Considering new concepts of affect and affect process, clarifying distinctions among past concepts, and noticing participation of affect dynamics in health and illness suggests an alternative theory of symptom and neurosis. Personality theory based on transient affect has more credibility and has clinical advantage over personality theory based on concepts of enduring affect. I discuss the contrast between the logic and reality of past and new theory, and the inferential processes used. New concepts of affect phobia, affect potentiation, affect storm, affect function, affect process, storm structure, conscious affect, and unconscious affect are presented. The new theory calls for consideration of independent simultaneity rather than sequentiality of affect and cognition, and reconsideration of the place of anxiety in psychology. The theory implies the use of different treatment paradigms for each category of disorder.