406: Affects and Affect Pathology
Instructors
Sarita Singh, M.D.
September 11 – November 13, 2023
Mondays, 8:35 – 10:00 pm
No class: 9/25, 10/9
Co-requisites
Candidates must have or have had at least two cases in supervised psychoanalysis to be eligible for upper level courses.
Course Description
This course will examine the role of affect within psychoanalytic theory, both historically and form various analytic perspectives. There will be a general consideration of factors that lead to affect pathology, including constitutional, developmental, structural, and dynamic factors through a particular focus on anxiety disorders and mood states. This course will review theoretical, as well as clinical/technical considerations. Third/Fourth Year students combined. This course alternates with 306 Borderline States.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
1) Define the term affect as delineated by classical ego psychologists, attachment and mentalization based theorists, Kleinians, and Object Relations theorists, and Self Psychologists.
2) Describe how neuroscience has contributed to our psychoanalytic understanding of affect.
3) Explain the concepts of mood and affect tolerance and use them to identify the central role of affect in adaptive/maladaptive patterns.
Evaluation Method
Each student’s participation in class discussion and his or her demonstration of understanding of the course objectives and reading material is assessed in a written evaluation by the instructor(s).
These articles are protected under relevant copyright regulations. They are available in the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Electronic Reserve for your convenience, and for your personal use.
READINGS ARE CONFIRMED.
I. Overview of Affect Theory: What are emotions?
CLASS 1: September 11, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Glossary definition of Affect. In: Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts (2012) edited by Drs. E.L. Auchincloss and E. Samberg, Yale University Press, New Haven; pp. 8-10.
Overview: Blum, H.P. (1991). Affect Theory And The Theory Of Technique. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 39S(Supplement):265-289.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Holinger, P.C. (2008). Further Issues in the Psychology of Affect and Motivation: A Developmental Perspective. Psychoanal. Psychol., 25(3): 425-442. [Developmental aspects of affects]
Deonna, JA and Scherer, KR (2010). The Case of the Disappearing Intentional Object: Constraints on a Definition of Emotion/ Emotion Review 2:44-52. [Role of the object]
Lindquist K.A.; Siegel E.H.; Quigley K.S.; Barrett L.F. (2013). The hundred-year emotion war: are emotions natural kinds or psychological constructions? Comment on Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011). Psychological bulletin 139(1): 255-63. [Discreet emotions versus dimensional hypotheses: psychological constructionist accounts of emotion actually integrate dimensional and categorical perspectives.]
Phillips, S. H. (2018). “Creating a Selfish Bitch”: Between Narcissism and Object Relations. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 66:1125-1139.
II. Freud’s Theory of Affect
CLASS 2: September 18, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1926). Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XX (19251926): An Autobiographical Study, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, The Question of Lay Analysis and Other Works, 75-176. Read Especially pages 77-86; pages 132-174. [What is anxiety?]
Nersessian, E. and Solms, M. (1999). Freud’s Theory of Affect: Questions for Neuroscience Neuropsychoanalysis 1: 5-14. [Perceptual, motor, memory, executive aspects of affects]
III. Affects: Conflict, Compromise Formation & Psychic Surface
CLASS 3: October 2, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Brenner, C. (1974). On the Nature and Development of Affects: A Unified Theory. Psychoanal. Q., 43:532-556. [Affects are complex mental phenomena: (a) sensations of pleasure, unpleasure, or both, and (b) ideas. Differentiation from one another depend on ego and, later, superego development. Development and differentiation of affects important aspect of ego development].
Brenner, C. (1979). Depressive Affect, Anxiety, and Psychic Conflict in the Phallic-Oedipal Phase. Psychoanal. Q., 48:177-197. [Calamity that has happened versus calamity that may/will occur]
Lotterman, A.C. (2012). Affect as a Marker of the Psychic Surface. Psychoanal Q., 81(2):305-333. [Affect as a pointer to the workable psychic surface]
IV. Affects, Affect Regulation, Defenses
CLASS 4: October 16, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Fonagy, et al. (2002). Historical and interdisciplinary perspectives on affects and affect regulation. Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self. By Peter Fonagy, György Gergely, Elliot L. Jurist, and Mary Target. New York: Other Press, Pages 65-87. [Affects and cognition: independent versus integrated]
Rice, T.R. and Hoffman, L. (2014). Defense Mechanisms and Implicit Emotion Regulation: A Comparison of a Psychodynamic Construct with One from Contemporary Neuroscience. J Am Psychoanal Assoc 62: 693-708. [Defenses against painful emotions]
V. Affects, Drives, Object Relations
CLASS 5: October 23, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Kernberg, O.F. (2001). Object Relations, Affects, and Drives. Psychoanal. Inq., 21(5): 604-619. [Bridging between affect theory, drive theory, and neuroscience]
VI. Kohutian Ideas and Affect (Self-Esteem) Regulation
CLASS 6: October 30, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Schore, A.N. (2002). Advances in Neuropsychoanalysis, Attachment Theory, and Trauma Research. Psychoanal. Inq., 22(3): 433-484. [“Selfobjects are external psychobiological regulators that facilitate the regulation of affective experiences, and they act at nonverbal levels beneath conscious awareness to co-create states of maximal cohesion.”]
VII. Shame and the Regulation of Self-Esteem
CLASS 7: November 6, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Yorke, C. (1990). The Development and Functioning of the Sense of Shame. Psychoanal. St. Child, 45:377-409. [“Whereas unconscious guilt can mobilize defenses against its full conscious experience, as well as instinctual wishes and their derivatives, there is, to repeat, no defense against shame. One can only take measures to avoid the situations that give rise to it—to restrict, for example, social exposure.”]
VIII. Envy and Love
CLASS 8: November 13, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Joseph, B. (1986). Envy in Everyday Life. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 2:13-22. (also in Joseph, B. Psychic Equilibrium and Psychic Change). [“Jealousy involves three people; envy involves two people. The really envious person cannot enjoy.”]
Bach, S. (2014). Psychoanalysis and Love. In Getting From Here to There: Analytic Love, Analytic Process (Chapter 9). [“Love is a difficult subject for psychoanalysts because it is intertwined with transference and countertransference.”]