An attempt to collate and clarify psychoanalytic theories on affect, and how they relate to the clinical process. Stein outlines and analyses the most important theories on affect, and examines empirical work presented over the past 100 years, exposing the rigidity of some existing notions.
Ruth Stein is Associate Professor in New York University's Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Theories of Affect (1991; 1999).