Exploring the Emotional Life of the Mind: A Psychodynamic Theory of Emotions

This highly innovative new book reconsiders the structure of basic emotions, the self and the mind. It clinically covers mental disorders, therapeutic interventions, defense mechanisms, consciousness and personality and results in a comprehensive discussion of human responses to the environmental crisis.

For openers, a novel psychodynamic model of happiness, sadness, fear and anger is presented that captures their object relational features. It offers a look through the eyes of these specific emotions and delineates how they influence the interaction with other persons. As regulation of the emotional state is the core task of the self, dysregulation can lead to mental disorders. Clinical cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and depression are discussed, using the model to outline the emotional turbulence underneath. Finally, the elaborated theory is used to analyse personal responses to the environmental crisis and political strategies that capitalise on them.

This book will appeal to scholars, psychotherapists and psychiatrists with an interest in emotions and who wish to challenge their own implicit theory of emotion with an explicit new model. It will also be of interest for academic researchers and professionals in fields where emotional processes play a pivotal role.

Daniël Helderman has a background in therapeutic work as a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. He teaches psychoanalytic theory at RINO Utrecht and RINO Amsterdam as well as supervising healthcare psychologists in the Royal Netherlands Army and speaking professionally on emotion-related issues. His ambition is to use psychodynamic insight to amplify environmental awareness and (inter)action.