ABSTRACT
It is this group of emotions that keeps us attentive to the real and potential threats that exist in our lives. In this regard, they are directly tied into the protection imperative and to our desire to identify and to avoid or resolve a felt-minus state. The world is a recurrently threatening and often dangerous place, certainly as these threats relate to our desire for positive, validating feelings, and sense of personal worth and integrity. We may not feel recurrent threats to our physical safety, although many people do feel such threats, but we frequently feel threats to our comfort and feelings of worth and significance. When we think of threats, we can think of these threats as being to our optimal state, or simply to our current desired state. Thus, a threat may be perceived to our optimal career goals or to our health, or it may be a threat to the desire to sit around with friends and get high without being hassled by others. In either case, the threat emotions are essentially the same, albeit complemented by other emotions, which might include feelings of contempt or guilt. Further, the validating outcomes that they promote may be far from optimally validating despite their resolving an immediate crisis. At times the threats are truly minor and may be barely noticeable and may have virtually no impact on compelling compensatory actions. At other times, they are extremely salient and occupy our full attention until resolved. For instance, I may feel the need to go check whether I have locked the door or not, but my fatigue and desire to go to bed may mitigate the need to check the door. In another case, I may feel a need to lock all doors and windows, despite my fatigue, because of the report of a criminal in the area and the sounds of police sirens outside.
