The importance of emotional experiences in the analytic process

Abstract

T Rs cr~s.P~AL A ' r T I ~ to the signi~cance of emotional experiencing during the analytic process has changed over the years. At first it was felt that the recall of past events with emotion was the important factor. Later, the focus of emphasis was placed on the understanding of past events subsequent upon their being experienced. The curative effect was considered as being consequent upon the patient's reappraisal of the past through the use of his present mature judgment. A later shift led to the present position that insight accompanied by an emotional experience is beneficial and of more importance than intellectual insight. Today it is widely held that emotional experience is an essential factor in every analysis. The feeIing of strong emotions during analysis does not necessarily have a therapeutic effect. The experiencing of which Homey speaks has a totality and aliveness to it. At the time of experiencing, the entire being of the person is involved. Whatever is being experienced is done so in body, mind and feelings with an intense sense of unity, even when it is conflict that is being experienced. At such a time the person lives his feelings with intensity, clarity, commitment and an unshakable conviction about the truth of his feelings. This totality is attained when certain conditions are present. The first is a wanting to feel, without reservation, whatever is there. I t is a state of unqual;fied openness to experience. The second has to do with degrees of awareness. Significant emotional experiencing occurs under conditions of heightened awareness of feelings and their implications which have hitherto been moreor-less out of awareness. The increased awareness seems to liberate an increased capacity for depth and intensity of feeling, The third condition is one of accepting oneself "as is" without embellishment, intellectualization or condemnatory judgment. The question at such times is "What do I feel?" The questions "Why?" or "Have I the right?" do not occur. Such totality of experiencing has intrinsic values. In the first place nothing is so real as that which is truly felt. A person may have strong convictions about something, but these convictions may be of the nature of intellectual persuasions and may never have been put to the test of actual involvement. Experiencing a conviction with passion and depth of emotion gives it a quality of reality it did not have before. In the course of analysis, that which is held as opinion about oneself is only an inference