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In the exploding fields of affective and cognitive neuroscience, integrative treatments and heuristic reviews of literature become all the more critical for the overburdened clinician or researcher struggling to stay current as literature proliferates exponentially around nearly every single important topic. Psychoanalytic clinicians, hungry to digest the latest findings with respect to the neuroscience of emotion, find integrative reference materials particularly valuable. With respect to the critical domain of affective neuroscience, is there any version of a Bible in the field? Many might say that Jaak Panksepp's seminal textbook, Affective Neuroscience, published in 1998 comes as close as anything, and regular readers of this journal have presumably had a solid exposure to Dr. Panksepp's views and important contributions. The relatively recent Handbook of Affective Sciences, part of the ongoing Oxford University Press Series in Affective Science, is perhaps the most exhaustive (and exhausting?) treatment of emotion to date. Its coverage is encyclopedic, its breath of scholarship is generally quite impressive, and, unfortunately, its weight and size (and price!) are quite commensurate. Indeed, this textbook gives new meaning to the expression “it's not light reading,” weighing in at almost 8 pounds. If you plan on taking this in your briefcase to catch up a bit, let's hope your back is in good shape! Of course, this is not a real criticism, and one cannot expect such breadth of coverage in a lightweight highly portable volume. However, one does oftentimes end up wishing that one could purchase a PDF version of this reference work.
The volume is organized in terms of ten major topic headings: Basic/Core Neuroscience; Autonomic Psycho-physiology; Genetics and Development; the Expression of Emotion; Cognitive Components of Emotion; Personality; Emotion and Social Processes; Evolutionary and Cultural Perspectives on Affect; Emotion in Psychopathology; and
Emotion and H