ABSTRACT
The study of emotional phenomena has important implications for understanding the development and organization of the processes underlying abnormal ontogenesis. Theoreticians and researchers, trained in a variety of disciplines, have stressed the role that emotions play in the etiology and sequelae of many forms of child and adult psychopathology, including autism (Hobson, 1986; Kanner, 1943), the affective disorders (Beck, 1967; Becker, 1977; Cicchetti & Schneider-Rosen, 1986), and schizophrenia (Arieti, 1955/1974; Bleuler, 1911/1950). Most psychopathological disorders may be characterized either in terms of the intensity and/or the type of affects displayed; moreover, these disorders may be of an expressive and/or of a recognitory nature (Cicchetti & Schneider-Rosen, 1984; Cicchetti & Sroufe, 1978; Hesse & Cicchetti, 1982; Hobson, 1986).
