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DISCUSSION: Dr. Charles Brenner suggested that boredom is not "an affect" but is best considered as a rubric for those affects that have in common unpleasure plus an idea of disinterest in one's activities or surroundings. He called attention to the fact that affects are unique for each individual and their conscious and unconscious components must be studied analytically to be understood. Boredom need not be exclusively defensive; for example, a
patient's "disinterest" may represent an unconscious identification with a lost, disinterested parent. As more analytic data are accumulated it will be seen that boredom has different characteristics and determinants in different individuals and that it is a multiply determined affective state.
Taking a developmental perspective and using examples of boredom seen in children, adolescents, and the elderly, Dr. Aaron Esman held that the paucity of fantasy in the bored person may equally reflect a developmental ego defect instead of the cited impulse-defense conflict. The need for externally supplied stimulation characteristic of persons with a field-dependent cognitive style and/or characterological passivity would seem to be a strong predisposing factor for the development of boredom. In sum, Dr. Esman felt that boredom was a complex affect to which external circumstances, internal predisposition, and conflictual factors contribute in varying degrees.