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“… the advancement & diffusion of knowledge… is the only Guardian of true liberty ”
– James Madison, 1825
“… in the long run nothing can withstand reason and experience…”
– Sigmund Freud, 1927
We are born with specific innate feelings, which combine with each other and life experiences to form our complex emotional world.
Feelings underlie our actions. Feelings, combined with reason, motivate our behaviors and actions. This begs the question: How should we explore these feelings?
Exploring Feelings, Past and Present
How does one make sense of the exploration of feelings—the ancient as well as more recent philosophers, the development of psychiatry, the expression of emotions throughout literature and art? In many ways, the questions were similar to the ones we ask today: What are feelings? How are they triggered? How are feelings related to bodily sensations? What are conscious and unconscious feelings? What substances in the body and structures in the brain result in what we call feelings? How do we conceptualize the brain, the mind, the self (Goldberg, 2015)?
The problem for those studying emotions prior to the mid-1800s was a significant one, namely, the absence of data. In particular, early literature on emotions is stunningly limited due to this absence of data, especially data on infant and child development. For those readers who want a roadmap with which to begin exploring the earlier work in more depth, authors such as Plutchik (1962), Knapp (1987), Tomkins (1991), Panksepp (1998, 2004), Panksepp and Biven (2012), Cavell (2003), and Lear (2015) do an admirable job of starting to fill in this history from philosophical, psychological, and neurobiological perspectives.
Post-1850 into the 20th Century
The picture changed significantly in the second half of the 19th Century. At that point, two giants emerged who forever changed the way we look at our external and internal world:
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
In 1859, Charles Darwin’s book on evolution was published: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. However, Origin of Species had very little discussion of Homo sapiens. Relating humans to evolution was to come in 1871, in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. An early chapter in this book is titled “Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals.” Darwin leaves no doubt about his intentions, saying his object is to show that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties (Browne, 1995, 2002). Darwin argued that certain human facial expressions and postures were innate, inherited, universal responses.
In 1872, Darwin published his lesser-known work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. In this book, he built upon his evolutionary data and suggested the expression of emotions of humans was quite similar to the physiologic expressions and reactions of animals. Darwin was privy to some emerging technology in the study of facial musculature in humans, and he explored in minute detail the facial expressions of humans and animals, blood flow, bodily movements, and other behaviors. Paul Ekman (1998) was responsible for the third edition of Expression, and he did a brilliant job of describing the remarkable advances Darwin made in understanding our affective world.
The chapter titles in Expression actually specify such feelings as Joy, Surprise, Despair, Hatred and Anger, Shame, and Disgust. Additional topics considered in these chapters include anxiety, grief, weeping, attention, dejection, devotion, ill-temper, sulkiness, disdain, horror, and blushing. Darwin’s point was that, while of course we can only assume what animals might be experiencing, the external manifestations and behavioral reactions of animals are often quite similar to what one observes in humans—humans who can subjectively report their emotional experiences. Darwin thus points the way to an inherited, built-in system of emotional expression.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Sigmund Freud, who was aware of and influenced by Darwin, was interested in feelings and in the pathology which seemed related to these feelings. In particular, Freud’s work led him to appreciate the importance of feelings which were outside of an individual’s awareness, i.e. unconscious feelings. By focusing on conflicting feelings, both conscious and unconscious, Freud (1901) was able to make sense of a variety of everyday phenomena (slips of the tongue and pen, dreams, forgetting, and so on) and psychological disorders, such as phobias, obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, and conversion reactions (e.g. paralysis of an arm with no neurological basis).
Early in the 20th Century, for the first time, doctors were able to successfully treat people with phobias, conversion reactions, and compulsive behaviors—by talking with them and helping them to understand their feelings. At the same time, a group of psychological pioneers began having similar success working with children and adolescents and their feelings. These pioneers had names like Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, August Aichhorn, Anna Freud (Sigmund’s daughter), Melanie Klein, and, a bit later, Margaret Mahler, René Spitz, and Donald Winnicott.
Freud’s work also demonstrated the importance of the early years in forming the personality structure. In his time, Freud suggested conflicts around sexuality and anger were most responsible for the types of illness he treated. It was up to later clinicians and researchers to help us understand with greater sophistication the variety of feelings which exist, how feelings are related to biological drives (such as sexuality, hunger, etc.), the impact of early experiences, the relationship between conscious and unconscious processing, and the neurobiological structures and pathways responsible for feelings.
20th Century to about 1950
With the work of the 19th Century, the notion of inborn feelings had begun to emerge. However, there was a reaction to this idea of universality of feelings: the development of cultural relativism.
Darwin had suggested that certain expressions were universal, innate, biological responses. Around the middle of the 1900s, the anthropologists Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Ray Birdwhistell began arguing that emotional expressions and social behaviors were culture-based and malleable. (Paul Ekman [1998] has done a marvelous job of presenting this controversy.) Science was beginning to contribute more to our understanding of the impact of upbringing, i.e. of the influence of the environment.
Nature vs. Nurture: Universal Feelings vs. Cultural Influence
In this nature-nurture controversy, Mead, Bateson, and Birdwhistell were pushing the pendulum far toward the nurture pole, denying that emotional expressions were universal as they attempted to reject the inherited basis of emotional expression.
However, current scientific studies (neurobiology, anatomy, cross-cultural, psychological) consistently privilege the evolutionary and innate expressions of emotions (Mayr, 2001; Panksepp, 1998; Ekman, 1998, 2003).
In a sense, though, Mead and the others were both right and wrong. They were mistaken in their insistence on the lack of an inherited basis of emotional expressions. They were correct, however, in their conviction about the effect of upbringing and culture.
It turns out that the innate expressions of affects are very brief—milliseconds. As the brain develops, the cerebral cortex can override the expression of various feelings generated in the amygdala. That is, one can, at times, consciously suppress the expression of feelings—e.g. trying not to smile or laugh or cry. Think about how poker players work hard not to show their feelings, or how actors use and control their emotional expressions. However, research using high-speed film has shown that even when efforts are made to suppress expressions, the brief innate expressions can be seen in the film. In other words, the innate affects persist into adulthood.
In retrospect, it may be easier to see why Mead and others confused the impact of upbringing with biological universals. In particular, there were two sources of data they did not possess: infant and child development (e.g. Stern, 1985) and modern neurobiological studies (e.g. Panksepp, 1998). Much of the rest of this exploration deals with the importance of these types of studies. It is difficult to overestimate the implications of these issues. Darwin’s work emphasized the innate universality of feelings, although he focused more on adults than infants. Early philosophers and sociologists such as Meade and Bateson did not have access to sophisticated infant and neurobiological research. Hence, they missed what we now understand about development: Homo sapiens sapiens has innate universal affects and expressions which are seen very early in life; these affects persist through life; and the feelings combine with each other and experience to form our complex emotional life and character structure. As neuroscientists now describe (Levin, 2009), feelings are conceptualized as discharge patterns, stereotyped in our species, and these “define the various basic emotions” (p. 65).
In summary, then, let’s highlight two issues. First, the infant development studies and neurobiological research compellingly demonstrate all human beings have built-in, universal, neurologic pathways which result in a discrete number of facial expressions and responses at birth and early infancy. These become our feelings. Second, the environment (caregivers) quickly has an impact on the emotional expressions of infants and on the development of their feelings and personalities.
Post-1950 to the Present
This, then, brings us to the second half of the 20th Century, a time which saw an explosion of research and information on feelings, infant and child development, and the neurobiology of emotions.
Researchers and clinicians such as René Spitz, John Bowlby, Donald Winnicott, Selma Fraiberg, Daniel Stern, and Stanley Greenspan changed and enhanced our understanding of infant and child development.
Those immersed in neurobiology—names such as Damasio, Le Doux, Levin, Panksepp, and Schore—have begun to clarify what parts of the brain seem involved with our unconscious as well as conscious feelings, and they have begun to outline the pathways and structures of these feelings.
Silvan Tomkins, about whom we will hear much more later, pushed Darwin’s work ahead exponentially, fleshing out not only discrete number of universal innate feelings shared by humans, but also how these feelings work. Several of Tomkins’ colleagues and students contributed to this field. Paul Ekman studied in detail the facial musculature, facial expressions, and feelings.
Ekman’s recent book, Emotions Revealed (2003), is a masterpiece as it describes the complexities of the adult emotions and the facial expressions which convey these feelings. Ekman and Carroll Izard also conducted compelling cross-cultural research supporting the universality of emotional expression. Virginia Demos contributed important studies of feelings in infant and child development. Donald Nathanson explored the clinical implications of Tomkins’ work.
Summing Up
This brief discussion is not meant to convey total consensus in these areas. Indeed, there are important scientific controversies running throughout these fields. And yet, there is a theme—that human beings are born with a set of expressions which relate to our feelings, that these feelings are used for communication and motivation of behavior, and that much information about feelings is available to us—information which allows us to understand ourselves better and have greater control over our future, as individuals and as a species.
REFERENCES FOR INTERESTED READERS
Aristotle (Sachs J, 2002). Nicomachean Ethics. Newbury, MA: Focus Publishers, R. Pullins.
Basch MF (1976). The concept of affect: A re-examination. Journal American Psychoanalytic Association 24: 759-777.
Basch MF (1983). Empathic understanding: A review of the concept and some theoretical implications. Journal American Psychoanalytic Association 31: 101-126.
Basch MF (1983). The perception of reality and the disavowal of meaning. The Annual of Psychoanalysis XI: 125-154.
Basch MF (1988). Understanding Psychotherapy: The Science Behind the Art. New York: Basic Books.
Demos EV (1995). Exploring Affect: The Selected Writings of Silvan S. Tomkins. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Ekman P (ed) (1998). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (C. Darwin, 3rd ed). New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1872).
Freud S (1901). The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Standard Edition, Volume VI. London: The Hogarth Press.
Freud S (1927). The Future of an Illusion. SE 21: 5-56. London: Hogarth Press.
Goldberg A (2015). The Brain, the Mind, and the Self: A Psychoanalytic Road Map. UK: Routledge.
Goleman D (1985). Emotional Intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam Dell Books.
Holinger PC (2008). Further issues in the psychology of affect and motivation: A developmental perspective. Psychoanalytic Psychology 25: 425-442.
Izard CE (1977). Human Emotions. New York: Plenum Press.
Knapp PH (1987). Some contemporary contributions to the study of affect. Journal American Psychoanalytic Association 55: 205-248.
Lane R, Schwartz G (1987). Levels of emotional awareness: A cognitive developmental theory and its application to psychopathology. Amer J Psychiatry 144: 133-143.
Levin F (ed) (2009). Emotion and the Psychodynamics of the Cerebellum: A Neuro-Psychoanalytic Analysis and Synthesis. London, UK: Karnac.
Lewis M, Rosenblum LA (eds) (1978). The Development of Affect. New York: Plenum Press.
Madison J (1825). Letter to George Thompson, June 30. In James Madison Papers, 1793-1839. Library of Congress, Series 1, Manuscript Division.
Panksepp J (1998). Affective Neuroscience: The Foundation of Human and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.
Panksepp J (ed.) (2004). Textbook of Biological Psychiatry. Hoboken, NJ. Wiley–Liss, Inc.
Panksepp J, Biven L (2012). The Archaeology of the Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions. New York: W.W. Norton.
Piaget J, Inhelder B (1969). The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books (Originally in French, 1966).
Plutchik R (1962). The Emotions: Facts, Theory and a New Model. New York: Random House.
Tomkins SS (1991). Affect Imagery Consciousness (Volume III): The Negative Affects: Anger and Fear. New York: Springer.
Winnicott DW (1965). The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. New York: International Universities Press.
GOOD NEWS!
This is important – The Centers for Disease Control (CDC, 2016) has formally come out with statements that physical punishment is child abuse (p. 8) and that physical punishment should be banned (p. 46). This is a significant public health development.
The USA has no federal law prohibiting physical punishment, and 19 states still permit physical punishment in schools.
All this is in contrast to the fact that there are now 49 countries which have banned physical punishment in all settings, and over 100 which have banned it in the schools.
1. Fortson, BL, Klevens J, Merrick MT, Gilbert LK, Alexander SP (2016). Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect: A Technical Package for policy, norm, and programmatic activities. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About Dr. Paul C. Holinger
Dr. Holinger is the former Dean of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and a founder of the Center for Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. His focus is on infant and child development. Dr. Holinger is also the author of the acclaimed book What Babies Say Before They Can Talk.
