2 Freud’s Theory of Affect: Questions for Neuroscience

7/25/2019 2 Freuds Theory of Affect: Questions for Neuroscience

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Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal

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Freuds Theory of Affect: Questions for

NeuroscienceMark Solms

a& Edward Nersessian

b

aAcademic Department of Neurosurgery, Royal London Hospital London E1 1BB, England,

e-mail:b72 East 91st Street, New York, NY 10128, e-mail:

Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article:Mark Solms & Edward Nersessian (1999) Freuds Theory of Affect: Questions for Neuroscience,Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 1:1, 5-14, DOI:

10.1080/15294145.1999.10773240

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5

Freud s Theory of Affect: Questions for

Neuroscience

Mark Solms (London) and

Edward Nersessian (New York)

Our focus on Freud s classical theory of affect for this

preliminary interchange reflects our desire

to

clarify,

in the first instance, the anatomical and physiological

correlates of the

b sic

ideas and

most gener l

concepts

of psychoanalysis. We shall make no attempt here to

address subsequent developments and current theoreti

cal controversies in the psychoanalytic understanding

of affect.

Freud s affect theory is poorly understood and

frequently misrepresented. This is attributable largely

to the fact that he never published a definitive, compre

hensive statement

of

this theory. It evolved in piece

meal fashion, over a long period

of

time (more than

40 years), and his various formulations, which fo

cused now on one aspect of the problem and now on

another, were not always consistent. The following

schematic summary aims only to provide a didactic

outline of the theory as a whole. Therefore our account

focuses on Freud s theoretical conclusions, not the

clinical observations upon which they were based.

Initial Orientation to the Theory

According to Freud, the mental apparatus

s

a whole

serves the biological purpose of meeting the impera

tive internal needs of the subject in a changing (and

largely indifferent) external environment. These needs

are expressed through drives .: quantitative demands

on the mental apparatus to perform work (i.e.,

to

bring

about the specific changes that are necessary to relieve

Mark Solms, Ph.D., is Hon. Lecturer, Academic Department of Neu

rosurgery, St. Bartholomew s and Royal London School of Medicine; and

Associate Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

Edward Nersessian, M.D., is Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst,

New York Psychoanalytic Institute; and Clinical Associate Professor of

Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College.

current internal needs). The general functioning

of

the

apparatus is governed by a regulatory mechanism

known as the pleasure principle. With this princi

ple,

v lue

is assigned to mental performances ac

cording to a formula whereby the successful meeting

of inner needs in the external world (a quantitative

reduction in drive pressure) is felt qualitatively s

pleasure. Unsuccessful performances or deteriorating

external circumstances (a quantitative increase in

drive tension) is felt qualitatively as unpleasure. This

s the origin and purpose (the evolutionary why? )

of affect. It assigns value to the state

of

the mental

apparatus, by registering its biological consequences

n

consciousness. Although the assigning of affect

value is an innate mechanism crucial for reproductive

survival, it is necessarily registered in the form

of

personal experiences ( what does this mean to

me? .

This feedback

of

affect, in turn, modifies (motivates)

the subsequent behavior of the individual. The mecha

nisms by which this process is achieved (the functional

how? of affect) will now be discussed in detail, in

successive sections.

Affect

Is

an Internally Stimulated Perceptual

Modality

Perhaps the most fundamental

of

Freud s ideas about

affect is the notion that felt emotions are a conscious

perception of

something which is, in itself, uncon

scious. According to Freud, affects are perceived in a

distinctive modality of consciousness that is irreduc

ible to the other perceptual modalities. The qualities

of this modality are calibrated in degrees of

ple sure

and

unple sure

which are distinct from the qualia of

vision, hearing, somatic sensation, taste, and smell.

Affect is further distinguished from the modalities of


3/11

6

vision, hearing, somatic sensation,

l

etc., by the fact

that its adequate stimuli arise from within the subject,

not from the outside world. Felt emotions are the con

scious perceptions of an internal process, although that

process may be triggered by both external and endoge

nous events. If the process is triggered by an external

event, the felt emotion is a perception of the

subjective

response

to that event; it is not a perception of the

external event itself.

Freud s (1926a) paradigmatic

example in this regard was the act of birth, which

apparently arouses anxiety in the neonate, not due to

the perception of an objective danger to life but rather

the perception of a subjective state of helplessness

(need; heightened drive tension).

These two points (i.e., that affect is a perceptual

modality and that it registers the state of the subject

rather than that

of

the object world) are succinctly

stated in the following passages from

The Interpreta-

tion Dreams

(Freud, 1900):

For consciousness, which we look upon in the light

of

a sense organ for the apprehension of psychical

qualities,

is

capable in waking life of receiving excita

tions from two directions. In the first place, it can

receive excitations from the periphery of the whole

[mental] apparatus, the perceptual system; and in ad

dition to this, it can receive excitations of

pleasure or

unpleasure, which prove to be almost the only psychi

cal quality attaching to transpositions

of

energy in the

inside of the apparatus po 574].

The psychical apparatus, which is turned towards the

external world with its sense-organ of the Pcpt. [per

ceptual] systems, is itself the external world in rela

tion to the sense-organ of the

Cs

[conscious system],

whose teleological justification resides in this circum

stance. . . . Excitatory material flows in to the

Cs

sense-organ from two directions: from the Pcpt. sys

tem, whose excitation, determined by qualities, is

probably submitted to a fresh revision before it be

comes a conscious sensation, and from the interior of

the apparatus itself, whose quantitative processes are

felt qualitatively in the pleasure-unpleasure series

when, subject to certain modifications, they make

their way to consciousness [pp. 615--616].

Including the somatic submodality

of

nociception, which is not syn

onymous with affective unpleasure. Clinical psychoanalysis suggests that

physical pain is pleasurable to some people.

Differences in methodology have resulted in a greater emphasis on

internally generated affective states in psychoanalysis than in experimental

branches

of

mental science, where the application of an objective emo

tional stimulus is usually central to the research design.

Solms-Nersessian

A number of interrelated questions might use

fully be put to neuroscience at this point. Are felt emo

tions perceptions

of

an internal process, which is

unconscious in itself? LeDoux (1998) seems to suggest

that they are. Can elementary affective qualia (emo

tional feelings of pleasure and unpleasure) be elicited

by stimulating the brain at specific sites? Can these

sites be dissociated from those that are linked with the

classical sensory modalities of vision, hearing, somatic

sensation, taste, and smell? If not, how do the two

classes of perception relate to each other? Since con

scious awareness of the externally directed modalities

of

perception is conventionally correlated with

corti-

cal

activity, can the conscious registration of affect,

too, be correlated with cortical activity?3 For example,

is affective experience correlated with activity in lim

bic corticoid tissue (i.e., amygdaloid complex for ele

mentary unpleasure perception, substantia innominata,

and septal area for elementary pleasure perception)

and, perhaps, paralimbic cortex (anterior cingulate gy

rus, ventromesial frontal surfaces, for more complex

emotions -in a manner analogous to the classical pri

mary and secondary unimodal cortices in relation to

the external sensory modalities? If so, are the affect

specific tissues in question attached to internally di

rected receptor mechanisms which might be analogous

in some way to the peripheral sensory organs of the

externally directed modalities?4 If not, what

are

the

major afferents

of

affect-specific corticoid and corti

cal tissues?

If an anatomical sense organ

of

affect percep

tion could, indeed, be localized in some way, we

would be well placed to confront the all-important

question

of

what it is that affects are a perception

(or, to put it differently, what

causes

emotions to be

felt). It should be clear already (from the above quota

tions) that Freud framed some definite hypotheses in

this regard.

Affects Are Perceptions of Oscillations in the

Tension

of

Instinctual Needs

Freud answered the question what are affects per

ceptions of? in the following way:

3 Freud repeatedly localized the system Pcpt. Cs. in the cerebral cor

tex (e.g., 1920, 1923, 1939, 1940). (From 1920 onwards, the systems Pcpt.

and Cs were collapsed into a single functional entity, the combined system

Pcpt. Cs.

4

Certain changes in its interior, especially oscillations in the tension

of its instinctual needs,

become conscious as feelings in the plea

sure-unpleasure series. It is hard to say, to be sure, by what means and

with the help

of

what sensory terminal organs these perceptions come

about (Freud, 1940, p 198).


4/11

Freud s Theory ffect

We

relate pleasure and unpleasure to the quantity

of

excitation that is present in the mind but not in any

way

bound ;

and we relate them in such a manner

that unpleasure corresponds to an

increase

in the

quantity

of

excitation and pleasure to a diminution

What we are implying by this is not a simple relation

between the strength of the feelings of pleasure and

unpleasure and the corresponding modifications in the

quantity

of

excitation; least

of

all in view of all

we have been taught by psycho-physiology-are we

suggesting any directly proportional ratio: the factor

that determines the feeling is probably the amount

of

increase or diminution

a given period

of

time

5

[1920, pp. 7-8].

A number

of

assumptions are implicit in this

statement, two of which need to be fleshed out. The

first is the very idea

of

a

quantity

of

excitation that

is present in the mind. The second is the distinction

between bound and free excitation. We will dis

cuss the first distinction here and the second one in

the following section.

The notion of a quant ity

of

excitation in the

mind reflects a fundamental distinction that Freud

drew between quantitative and qualitative as

pects

of

mental life. The qualitative aspect describes

representational

processes, which are ultimately de

rived from sensory perception:

Consciousness gives us what are called quali-

ties sens tions

which are

different

in a great multi

plicity

of

ways and whose difference is distinguished

according to its relations with the external world. . . .

po

308].

Where do these differences

spring from? Every

thing points to the sense-organs [Freud, 1950, p 310].

The quantitative dimension, by contrast, describes the

nonrepresentational activities

of

the mind; the endoge

nous mechanisms which

drive

it. According to Freud,

these quantitative processes ultimately derive from the

internal milieu

of

the organism; they are

the

psychi

cal representative

of

the stimuli originating from

within the organism and reaching the mind,

as

a mea

sure

of

the demand made upon the mind for work in

5

This las t point (which is repeated in Freud, 1920, p 63; 1924,

p

160; 1940, p 146) is frequently overlooked by critics

of

Freud s affect

theory (e.g., Stern, 1990; Schore, 1994). Also frequently overlooked is the

point that pleasure-unpleasure feelings relate to the degree

of

drive energy

that is present in the mind but not in any way bound not the absolute

height of this tension (Freud, 1940, p. 146).

consequence

of

its connection with the

body

(1915a,

p. 122).

Freud always emphasized that the quantitative

processes which stimulate the drives into action would

one day be accessible to chemical methods

of

investi

gation. Following

on

from this, and equally important

from the viewpoint

of

affect theory, is the fact that

Freud foresaw a time when it would be possible to

treat mental illnesses by intervening directly in these

endogenous forces.

6

It is evident that the physiological and chemical

correlates

of

drive theory, and their pharmacological

implications, deserve a comprehensive treatment

of

their own (perhaps in a future issue

of

this journal).

Any comments at this point from our neuroscientific

correspondent on the physiological and chemical cor

relates

of

the concept of drive will be gratefully

received. However, for present purposes, we need only

concern ourselves with the

effect

that fluctuations in

these processes exert on consciousness. For this, ac

cording to Freud, is what affect

is:

Feelings of pleasure

and unpleasure are the psychical quality attaching to

transpositions of energy inside the apparatus

(1915a); they are the qualitative form in which oscil

lations in the tension

of

instinctual needs become

6

Consider the following quotations:

is the therapeutic technique [of psychoanalysis] alone that is purely

psychological; the theory does not by any means fail to poin t out that

neuroses have an organic basis though it is true that it does not look

for that basis in any pathological anatomical changes, and provisionally

substitutes the conception

of

organic functions for the chemical changes

which we should expect to find but which we are at present unable to

apprehend. No one, probably, will be inclined to deny the sexual function

the character

of

an organic factor, and it is the sexual function that I look

upon as the foundation

of

hysteria and

of

the psycho-neuroses in general

[1905, p 113].

Supposing, now, that it was possible by some chemical means, perhaps,

to

interfere in this mechanism [the instinctual dispositions, their relative

intensi ties in the const itut ion and the devia tions in the course

of

their

development], to increase or diminish the quantity

of

l ibido present a t a

given t ime or to strengthen one inst inct a t the cos t of another this then

would be a causal therapy in the true sense

of

the word, for which our

analysis would have carried out the indispensable preliminary work of

reconnaissance. At present, as you know, there is no question

of

any such

method

of

influencing libidinal processes [1916-1917,

p

436].

All too often one seems to see that it is only the t reatment s lack

of

the

necessary motive force that prevents one from bringing the change

about.

It is here, indeed, that the hope for the future lies: the possibility

that our knowledge of the operation of the hormones (you know what they

are) may give us the means

of

successfully combating the quantitative

factor

of

the il lness, but we are far from that today [1933, p 154].

The future may teach us to exercise a direct influence, by means

of

particu

lar chemical substances, on the amounts

of

energy and their distribution

in the mental apparatus. It may be that there are still undreamt-ofpossibilit

ies

of

therapy [1940,

p

182].


5/11

8

conscious (Freud, 1940, p 198). Around this core, all

the other aspects of affect are organized.

Does Freud s distinction between the qualitative

and quantitative aspects

of

mental functioning have a

neurological equivalent? For example, could the quali

tative dimension be linked with differences in neu

ronal connectivity and the quantitative dimension with

differential degrees

of

neuronal activation? Or perhaps

Freud s distinction could be equated with Mesulam s

distinction between the channel and state func

tions of the brain (Mesulam, 1985), with the modalities

of external perception and the various representational

processes derived from them (memory and cognition)

being channel functions, and the internal percep

tual modality of affect being a state function? Since

these two aspects of consciousness are mediated by

two different anatomical and physiological systems

(namely,

the relatively discrete

modality specific

and

relatively diffuse modality nonspecific systems respec

tively), this distinction might have some considerable

bearing on our quest for putative anatomical and phys

iological correlates

of

Freud s affect theory.

If the above correlation has any validity, it would

seem to imply that affect perception is somehow

linked with degrees (or patterns)

of

activity in the

modality nonspecific nuclei (and other neuromodula

tory mechanisms, discussed below) which regulate the

state dependent functions of the cortex.

This, in

turn, would imply that the activities of these nuclei

are central physiological correlates of Freud s quan

titative psychical processes. They would therefore

be neurological equivalents of the psychical repre

sentative

of

the stimuli originating from within the

organism and reaching the mind, as a measure of the

demand made upon the mind for work in consequence

of its connection with the body (1915a). This would

certainly make sense of the fact that most psychophar

macological agents (affect altering drugs) act on the

single neurotransmitter systems sourced in these nu

clei. It would also explain the compulsive motivational

(addictive) properties of some

of

those drugs.

7

For example, the intralaminar group

of

thalamic nuclei (which proj

ect diffusely to widespread cortical regions); the cholinergic neurons of

the septal area and the substantia innominata (Chl-Ch4, which project

to

the entire cortical surface); neurons in the lateral and medial hypothalamus

(which project to widespread areas of cortex); serotonergic neurons in the

brainstem raphe nuclei (which project to the entire cortical surface); the

cholinergic neurons in the pontomesencephalic reticular formation (which

project to the entire thalamus, and to a lesser extent, the entire cortical

surface); the noradrenergic neurons in the nucleus locus coeruleus complex

(which project to the entire cortical surface); and the dopaminergic neurons

in the substantia nigra and in the ventral tegmental area (which innervate

the entire striatum as well as many limbic, paralimbic, and heteromodal

cortical areas).

Solms-Nersessian

Any comments on these putative correlations

from our neuroscientific correspondent would obvi

ously be

of

considerable interest. To this end, the fol

lowing specific questions might be posed: Is affect

generation linked with activity in the modality nonspe

cific core-brain nuclei that modulate the quantitative

dimension

(the

level or

state )

of consciousness?

If it is, would it be appropriate to say that affect is a

modality specific (qualitative content) reflection of a

modality nonspecific (quantitative level) dimension of

mental activity?

In view

of

Freud s hypothesis to the effect that

the latter dimension is

t he

psychical representative

of the stimuli originating from within the organism

and reaching the mind, as a measure of the demand

made upon the mind for work in consequence of its

connection with the body, the following additional

questions arise.

Are

the nuc le i which modulate the

quantitative dimension

of

consciousness structurally

and functionally linked with the internal milieu of the

body?

And are the activities

of

these nuclei related

in any way to the functional concept of drive? Or,

to put the question in more general terms, does the

neuroscientific evidence suggest that affect and drive

are intimately related?

These latter questions concerning the relation

ship between affect on the one hand and the functional

concept of drive (and therefore the internal milieu of

the body) on the other, remind us

of

another important

mechanism by means of which the state dependent

functions of the cortex are modulated by endogenous

processes. We are referring to the pivotal role that is

increasingly assigned to peptides and hormones

9

which, unlike the classical neurotransmitter systems

discussed above, partly influence brain activity

through nonnervous circulatory mechanisms which

seem to create an unexpectedly direct link between

brain and body (Damasio [1994], in particular, makes

much of this link). It would therefore be important for

us to know what role quantitative variations in these

endogenous secretory processes play in the neuromo

dulation of affective processes.

The last mentioned substances do not,

of

course,

only represent a quantitative influence of the bodily

economy upon the brain, they are also secreted

y

the

8

The anatomical connections depicted on

p

732 of BrodaI s (1981)

authoritative textbook

Neurological Anatomy

seem to suggest that at least

some

of them are (as indeed are other nuclei not mentioned by Mesulam

[1985], which are equally interesting in this context, such as the nucleus

of the solitary tract).

Cf. Freud s remark that endogenous stimuli consist of chemical

products,

o which there may be a considerable number

(1950, p 321;

emphasis added).


6/11

Freud s

Theory of Affect

brain and are an important means by which it, in turn,

influences the bodily economy. This leads

us to

the

next aspect of Freud s affect theory, the

motor

(or

discharge

)

aspect, which takes us more deeply into

the psychological complexities of affect.

Affective Perceptions Release Ideomotor

Patterns of Discharge: Expression of the

Emotions

In accordance with the compulsive power

of

the plea

sure principle, emotionally salient perceptions imme

diately trigger reflexive patterns of motor discharge

( expression

of the emotions ).l0 These patterns of

discharge are directed primarily toward the subject s

own body rather than the external world. Affectivity

manifests itself essentially in motor (secretory and

vaso-motor) discharge resulting in an (internal) alter

ation in the subject s own body without reference to

the external world; motility in actions designed to

effect changes in the external world (Freud 1915b,

p

179n). Freud believed that fixed patterns of af

fective motor discharge are, for the most part, innately

prewired, although some basic emotions are appar

ently forged during early development by momentous

biological events of universal significance which

bind

the sensations of [the affect] and its [motor]

innervations firmly together We assume, in other

words, that [a basic emotion] is a reproduction of some

experience which contained the necessary conditions

for

discharge along particular paths, and that from

this circumstance [each emotion] receives its specific

character (Freud 1926a, p 133). See also Nunberg

and Federn (1967, pp. 323-324): every affect

is

but the reminiscence

of

an experience. Thus, for ex

ample, the act

of

birth triggers a pattern of respiratory,

10 Incidentally, Freud considered repression to be one of these stereo

typed, reflex responses to unpleasure (i.e., a mental flight from an

unpleasurable internal stimulus, directly analogous to the behavioral flight

response which is triggered by unpleasurable external stimuli). It is im

portant to note thatthe basic regulatory mechanism

of

the pleasure-unplea

sure principle (which guides mental processes in general on the basis of

emotionally salient perceptions) triggers but is not identical with,

the

expression

of

the emotions (which are ideomotor discharge patterns).

In the case

of

anxiety, for example, the redirection of blood away

from the skin and gut to the cardiac and voluntary musculature, increase

in the respiratory rate, heart rate, and blood pressure, and reduction in

salivatory and mucous secretions, may be described as secretory and

vaso-motor discharge (1915b). Similarly, internal changes (Freud,

1950) such as these presumably underlie the characteristic somatic symp

toms

of

anxiety: palpitations, perspiration, nausea, diarrhea, faintness, diz

ziness, urinary frequency, muscular tension, tremor, chest pain, fatigue,

choking sensations, shortness

of

breath, headache, paraesthesia, sensory

hyperreactivity, etc.

9

cardiac, and other motor responses. This pattern of

discharge (subsequently known as an anxiety at

tack ) will then be reevoked whenever a similar

situation (sudden, overwhelming experience of help

lessness) is recognized in the future. These stereotyped

motor discharge patterns, together with the primary

affect perceptions attached to them, define the various

basic emotions, each of which would be associated

with slightly different patterns of motor discharge, un

folding over different associative circuits. In short,

each of the basic emotions is the normal equivalent of

an hysterical conversion symptom :

In my opinion . . . [all the basic emotions are] repro

ductions

of

very early, perhaps even pre-individual,

experiences

of

vital importance; and I should be in

clined to regard them

as

universal, typical and innate

hysterical attacks,

as

compared to the recently and

individually acquired attacks which occur in hysteri

cal neuroses and whose origin and significance

as

mnemic symbols have been revealed by analysis

[1926a, p 133].

The Inhibition

n

Taming ofAffect Discharge

Freud conceived

of

the stereotyped patterns

of

af

fective discharge above described as being the devel

opmental antecedents of goal directed motor action:

A new function was now allotted to motor discharge,

which, under the dominance of the pleasure principle,

had served as a means of unburdening the mental

apparatus

of

accretions

of

stimuli, and which had car

ried out this task by sending innervations into the

interior of the body (leading to expressive movements

and the play

of

features and to manifestations

of

af

fect). Motor discharge was now employed in the ap

propriate alteration

of

reality; it was converted into

action

[Freud, 1911,

p

221].

On this basis, Freud (1926a) distinguished between

two forms

of

affect-generated motor action. The first

was the automatic, stereotyped form of ideomotor dis

charge described already. The second form was voli

tional (goal directed) action. This form of discharge

develops out of, and to a large extent replaces, the

more primitive, automatic form. The transition from

the one form of discharge to the other coincides with

the partial replacement (or inhibition)

of

the pleasure

principle by the reality principle, which is critically

mediated by the influence of the adults upon whom


7/11

the human infant is almost totally dependent. This last

fact has momentous implications for human psychol

ogy and psychopathology.

Freud (1926a, 1950) also made the point that, for

the dependent infant, the automatic form of affective

ideomotor discharge ( expression of the emotions )

serves a communicative function (however uninten

tionally). It has the effect

of

eliciting from the adult

caregiver the specific external action that is required

to satisfy the pressing internal need that triggered the

affective display 2 Through a process

of

internaliza

tion (the facilitation

of

memory traces), the child grad

ually learns to perform the required specific actions

for itself. In this way, drive energy gradually comes to

be employed in the appropriate alteration of reality

(Freud, 1911, p. 221) rather than in affective displays.

This developmental sequence implies mastery over the

drives, through a process

of

delay

of

motor discharge,

which necessarily implies a capacity for

inhibition.

Here we have the distinction between free and

bound energies mentioned previously.

Free

drive excitation (in conformity with the pleasure prin

ciple) presses for immediate discharge, which, de

pending on the biological result

of

the stereotyped

behavior thus generated (i.e., whether the drive need

is consummated or frustrated), will cause further affect

perceptions of pleasure or unpleasure. Given the de

grees of freedom in the external world, automatic

forms of discharge more often than not fail to produce

the desired effect. This is the biological impetus for

the transition to the second (volitional) form of dis

charge. To this end, motor release is delayed; that is,

the excitatory process is inhibited or bound. This

produces a state of tonic activation in which the bound

energy can be employed in the service of

thinking,

instead of being discharged in reflexive action. Ulti

mately this leads to discharge in the form of an expedi

ent action.

Anticipatory ( Signal ) Affects

Crucially, the outcome

of

thinking (which Freud

looked upon as an experimental form of acting,

i.e., imagined external activity) is determined by antic

ipatory affect discharges (i.e., by im gined expres

sion of the emotions : signals of affect which assign

differential pleasure-unpleasure valence to different

Clinical psychoanalysis demonstrates that variation in the perfor

mance

of

this function by the caregiver is an important factor in psycho

pathogenesis.

Solms-Nersessian

potential actions). This involves experimental dis

charges

of

small quantities of affect which is only

possible due to the inhibited (bound) state of the un

derlying drive energies. Freud attributed this develop

mental process, too, to the taming of affect.

Ego inhibition thus renders possible various

forms of defense against affect (and the drives that

lie behind them). However, affects arising from the

activation of

repressed

ideas (i.e., ideas which are ex

cluded from the tonically activated ego complex) can

not be inhibited in this way. They therefore play an

important part in psychopathology.

From the neuroscientific standpoint, the gradual

development

of

these anticipatory executive control

functions in relation to affective discharge presumably

correlates with the maturation of frontal lobe inhibi

tory mechanisms. The clinical facts

of

the (ventrome

sial variant

of

the) frontal lobe syndrome certainly

appear to suggest that inhibition

of

motor discharge

(delayed response) and mastery over affectivity (emo

tional inhibition) are correlated functions. If this is so,

it raises the question: What is the (physiological and

maturational) relationship between frontal inhibitory

and executive mechanisms and the putative affect-per

ceiving and affect-generating mechanisms discussed

previously? (See Schore s [1994] comprehensive re

view of the relevant experimental literature.)

If

it is

possible to specify these relationships, a further, more

general question arises: Is it now possible to identify

in precise physiological terms the mechanism by

means of which free (id) energy is transformed

into bound (ego) energy? Clinical psychoanalytic

studies of patients with bilateral ventromesial frontal

lobe lesions have suggested that this brain region is

indeed an anatomical locus

of

drive inhibition

(Solms, 1998).

Central Mechanisms Underlying the Expression of

the Emotions

The functional mechanisms underlying the motor

aspect

of

Freud s affect theory were explicitly stated

only in his earliest formulation of the theory, which

was framed in quasi-neurophysiological terms:

[O]wing to the cathexis [activation] of [traumatic]

memories unpleasure is released from the interior of

the body and freshly conveyed up [to the brain]. The

mechanism of this release can only be pictured as

follows. Just

as

there are motor neurones which, when

they are filled [i.e., activated] to a certain amount,


8/11

Freud s Theory ffect

conduct Q [neuronal excitation] into the muscles

and accordingly discharge it, so there must be secre

tory neurones which, when they are excited, cause

the generation in the interior of the body

of

something

which operates as a stimulus upon the endogenous

paths

of

conduction to

[the memory

systems] neu-

rones which thus influence the production

of

endoge

nous

Qll,

and accordingly do not discharge

Qll

but

supply it in roundabout ways. We will call these [se

cretory] neurones

key

neurones. Evidently they

are only excited when a certain level [of arousal] has

been reached. . . .

Support is leant to this puzzling but indispens

able hypothesis by what happens in the case of sexual

release. At the same time a suspicion forces itself on

us that in both instances the endogenous stimuli con

sist of chemical products of which there may be a

considerable number [Freud, 1950, pp. 320-321].13

Freud then went on to describe how traumatic

4

and

consummatory experiences influence emotional pro

cesses:

The residues of the two kinds of experiences [of pain

and satisfaction] which we have been discussing are

affects and wishful states. These have in common the

fact that they both involve a raising of

Qll

tension in

tV brought about in the case of affect by sudden re

lease and in that

of

a

wish

by summation. Both states

are

of

the greatest importance for the passage of [exci

tation] in

for they leave behind them motives for

it which are of a compulsive kind. The wishful state

results in a positive attraction towards the object

wished-for, or, more precisely, towards its mnemic

image; the experience

of

pain leads to a repulsion, a

disinclination to keeping the mnemic image ca

thected. Here we have primary wishful attraction and

primary defence [fending off] [1950, pp. 321-322].

The same essential mechanisms can be recognized in

one of Freud s last formulations of this aspect

of

his

theory, which is framed in more familiar psychoana

lytic terms:

As regards internal events, in relation to the id, it [the

ego] performs that task [self preservation] by gaining

control over the demands

of

the instincts, by deciding

Cf. Freud (1900): I am compelled

to picture the release of

affects as a centrifugal process directed towards the interior of the body

and analogous to the processes of

motor and secretory innervation (pp.

467-468).

4

Trauma is defined as ego helplessness in relation to drive needs.

whether they are to be allowed satisfaction, by post

poning that satisfaction to times and circumstances

favourable in the external world or by suppressing

their excitations entirely. It is guided in its activity

by consideration of the tensions produced by stimuli,

whether these tensions are present in it or introduced

into it. The raising of these tensions is in general felt

as unpleasure and their lowering as pleasure It is

probable, however, that what is felt as pleasure or

unpleasure is not the absolute height of this tension

but something in the rhythm of the changes in them.

The ego strives after pleasure and seeks to avoid un

pleasure. An increase in unpleasure that is expected

and foreseen is met by a

signal

anxiety;

the occa

sion

of

such an increase, whether it threatens from

without or within, is known as a danger [1940, pp.

145-146].

These psychological mechanisms are spelled out

in detail in Freud (1926a, pp. 136-138, 160-168).

Here, once again, we see the intimate connection in

Freud s affect theory between visceral functions, en

dogenous drives, instinctual behaviors, personal mem

ories, and emotional feelings. It would be of

considerable interest to know whether these same

functional interdependencies are evident from or con

tradicted by the available neuroscientific evidence.

It remains only to say that in this schematic ac

count of Freud s affect theory we have discussed only

the most elementary

of

emotional processes. An ac

count of the (narcissistic and superego) mechanisms

underlying complex emotions like depression, guilt,

and shame, and the means by which the underlying

processes are defensively transformed in the genera

tion of conscious emotions, would lead us too far

afield, into other functional problems which require

detailed neuro-psychoanalytic consideration in their

own right.

Summary

Freud s affect theory consists essentially in the follow

ing propositions:

Felt emotions are a form of

perception;

that

is, conscious emotions

are

perceptual representations

of deeper mental processes which are, in themselves,

unconscious.

2

The affective modality of consciousness dif

fers from the other perceptual modalities (visual, audi-


9/11

12

tory, somatosensory, gustatory, olfactory) in one

crucial respect: affect perceptions register the

internal

state of the subject whereas the other forms of percep

tion reflect aspects of the external world. Even if an

affect is triggered by something that occurs in the ex

ternal world, what is actually perceived in the affective

modality is the reaction

of

the subject to the external

stimulus in question, not the stimulus itself.

3

What is meant by the statement: Affect regis

ters the state of the subject? What this means

is

that

affects register the

personal significance value

or

meaning ,

to the subject,

of

a particular external or

internal situation.

4 This assignment of value is calibrated in de

grees of

pleasure

and

unpleasure,

according to a for

mula whereby more pleasure equals more likely

to satisfy my inner needs, and more unpleasure

means less likely to satisfy them, or more likely to

frustrate them. The needs in question are of various

kinds, but ultimately they are reducible to relatively

few universal ones, which are grouped together under

the heading

of

what Freud called drives.

5

Drives are defined as

the

psychical represen

tative[s] of the stimuli originating from within the or

ganism and reaching the mind, as a measure of the

demand made upon the mind for work in consequence

of its connection with the

body

(Freud, 1915a,

p

122). So ultimately, what emotions are perceptions

are oscillations in the tension of instinctual needs

(1940). Whatever the cause of these oscillations in

tension may be, the oscillations themselves are inter

nal events.

6 The above propositions comprise the

percep-

tual

aspect of Freud s affect theory; but there is a

mo-

tor

aspect too-an aspect dealing with the

expression

of the emotions. According to Freud s pleasure princi

ple, in general, we seek out pleasure and we avoid

unpleasure. Following this principle, perceptions of

increased drive tension (i.e., sensations

of

unpleasure)

result in a

discharge of

that tension. The perceptions

generated by the pattern of this discharge form an

integral part of the mechanism of affect. That is, emo

tionally salient perceptions (of situations which pre

viously evoked the primary sensations of pleasure and

unpleasure) are associatively connected with charac

teristic patterns of discharge, which give rise to spe

cific sensations, which in turn characterize the basic

emotions themselves.

7

The motor discharges in question are

of

two

types: First there are

internal

discharges (secretory

and vasomotor processes) which produce visceral

changes; and second there is motility proper (musculo-

Solms-Nersessian

skeletal discharge) which is designed to effect changes

in the

external

world. The two types

of

discharge are

intimately connected and are frequently indistin

guishable.

8

The external manifestations

of

internal dis

charges (e.g., crying, blushing) have the important sec

ondary function of alerting external observers to the

internal state of the

s ~ j e c t

that is, they serve a

com-

municative

function (however unintentionally).

9

There is a third aspect implicit in Freud s af

fect theory. This might be called the

memory

aspect.

Freud s view was that pleasure and unpleasure sensa

tions are associatively connected with certain charac

teristic patterns of internal and external motor

discharge. These patterns are bound together in the

basic emotions. The question therefore naturally

arises: Where do the characteristic patterns come

from? Freud s answer was: They are either inherited

predispositions (phylogenetic memories or they

are forged in early development by events of univer

sal significance.

1

Freud likened these experiences, which

bind the sensations of [the affect] and its [motor]

manifestations firmly together (1926a) and function

as

mnemic symbols, to the reminiscences which

famously underpin hysterical attacks. In other words,

Freud considered the basic emotions to be universal,

typical, or innate

conversion symptoms.

11

The final aspect of Freud s affect theory may

be termed the

inhibitory

or

executive

aspect. The ste

reotyped patterns of motor discharge regulated by the

pleasure principle, just discussed, were originally ex

pedient reactions to personally (and biologically) sig

nificant events. Such, for example, are the cardiac and

respiratory changes associated with the act of birth,

which are bound together as the basic emotion of anxi

ety, which becomes a mnemic symbol for danger.

However, the automatic discharge

of

a full-blown anx

iety attack is not equally appropriate in all future dan

ger situations. This pattern of discharge is nevertheless

liable to be repeated whenever a danger situation is

reencountered (i.e., a situation

of

helpless need,

of

separation from the object of drive satisfaction). For

this reason, with the maturation of the ego, inhibitory

mechanisms are developed which enable the subject

to

delay

motor discharge. This produces a state of dy

namic tension, in which the bound drive energy can be

employed in the service of

thinking

(instead

of

being

discharged in reflex fashion). This (thinking) ulti

mately leads to delayed discharge in the form of an

expedient action designed to serve a useful purpose in


10/11

Freud s Theory

of

Affect

relation to the current real situation (as opposed to the

prototypical phantasy derived from the past).

12

Crucially, the outcome of thinking, which

Freud looked upon

as

an experimental form of act

ing (i.e., imagined motor activity) is determined by

anticipatory

affect discharges (i.e.,

im gined

'expres

sions of the emotions' '):

signals of

affect which assign

pleasure-unpleasure value to the different

potential

motor actions. This involves experimental discharges

of small quantities of affect, which

is

made possible

by the inhibited state

of

the underlying drive energies.

Freud described this developmental process

as

the

taming of affect.

13 Affects arising from repressed ideas (i.e.,

from ideas which are excluded from the tonically acti

vated ego networks) cannot be inhibited in this way.

They therefore play an important part in psychopa

thology,

as

they are apt to produce full-blown, unin

hibitable affective attacks.

This, then, is Freud's theory of affect. The whole

theory is succinctly stated in the following passage:

And what is an affect in the dynamic sense? It is

in any case something highly composite. An affect

includes in the first place particular motor in

nervations or discharges and secondly certain feel

ings; the latter are

of

two

kinds perceptions of

the

motor actions that have occurred and the direct feel

ings of pleasure and unpleasure which, as we say,

give the affect its keynote

We seem to see deeper

in the case

of

some affects and to recognize that the

core which holds the combination we have described

together is the repetition of some particular significant

experience. This experience could only be a very

early impression

of

a very general nature, placed in

the prehistory not of the individual but

of

the species

[Freud, 1916-1917, pp. 395-396).

Conclusion

It may well be that the questions we have posed for

our neuroscientific correspondent in the course of this

summary of Freud's views are the wrong questions. In

this case, we fully expect him to reframe the questions

where necessary, in order to answer the broader ques

tion: What are the possible neuroanatomical, physio

logical, and chemical correlates of Freud's functional

theory of affect?

The establishment of such correlations is a neces

sary prerequisite for neuroscientific methods to be

13

used (validly) to test, refine, and correct Freud's clas

sical theory (and for the resultant revisions to be val

idly retested, in turn, using psychoanalytic methods).

It is not our aim to reduce Freud's psychoanalytic

terms and concepts to those

of

another science. Rather

we hope that we are opening a second observational

perspective on the underlying (unconscious) functions.

There is every reason to believe that this second per

spective will lead us to reconsider some, and perhaps

many, of Freud's theoretical conclusions; but the value

of

the original observational perspective

of

psycho

analysis should in no way be diminished by that possi

bility. The subjective perspective of psychoanalysis

can (and, we believe, should) be supplemented by

other observational perspectives, but it can never be

replaced by the methods of physical science. For the

singular fact remains that emotions only exist, as such,

in the form

of

subjective experiences, which is where

patients with emotional disorders locate their suf

fering.

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Mark Solms

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London E11BB England

e mail: [email protected]

Edward Nersessian

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e mail: [email protected]

Documents

2 Freud’s Theory of Affect: Questions for Neuroscience