ABSTRACT
The hedonic quality of affects is, prevailing impressions to the contrary, not an inherent, inseparable part of the emotions. A study of conditions in which there are changes in the subjective quality of emotions, such as anhedonia, or the so-called libidinization of affects, indicates that the qualities of pleasure and distress are separate and are only epigenetically linked with the rest of the complex experience that constitutes emotions. A metaphoric view of the anatomic and physiological apparatus illustrates this conception and further suggests that in infancy, before affects are matured enough to be utilizable as signals, the direct experience of pleasure and distress provides the qualitative signal. This response becomes an essential factor in self- and object-representation formation.
