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While the psychoanalytic theory of affects is universally acknowledged to be inadequate this is certainly not due to scarce consideration of its importance. No analyst can fail to agree with Limentani (1977) that the success or failure of an analysis lies in the changes of affectivity states which are brought about (the desire for such change being moreover the chief reason for which analysis is undertaken in the first place). In dealing with this subject I will examine the following points: 1) the instinctual point of view; 2) the role of structures and defense mechanisms; 3) object relations theory with emphasis on transference and corrective emotional experience; 4) the clinical theory of affects; 5) clinical-statistical investigations; 6) some general psychoanalitical principles; 7) nonpsychoanalytical contributions; 8) the transformation of affects.
1 In Rapaport's exhaustive summary of Freudian theorization (1953) the most important points are, I believe, the following: the affects that should have appeared at the moment when trauma occurred were stifled at the time, to be experienced later in therapeutic abreaction; affects are the conscious manifestation of instincts, they