This book was really technical I thought, which I can just translate into a book that confused me most of the time.
But for the times I did find catchy things, I thought Brennan and Aristotle had some interesting points to compare with each other.
At the very beginning of chapter one Brennan is showing the "transmission of affect" and how it works its way into everyone. "There are many psychological clinicians who believe that they experience the affects of their patients directly" (Brennan 2). Aristotle said that we share our emotions and that one of the most persuasive ways of persuading your audience is to really feel the emotion yourself, or at least act that you do. Another person we read, (can't remember who), wrote a section about how when we act, we tend to feel certain emotions. He/she used the example of faking a smile; when you do this you too feel the emotion of happiness even though you are pretending or faking the feature. I think this part is important because whatever emotions you have are going to shed onto whomever you're venting them too, and vice versa.
Moving much further ahead to chapter 2 is Brennan's section on Drives and Objects: Affects and Attention. Brennan says "the drive propels the affect; it is in large part the stuff out of which the affect is made" (Brennan 34). So, here's my question directed toward your thoughts...What do you think about our drive and the affect it has on us. Would you say it's like Brennan's description, "The indebtedness of the affects to the drives is plain if we reflect on the way that affects... If i am depressed, it may be because i have turned the affect of anger back against myself rather than directing it toward another" (Brennan 34)? Or do you have an answer of your own for the purpose or level of intensity of our drive? This seemed like somewhat of a good quote to sum up his first thoughts on the drive.
All the parts I read were on page 34 so you don't have to go crazy looking through the book.
Hey Reed, Thanks for making your blog an open call for contributions. You're making all of our lives easier while advancing the discussion.
ReplyDeleteMy head was also reeling after much of the Brennan reading. I didn't realize that Freud was still so popular in contemporary literature!
I had to read the part about how "affects, like the drives they are derived from, are carriers of energy." several times to try and figure out what she was driving at. She says that "in turning it back against myself, I automatically become more inert". Why "automatically"? This helped me visualize her idea of "energy" which she calls "as palpable as adenosine triphosphate" (34). Her statement that we are going to lose energy (and thus gain inertia) if we don't have some outlet for the affects made me think of her drive-related energy as analogous to an electrical current. If there isn't connectivity between the entire current, electricity cannot pass through. So when we lose our outlets for our affects, it's like pulling the plug out of the wall. The machine shuts off.
The section of drives and affects confused me, but I think the way Gordon describes it through the plug and outlet scenario makes sense. Drive is going to produce an affect. But when our plug (affect) does not have an outlet what are we supposed to do? Our drive is still producing the affect whether or not the outlet is there. So I think in the case of depressed patients, their drive is producing the anger but because there is no outlet for them to transmit this emotion too, they end up redirecting it on the only thing they can, themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe first point you’ve brought up is really interesting, and it’s really got me thinking. Tell me if what I’m describing here is what you’re referring to.
ReplyDeleteBrennan says that the transmission of affect occurs unconsciously; you feel a certain way and those feelings are transmitted to others. So in this sense, if you feel one way but pretend to feel another way, your body would still only transmit your “true” affect (since it’s an unconscious, physiological process). But your anonymous author says that going through the actions of a certain emotion (crying) makes you feel that emotion (sadness). So, if you feigned an emotion by going through the actions (eg. crying to feign sadness), you would begin to feel sad yourself, and consequently you’d start transmitting your “sad” affect to others—is that right?