Emotional reality: A further contribution to dramatology

Abstract

This paper is a further contribution to dramatology, introduced in this journal in 2009. It focuses on the two basic modes of communication in any dramatic situation: (1) the nonverbal transfer of feelings and emotions, originating in the preverbal period of the love relationship between mother and child, and (2) the interchange of words and thoughts that develops with the acquisition of language. The early nonverbal mode of communication is the basis for proposing to rename Freud's concept of psychic reality “emotional reality.” On this view, emotional reality is seen as the primary fact of psychological life versus thoughts expressed in words as the derivative fact. Developmentally, emotions and ideas become united in complexes combining the emotional coloration of ideas and the ideational content of emotions. From the perspective of methodology, Freud, his followers, and his critics all conflated theories of disorder and theories of treatment. At the beginning of his journey, Freud was dyadic and interpersonal in formulating a unified theory of disorder and a method of treatment. In later years, he formulated monadic and intrapersonal theories of disorder while remaining interpersonal in his method of treatment, contributing to conflicts among the various psychoanalytic schools.