Emotions in-and-out of equilibrium

This chapter offers a systematic and practical methodology of tracing emotions. Because conceptual structures are abstract ideal types and hence context-free, for a good conceptual structure to be useful, it has to state the parameters required to calibrate or contextualize the model to a local context. Thus, affective equilibrium merely represents an impossible ideal typical reference point where trauma is perfectly defended against, and hence, does not eke out any traceable emotions. As such, it is difficult to study affective equilibrium empirically. A methodology of tracing emotions in-and-out of equilibrium requires a method to pick up such traces—triangulating the different emotional symptoms in a particular context—allows people to contextualize an abstract model so that they can understand what it is that a particular person might be defending against and hence why a particular identity does or does not resonate with him/her. The variety of emotional traces of affective equilibrium allows the analyst to triangulate them and use them.