ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a few aspects of the author's approach to therapy which have changed, not just as a result of the new knowledge about the location of our emotions, but more importantly, because psychotherapists and psychoanalysts can show that affective involvement with patients can actually bring about physiological changes that do not happen when issues are confronted intellectually. Psychotherapy frequently fails when primary passions and raw emotions are not tamed by explanations, which of course involve their modification by the upper brain by cognition and the cortex. Mildly depressed patients and those who are grieving often say that getting actively involved in some activity “that takes their minds off things” has been helpful. In those cases where a patient perpetually arrives late or who misses sessions for trivial reasons, it is important to understand that this behaviour may and usually does, conceal deep-seated anxieties about coming at all.
