Human Feelings Explorations in Affect Development and Meaning

Human Feelings provides a comprehensive overview of the role of emotions in human life. Growing out of the research and writing of members of the Harvard Affect Study Group, the volume brings to bear different disciplinary outlooks and different modesof inquiry on various aspects of human affective experience. The book opens with an section of "Theoretical Considerations" that includes an overview of affective development across the life cycle, an examination of affect and character, and an empirical analysis of gender differences in the expression of emotion. A series of clinical reports involving patients in different age groups comprises the next section, "Affect and the Life Cycle." Subsequent sections on "Trauma, Addiction, and Psychosomatics" and "Transformations of Affect" traverse the realms of neurobiology, addictive suffering, stress disorders, epistemology, creativity, and social organization. A final section, "New Directions," further extends the frontiers of inquiry into nonordinary states of consciousness and the vicissitudes of well-being. An integrative collection of multidisciplinary sweep and scholarly integrity, Human Feelings is a readable source book that brings together rigorous theoretical and developmental studies, experientially vivid self-reporting, and a wealth of illustrative clinical material. An invaluable addition to the libraries of mental health professionals and developmental researchers, this volume will be illuminating for philosophers, social and political scientists, and lay readers as well.

Ablon, Introduction. Part I:Theoretical Considerations. Brown,Affective Development, Psychopathology, and Adaptation. Palmer,Affect and Character. Brody,On Understanding Gender Differences in the Expression of Emotion. Part II: Affect and the Life Cycle. Ablon,The Therapeutic Action of Play and Affect in Child Analysis. Harrison,Affective Interactions in Families with Young Children. Smith,Problems with Affect Tolerance in the Analysis of an Adolescent Girl. Margulies,Empathy, Virtuality, and the Birth of Complex Emotional States: Do We Find or Do We Create Feelings in the Other? Morgan, Affect in the Elderly: Do Older People Feel Differently? Part III: Trauma, Addiction, and Psychosomatics. van der Kolk,Biological Considerations about Emotions, Trauma, Memory, and the Brain. Haley,I Feel a Little Sad: The Applications of Object Relations Theory to the Hypnotherapy of Posttraumatic Stress Disorders in Vietnam Veterans. Khantzian,Affects and Addictive Suffering: A Clinical Perspective. Brown,Stress and Emotion: Implications for Illness Development and Wellness. Part IV: Transformations of Affect. Jacobs,Theory and Its Relation to Early Affective Experience. Sashin,Duke Ellington: The Creative Process and the Ability to Experience and Tolerate Affect. Mack,The Passions of Nationalism and Beyond: Identity and Power in International Relations. Part V: New Directions. Mack,Nonordinary States of Consciousness and the Accessing of Feelings. Brown,The Path of Meditation: Affective Development and Psychological Well-Being.

Steven L. Ablon, M.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital. Daniel Brown, Ph.D., is Director of Daniel Brown Associates in Cambridge, MA. He is also Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School at The Cambridge Hospital. Edward J. Khantzian, M.D., is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School at The Cambridge Hospital, and Associate Chief of Psychiatry at Tewksbury (MA) Hospital. John E. Mack, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School at The Cambridge Hospital. Dr. Mack is also Founding Director, Center for Psychology and Social Change.