ABSTRACT
Human beings are wired for emotion and emotional connection with others. Emotions constitute a primary signaling system that activates action tendencies and facilitates meaning making. An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological experience and behavioral or expressive response. Suppression of the visceral experience of emotions leads to symptoms of depression, fatigue, and "emptiness". In extreme cases, patients can have tears in their eyes but deny feeling sad. In such cases, interventions targeted at the physiological experience of feelings, while working to turn the patient against his defenses against the same, are required. By facilitating the experience of mixed feelings toward the therapist, from tenderness to rage, the unconscious attachment system was activated and brought to consciousness. The impulse to punch and "take down" the therapist was linked with memories of her brothers and father, all of whom abused her in childhood.
