ABSTRACT
The first time Sigmund Freud mentions affect is in 1892. Freud speaks of an 'affect of expectancy' attached to certain ideas, assuming the form of active intentions that are bound to fail, or of passive, unshakable, negative expectations concerning the outcome of an event. Freud chose a different angle to look at hysteria; he spoke of a disturbing idea as having a peremptory, disequilibrating effect precisely because it is suppressed, submerged, for reasons of defense against incompatibility with other, more acceptable ideas. Freud argues that since the process of conversion is rarely complete, some part of the affect "persists in consciousness as a compound of the subject's state of feeling — mood". Mood is seen as a residue of the conversion process, as that which remains in consciousness after the main part of the quota of affect has gone into the body.
