Affects and subjective experience: A psychoanalytic perspective

The aim of this article is to discuss the status of affects in psychoanalytic theory and treatment. The authors argue that human expressions and communications may be understood as motivated by feelings, fantasies of interpersonal relations, and defences against these feelings and fantasies. In psychoanalytic therapy all these three elements are of equal importance. In the therapist’s listening perspective patient’s feeling states are first in line. Feelings are what the psychoanalytic therapist first responds to. Nevertheless, feelings do not have a status of being the only aspect that must be handled, evaluated and changed. Contemporary psychoanalytic conceptual and empirical research is presented. A case presentation illustrates how one work with feelings in psychoanalytic therapy and how this particular clinical material has been applied in a study of annihilation anxiety.