ABSTRACT
Scarcely a hint of affect development or regression could be found in psychoanalytic writings until Schur's 1955 paper on the subject. Schur "discovered" regression in the "expressive" aspects of emotions by working with patients suffering from psychosomatic disturbances. These patients share with drug-dependent and posttraumatic patients the tendency to show affects that are undifferentiated, not verbalized, and hence not suitable to serve as signals to oneself. Through working with such patients, a definite developmental history of affects has been worked out. Brenner (1953) picked up a hint from Freud that in infancy certain responses to such emotions as danger and loss may not as yet be differentiated. Schur (1955), Valenstein (1962), and I (1962, 1970, 1975) felt that affects must have evolved from two common precursors, a state of contentment and a generalized distress response. Novey (1959) studied the role of affects in establishing the formation of object- and self-representations. Schmale (1964) has worked out the genetic development of affects in considerable detail.
