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This study is an attempt to provide a uniform model for how the phenomenon and conditions of emotions can be understood within psychoanalysis. Emotions will be considered from three angles: drive, representation and perception. First, Freud's early drive theory will be reviewed. According to this theory, somatic demands seek a place in the world of representations. The drive finds a representative in what later authors have termed a mental matrix. The charged matrix opens up a somatic process that may be perceived in feelings such as joy, sorrow or shame. The perception in question comes into being in a combination of various representations. This picture will be developed with the help of Paul Ricoeur's model, which indicates that language is vital when words act on each other; analogically, it might be said that the psyche has a life when representations influence each other. Finally, the author will attempt to show that emotions have a specific meaning in the psychoanalytic clinic, since (1) they provide a direct perception of psychic reality, and since (2) they imply a quest for psychic work that may result in a mental transformation.