The Structure of Emotion: I. Lust and Rage

There are two approaches to the study of the problem of emotion, namely by introspection and observation. The schools of psycho-analysis and behaviourist psychology are representatives of the opposing lines of thought. These and other schools hold in common, however, the emphasis placed upon infantile emotion and behaviour as the historical or genetic origin of emotion and behaviour in the adult. It is possible therefore that the valuable contributions of both schools might be reconciled by applying jointly their respective teachings to the study of the earliest emotional reactions of infancy.

The infant at the breast exhibits two primary patterns of behaviour, namely the feeding-cycle and the reaction to frustration. These may be contrasted in regard to their motor, visceral, vasomotor and autonomic components. A certain structural polarity may be discerned at each of these four levels. If it is then postulated that oral-sucking and its physiological sequels are the substrate of lust or libido, and that oral-biting is the physical substrate of rage or aggressiveness, then a similar polarity may be discerned among the emotions, likewise distributed on the motor, visceral, vasomotor and autonomic levels of the personality.

When a day-old baby is put to the breast for its first feed, it moves its lips and tongue by the inborn reflex patterns which constitute the act of sucking. Shortly after the end of its feed it falls asleep in a benevolent eupeptic contentment. Three or four hours later it reawakens and the whole process is repeated. This is the four-hourly feeding-cycle which is one of the basic rhythms of its life.

The feeding-cycle is subject to disturbance by frustration. The frustration-reaction, like the feeding-cycle itself, is an inborn pattern of reflexes which a baby exhibits from its earliest hours. The components of this pattern may be listed as follows: there is oral-crying which involves opening the Jaws, and consequently an interruption of oral-sucking;