departure I use a phenomenon that we often notice in our daily practive. We hear from our patients that they have a definite control over affect mobilization during the analytic session. They refer on such occasions to their capacity to choose between two possibilities, namely to slip deeper into an already present affect state or to "snap out" of it. This control is applicable only in the earliest phases of affect mobilization in the session. I found that this ability may be present in all neurotic as well as in certain schizophrenic patients. The most important pre-condition of snapping out seems to be that the affect should be attached at its most superficial functional level to a well-circumscribed, isolated mental representation (image, thought, attitude, etc.). The moment this stage is passed, snapping out becomes increasingly difficult, and eventually the elements are operating, the snapping out, the complete affect change, may succeed. ego loses this capacity for active control.

In the process of the mobilization of a certain affect, a variety of "being sad" is experienced and reported by the patient. These affect signals are always attached to a corresponding variety of images and thoughts. While these "sadnesses" may eventually form an affect compound in which individual e