Body, Psyche, and the Emotions

“On the one hand, emotion is the chemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes…But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion.”
C.G. Jung

For Jung, the emotions are the foundations of the psyche. The highest aspirations of the human spirit have evolved and are developed from them. An emotion is at once somatic (bodily innervations, expressive physical action) and psychic (images and ideas). Active imagination, Jung’s analytical method of psychotherapy, is intricately interwoven with the expression and transformation of the emotions.

A differentiated understanding of the emotions is of great value to both analyst and analysand. We can train ourselves to recognize the fundamental emotions. One of the most useful approaches is through the study of the prototypical expressive actions. Darwin was the first to differentiate between the fundamental emotions, the complex emotions, and the symbolic cultural gestures. This lecture will take up the fudnamental emotions, with particular attention to universal patterns of expressive behavior. This material is drawn from experiences in dance, dance therapy, and analysis, as well as the contributions of Darwin, Jung, Henderson, Tomkins, and Stewart.