ABSTRACT
This commentary introduces the concept of “emotional storm,” its relevance for inner psychic reality as well as social, economic, political, and environmental turmoil experienced globally. Storm provides a key word and touchstone that relates to inner emotional impacts and outer societal manifestations. Quality of life and experience are contrasted with issues of power and material acquisition. Emotional indigestion and emotional impotence are highlighted. Human sensitivity and relationality comprise the background for an affective core we all share, made of various intensities, including agony, joy, thrill, wonder, grief, rage, trauma, catastrophe, and guilt. Underdeveloped capacities struggle to cope with emotional storms. In lieu of evasive strategies that downplay, thin out, or deaden our feelings, the author, following Eigen and Bion, posits the attitude of “faith” in approaching psychical and emotional reality, combined with building capacities for opening to experience and navigating emotional fields from within, which, in turn, can enhance the quality of felt existence.
