Sublime

subliminal reactions to the emotions,

Our emotions are, in effect, reactions, which are generated by the positive or negative responses of the ego/personality.

Of the many emerging descriptions of our social brain, for me the simplest and most elegant is the highly regarded Social Baseline Theory of Lane Beckes and James A. Coan, two researchers at the University of Virginia.

David Barlow. He was (and still is) one of the premiere anxiety researchers on the planet.

In addition to the three psychological schools of thought described by Pine, recent years have seen the development of a fourth: mentalisation theory (Fonagy & Bateman, 2006). This theory reserves a central place for the ability of people to correctly assess their own and others’ mental states. People develop this ability via “attachment”, the

alexithymic, which you may recall from Chapter One is a condition in which people do not know how to identify and describe their feelings.

Unless the client walks in with a placard saying i remind you of your mother, I assume that what I feel is pretty much what everyone else feels. Minimally, I can use my reaction as data to help me arrive at a diagnosis—a relational diagnosis, not a psychiatric one.

When guilt or shame are attached to feelings, the conflict is internalized and creates a neurotic character.

he famously argued that awakening sexual impulses might engender deep conflicts and fears, which then lead to pathological behavior as a way to avoid those conflicts and fears, which he called defense mechanisms.