You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This volume is a collection of thirty-one psychoanalytic papers, published between 1927 and 1972, each with a brief commentary by the editor and chosen principally to illustrate "the clinical manifestations of specific affects" (p. 3). Socardies tells us in the Introduction that his interest in compiling this anthology began with the preparation of his 1966 paper, "On Vengeance," which appears on pages 403-425 of this volume. "Articles on depression, bitterness, arrogance, boredom, enthusiasm, envy, gratitude, jealousy, and querulousness were of great relevance to the formulation of the psychodynamics of vengeance, helping me to clarify my concepts and casting light on various facets of the problem, and led to my paper 'On Disillusionment: The Desire to Remain Disappointed' (1971)" (p. 2). The 1971 paper is also included in this volume and begins:
Psychoanalysis, in penetrating the intricacies of ego psychology, has turned increasingly to the study of affects. These involve the whole personality, resulting in chronic ego states, thereby inducing the ego to cope not only with underlying conflicts but also with the initiating affect. Affects constitute severe blocks to our therapeutic endeavors and must be treated as strong resistances in order to uncover the infantile material. They loom prominently in the working-through process of successful psychoanalytic therapy (pp. 554-555).
The aim of this volume is to illustrate "the multiple clinical aspects of affective life and the myriad forms of their expression" (p. 6). Socarides has succeeded in his aim. The papers, true to his subtitle, are mainly clinical descriptions, many with fine, detailed accounts of analytic experience. A broadly diverse group of affects is considered seriatim, from a number of points of view, inviting comparison and contrast not only among the affects described but among the clinical and theoretical styles of the authors.
The majority of affects examined in this book belong to the "unpl