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The psychoanalytic study of emotions is still predominantly concerned with the problem of anxiety, the affect whose role in the defensive struggle of the ego and in the development of neurosis is certainly unique. Lately, however, our increasing preoccupation with the psychoses appears to have veered our interest to a broader area of affective manifestations. In mental disorders, affective and mood disturbances are indeed such a prominent and characteristic symptomatic feature that they even lent their name to the manic-depressive group. Thus, the time seems to have come for further inquiries into the nature and functions of affects and affective states in general.
The following presentation will be concerned with the moods and mood conditions, such as can be observed in the realm of normal and pathological experience. It is intended as a continuation of ideas expressed in some previous papers (1953a); (1954b) dealing with the psychoanalytic theory of affects and with their infantile development in the course of ego-superego formation.
As a point of departure for our study we may resort to a practical, commonplace example showing mood vacillations within a normal range in a young man, named John.
John had fallen in love with a girl, Anne. His emotional situation resulted in experiences which evoked conspicuous mood conditions. John had spent a very pleasurable evening with Anne who had shown most favorable responses to his courtship. Having left her in a very happy mood, he had fallen asleep with marvelous daydreams and