This article had its genesis in a natural observational study of two sisters' fighting behavior in the family situation. The original focus of the study was on events that signaled conflict in as clear-cut a manner as possible; thus, a particular type of affect display — the extreme discharge of dysphoric affect (e.g., crying, screaming, anger) — was selected because it was thought to be a good marker for situations of fighting behavior. It rapidly became apparent after the data were collected that a much wider range of phenomena was encompassed in the observations of marked affect discharge by one sister in relation to the activities of the other sister. A very interesting and rather unexpected pattern emerged wherein each sister was seen to use affect discharge in an adaptive fashion to ensure protection of an age-specific “personal space” most relevant to her developmental needs. This use of affect discharge inevitably called to mind