ABSTRACT
From motivation in the last chapter we move now to the closely related topic of emotion. As I write, I can hear Jamie having a tantrum in next door’s garden. Jamie is three and three-quarters. Four months ago his mother gave birth to a second child, Catherine. Until that time Jamie and his mother had spent nearly all their time together. ‘I feel I never want to see another park’, she told us once. Jamie’s wall-to-wall sunny nature has now clouded over. When I see him or hear him he is often cross, rude, miserable. What does he feel towards Catherine? A mixture, perhaps, of hatred, anger, envy, jealousy. What does he feel towards his mother? Hatred and anger again? Disappointment? Hope that things may return to the way they were?
