Affects as process
Subtitle: an inquiry into the centrality of affect in psychological life
By: Joseph M. Jones ; with a foreword by Joseph D. Lichtenberg.
Series: Psychoanalytic inquiry book series ;; v. 14
Publisher: Analytic Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Hillsdale, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 268
Subjects: Affect (Psychology); Psychoanalysis
Description: Drawing on the literatures of child development, ethology, and neuroscience, Joseph Jones argues that, in their simplest form, affects are best understood as the presymbolic representatives and governors of motivational systems. So conceptualized, affects, and not primary process, constitute the initial processing system of the prerepresentational infant.

It then becomes possible to re-vision early development as the sequential maturation of different motivational systems, each governed by a specific presymbolic affect. More complex emotional states, which emerge when the toddler begins to think symbolically, represent the integration of motivational systems and thought as maturation plunges the child into a world of loves and hates that cannot be escaped simply through hehavior.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 251-260) and index.