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January 17, 1977. AFFECT THEORY AND "SCIENTIFIC" PSYCHOLOGY. Nathaniel Ross, M.D.
Approaching the subject of affect from the standpoints of ego development, ethology, evolution, and language, Dr. Ross elaborated on his previously published thesis that affect and cognition are indissolubly linked from early infancy. Both lower mammals and human infants "know" the external world chiefly, if not solely, through their close contacts with the nurturing mother. In human infants there soon appears a considerable range of affects that reveal their "knowledge" of the mother's moods and the ramifications of her behavior toward them. The symbiotic phase of the first year of life can be looked upon as the earliest precursor of the phenomenon of love. Animals such as dogs, birds, dolphins, etc., display unmistakable evidence of love, grief, shame, and mourning. Such a view is not unduly anthropomorphic, as has been claimed. There are certain subcortical structures, common to both humans and higher animals, that mediate affects of various kinds. There is evidence that prehistoric Neanderthals protected and nurtured severely crippled adults and strewed healing herbs upon graves, indicating a concern for their fellow beings which implies the presence of caring and affection.
Language shows rich evidence of the intermingling of or synonymity between love and intellectual significance. Such words as "know," "mean," "understand," "feel," "sense," "perceive," etc., can be used in either an affective or a cognitive sense. Mystical states reveal a combination of ineffable ecstasy and a profound noesis, a conviction of knowing a great "truth."
Affect is split off from cognition in obsessive-compulsive states, to the detriment of the attainment of true knowledge. In the analytic situation, one is constantly confronted with the necessity of fusing affect with the purely intellectual understanding of interpretations in order to achieve conviction, insight, and true structural change