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Freuds Theory of Affect: Questions for

Neuroscience
a

Mark Solms & Edward Nersessian

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

e-mail:
b

72 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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Freud's Theory of Affect: Questions for

Neuroscience

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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 basic ideas and most general concepts
of psychoanalysis. We shall make no attempt here to
address subsequent developments and current theoretical 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, comprehensive statement of this theory. It evolved in piecemeal fashion, over a long period of time (more than
40 years), and his various formulations, which focused 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.

current internal needs). The general functioning of the

apparatus is governed by a regulatory mechanism
known as the "pleasure principle." With this principle, value is assigned to mental performances according to a formula whereby the successful meeting
of inner needs in the external world (a quantitative
reduction in drive pressure) is felt qualitatively as
pleasure. Unsuccessful performances or deteriorating
external circumstances (a quantitative increase in
drive tension) is felt qualitatively as unpleasure. This
is the origin and purpose (the evolutionary "why?")
of affect. It assigns value to the state of the mental
apparatus, by registering its biological consequences
in 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 mechanisms by which this process is achieved (the functional
"how?" of affect) will now be discussed in detail, in
successive sections.

Initial Orientation to the Theory

According to Freud, the mental apparatus as a whole
serves the biological purpose of meeting the imperative 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 Neurosurgery, 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.

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, unconscious. According to Freud, affects are perceived in a
distinctive modality of consciousness that is irreducible to the other perceptual modalities. The qualities
of this modality are calibrated in degrees of pleasure
and unpleasure, which are distinct from the qualia of
vision, hearing, somatic sensation, taste, and smell.
Affect is further distinguished from the modalities of

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Solms-Nersessian

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 conscious perceptions of an internal process, although that
process may be triggered by both external and endogenous 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. 2 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 Interpretation of 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 excitations from two directions. In the first place, it can
receive excitations from the periphery of the whole
[mental] apparatus, the perceptual system; and in addition to this, it can receive excitations of pleasure or
unpleasure, which prove to be almost the only psychical 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. [perceptual] systems, is itself the external world in relation to the sense-organ of the Cs. [conscious system],
whose teleological justification resides in this circumstance. . .. Excitatory material flows in to the Cs.
sense-organ from two directions: from the Pcpt. system, whose excitation, determined by qualities, is
probably submitted to a fresh revision before it becomes 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].
1 Including the somatic submodality of nociception, which is not synonymous with affective unpleasure. Clinical psychoanalysis suggests that
physical pain is pleasurable to some people.
2 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 "emotional stimulus" is usually central to the research design.

A number of interrelated questions might usefully be put to neuroscience at this point. Are felt emotions perceptions of an internal process, which is
unconscious in itself? LeDoux (1998) seems to suggest
that they are. Can elementary affective qualia (emotional 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 conscious awareness of the externally directed modalities
of perception is conventionally correlated with cortical activity, can the conscious registration of affect,
too, be correlated with cortical activity?3 For example,
is affective experience correlated with activity in limbic corticoid tissue (i.e., amygdaloid complex for elementary unpleasure perception, substantia innominata,
and septal area for elementary pleasure perception)
and, perhaps, paralimbic cortex (anterior cingulate gyrus, ventromesial frontal surfaces, for more complex
emotions)-in a manner analogous to the classical primary and secondary unimodal cortices in relation to
the external sensory modalities? If so, are the affectspecific tissues in question attached to internally directed 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 cortical tissues?
If an anatomical' 'sense organ" of affect perception 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 of
(or, to put it differently, what causes emotions to be
felt). It should be clear already (from the above quotations) 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 perceptions of?" in the following way:
3 Freud repeatedly localized the system Pcpt. -Cs. in the cerebral cortex (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 pleasure-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).

Freud's Theory of Affect

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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 in 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 discuss the first distinction here and the second one in
the following section.
The notion of a "quantity of excitation in the
mind" reflects a fundamental distinction that Freud
drew between "quantitative" and "qualitative" aspects of mental life. The qualitative aspect describes
representational processes, which are ultimately derived from sensory perception:

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 investigation. 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 correlates 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, according 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 "oscillations in the tension of instinctual needs" become
6

Consider the following quotations:

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

Consciousness gives us what are called qualities-sensations which are different in a great multiplicity of ways and whose difference is distinguished
according to its relations with the external world. . . .
[po 308].
Where do these differences ... spring from? Everything points to the sense-organs [Freud, 1950, p. 310].

The quantitative dimension, by contrast, describes the

nonrepresentational activities of the mind; the endogenous mechanisms which drive it. According to Freud,
these quantitative processes ultimately derive from the
internal milieu of the organism; they are "the 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
5 This last 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).

psychological; the theory does not by any means fail to point 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
intensities in the constitution and the deviations in the course of their
development], to increase or diminish the quantity of libido present at a
given time or to strengthen one instinct at the cost 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 treatment'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 illness, but we are far from that today [1933, p. 154].
The future may teach us to exercise a direct influence, by means of particular chemical substances, on the amounts of energy and their distribution
in the mental apparatus. It may be that there are still undreamt-of possibilities of therapy [1940, p. 182].

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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 qualitative dimension be linked with differences in neuronal 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" functions 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 perceptual 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 respectively), this distinction might have some considerable
bearing on our quest for putative anatomical and physiological 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 neuromodulatory mechanisms, discussed below) which regulate the
"state dependent" functions of the cortex. 7This, in
turn, would imply that the activities of these nuclei
are central physiological correlates of Freud's "quantitative" psychical processes. They would therefore
be neurological equivalents of "the 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" (1915a). This would
certainly make sense of the fact that most psychopharmacological agents (affect altering drugs) act on the
single neurotransmitter systems sourced in these nuclei. It would also explain the compulsive motivational
(addictive) properties of some of those drugs.
7 For example, the intralaminar group of thalamic nuclei (which project 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 obviously be of considerable interest. To this end, the following specific questions might be posed: Is affect
generation linked with activity in the modality nonspecific 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 "the 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 nuclei which modulate the

quantitative dimension of consciousness structurally

and functionally linked with the internal milieu of the
body?8 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 relationship 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 neuromodulation 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 by 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).
9 Cf. Freud's remark that "endogenous stimuli consist of chemical
products, of which there may be a considerable number" (1950, p. 321;
emphasis added).

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.

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Affective Perceptions Release Ideomotor

Patterns of Discharge: "Expression of the
Emotions"
In accordance with the compulsive power of the pleasure principle, emotionally salient perceptions immediately 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) alteration in the subject's own body without reference to
the external world; 11 motility in actions designed to
effect changes in the external world" (Freud 1915b,
p. 179n). Freud believed that fixed patterns of affective motor discharge are, for the most part, innately
prewired, although some basic emotions are apparently 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 example, the act of birth triggers a pattern of respiratory,
10 Incidentally, Freud considered repression to be one of these stereotyped, 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 important to note that the basic regulatory mechanism of the pleasure-unpleasure 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).
11 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 symptoms of anxiety: palpitations, perspiration, nausea, diarrhea, faintness, dizziness, 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 attack") will then be reevoked whenever a similar
situation (sudden, overwhelming experience of helplessness) 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, unfolding 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] reproductions of very early, perhaps even pre-individual,
experiences of vital importance; and I should be inclined to regard them as universal, typical and innate
hysterical attacks, as compared to the recently and
individually acquired attacks which occur in hysterical neuroses and whose origin and significance as
mnemic symbols have been revealed by analysis
[1926a, p. 133].

The Inhibition and "Taming" of Affect Discharge

Freud conceived of the stereotyped patterns of affective discharge above described as being the developmental 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 carried 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 affect). Motor discharge was now employed in the appropriate 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 discharge described already. The second form was volitional (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

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10

the human infant is almost totally dependent. This last

fact has momentous implications for human psychology 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 unintentionally). 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.12 Through a process of internalization (the facilitation of memory traces), the child gradually 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 principle) presses for immediate discharge, which, depending 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 degrees 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 discharge. 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. Ultimately this leads to discharge in the form of an expedient action.

Solms-Nersessian
potential actions). This involves experimental discharges of small quantities of affect which is only
possible due to the inhibited (bound) state of the underlying drive energies. Freud attributed this developmental 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 excluded from the tonically activated ego complex) cannot 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 inhibitory mechanisms. The clinical facts of the (ventromesial variant of the) "frontal lobe syndrome" certainly
appear to suggest that inhibition of motor discharge
(delayed response) and mastery over affectivity (emotional 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-perceiving and affect-generating mechanisms discussed
previously? (See Schore's [1994] comprehensive review 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"

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 anticipatory affect discharges (i.e., by imagined' 'expression of the emotions": signals of affect which assign
differential pleasure-unpleasure valence to different
12 Clinical psychoanalysis demonstrates that variation in the performance of this function by the caregiver is an important factor in psychopathogenesis.

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,

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Freud's Theory of Affect

conduct Q1J [neuronal excitation] into the muscles

and accordingly discharge it, so there must be "secretory" 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 tV [the memory systems]-neurones which thus influence the production of endogenous Qll, and accordingly do not discharge Qll but
supply it in roundabout ways. We will call these [secretory] neurones "key neurones." Evidently they
are only excited when a certain level [of arousal] has
been reached. . . .
Support is leant to this puzzling but indispensable 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 consist 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 14 and

consummatory experiences influence emotional processes:
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 release and in that of a wish by summation. Both states
are of the greatest importance for the passage of [excitation] 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 cathected. 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 psychoanalytic 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

11

whether they are to be allowed satisfaction, by postponing 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 unpleasure. An increase in unpleasure that is expected
and foreseen is met by a signal of anxiety; the occasion 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, endogenous drives, instinctual behaviors, personal memories, and emotional feelings. It would be of
considerable interest to know whether these same
functional interdependencies are evident from or contradicted by the available neuroscientific evidence.
It remains only to say that in this schematic account of Freud's affect theory we have discussed only
the most elementary of emotional processes. An account 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 generation 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 following propositions:
1. Felt emotions are a form of perception; that
is, conscious emotions are perceptual representations

13 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).
14 Trauma is defined as ego helplessness in relation to drive needs.

of deeper mental processes which are, in themselves,

unconscious.
2. The affective modality of consciousness differs from the other perceptual modalities (visual, audi-

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12
tory, somatosensory, gustatory, olfactory) in one
crucial respect: affect perceptions register the internal
state of the subject whereas the other forms of perception reflect aspects of the external world. Even if an
affect is triggered by something that occurs in the external 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 registers 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 degrees of pleasure and unpleasure, according to a formula 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 representative[s] 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" (Freud, 1915a, p.
122). So ultimately, what emotions are perceptions of
are "oscillations in the tension of instinctual needs"
(1940). Whatever the cause of these oscillations in
tension may be, the oscillations themselves are internal events.
6. The above propositions comprise the perceptual aspect of Freud's affect theory; but there is a motor aspect too-an aspect dealing with the expression
of the emotions. According to Freud's pleasure principle, 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, emotionally salient perceptions (of situations which previously evoked the primary sensations of pleasure and
unpleasure) are associatively connected with characteristic patterns of discharge, which give rise to specific 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 indistinguishable.
8. The external manifestations of internal discharges (e.g., crying, blushing) have the important secondary function of alerting external observers to the
internal state of the s~bject; that is, they serve a communicative function (however unintentionally).
9. There is a third aspect implicit in Freud's affect theory. This might be called the memory aspect.
Freud's view was that pleasure and unpleasure sensations are associatively connected with certain characteristic 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 universal significance.
10. 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 stereotyped patterns of motor discharge regulated by the
pleasure principle, just discussed, were originally expedient reactions to personally (and biologically) significant 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 anxiety, which becomes a "mnemic symbol" for danger.
However, the automatic discharge of a full-blown anxiety attack is not equally appropriate in all future danger 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 dynamic tension, in which the bound drive energy can be
employed in the service of thinking (instead of being
discharged in reflex fashion). This (thinking) ultimately leads to delayed discharge in the form of an
expedient action designed to serve a useful purpose in

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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 acting" (i.e., imagined motor activity) is determined by
anticipatory affect discharges (i.e., imagined' 'expressions 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 activated ego networ ks) cannot be inhibited in this way.
They therefore play an important part in psychopathology, as they are apt to produce full-blown, uninhibitable affective attacks.

13
used (validly) to test, refine, and correct Freud's classical theory (and for the resultant revisions to be validly 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 perspective will lead us to reconsider some, and perhaps
many, of Freud's theoretical conclusions; but the value
of the original observational perspective of psychoanalysis should in no way be diminished by that possibility. 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 suffering.

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

theory is succinctly stated in the following passage:

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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 innervations or discharges and secondly certain feelings; the latter are of two kinds-perceptions of the
motor actions that have occurred and the direct feelings 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 question: What are the possible neuroanatomical, physiological, and chemical correlates of Freud's functional
theory of affect?
The establishment of such correlations is a necessary prerequisite for neuroscientific methods to be

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Mark Solms
Academic Department of Neurosurgery
Royal London Hospital
London E11BB, England
e-mail: mlsolms@mds.qmw.ac.uk
Edward Nersessian
72 East 91 st Street
New York, NY 10128
e-mail: enerss@worldnet.att.net