Implications of a Constructionist Model of Emotional Experience for the Theory and Practice of Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Emotional experience may play a more central role in the origin and treatment of psychopathology than has been previously recognized. A constructionist model of emotional experience holds that in addition to defenses, affective bodily responses may not be experienced as specific emotions because they haven't been conceptualized or mentally represented as such. It is argued that emotional experience is the core feature of three critical steps in the change process: (a) activating previous traumatic memories and formulating the associated specific emotional experiences for the first time, (b) having a series of corrective emotional experiences in interaction with the therapist that convert previously intolerable into tolerable experiences, and (c) experiencing and responding to previously problematic situations in a new way that makes more adaptive responses possible. The interactions between emotion and memory just described are explicated within a modern systems and computational neuroscience framework. This perspective potentially permits a bridging of conflict- and trauma-based conceptualizations of psychopathology and aims both to put psychoanalytic treatment on a stronger empirical footing and to enhance its effectiveness and efficiency.