Desomatization and the Consequences of Infantile Psychic Trauma

Dispensing with archaic views of affects and looking at emotions from the point of view of information processing and incorporating up-to-date understanding of the interaction of the various components of adult-type emotions, we need to keep in mind the several aspects of affect that play a role in the genesis and maintenance of psychosomatic diseases. First is the cognitive element of emotion, every emotion having its own meaning. Both fear and anxiety signal that something bad is about to happen. Fear alerts us to external, veridical, and avoidable danger, whereas anxiety relates to danger that is usually unconscious, and as analytic therapists we search for its meaning by investigating associations and transferences. Depression signals that something bad has happened and we are inclined to attribute the cause to ourselves and/or condemn ourselves for helplessness to prevent it. In anger/rage we feel that a bad thing has been done by a bad object whom we are entitled to hate and punish.

Secondly, the psychological aspects of emotions are not “expressive” as previously thought in reference to the economic view of psychoanalysis, nor are they connected on a one-to-one basis, anxiety with the sympathetic nervous system and depression with parasympathetic (and allegedly conservatory) system. A trace of this kind of thinking can be found in Engel's (1962) term “depression-withdrawal.”