Affect amount

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In psychoanalysis, the amount of affect is the quantity ( amount ) of excitations that are triggered by an affect . This amount corresponds to a psychic energy that is connected with an affectively charged representation . The quantitative property of an affect that is referred to by this means that it can be viewed from an economic point of view, so that it is capable of enlargement, reduction, displacement and removal. (a) (a)

Origin of the term

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) explains that the concept of the amount of affect has become established to distinguish between drive and imagination . (b) In this respect, Freud refers to the more natural-philosophical terminology of psychophysics , which was founded by Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–1887) in 1860 and was based on the idea of ​​the quantifiability of psychological phenomena and the calculation of the smallest stimulus intensities. (b) Freud took over from Fechner the concept of psychic energy, which Freud called libido , and applied it to his conceptions of repression . (c) (c)

Changes in the amount of affect

The affect amount of a conscious representation decreases in the course of the biography - among other things through forgetting , evaluating and usurping . It remains the same or increases in the case of displaced representative offices. Above all, the qualitative transformation of affects into fear can lead to a change in the amount of affect present in a particular person. (d)

criticism

Contrary to Freud's metapsychological hypotheses, the amount of affect can not be measured or scaled and can only be described verbally in individual cases and compared with other representations of the same person. Its size depends on the individual . Nevertheless, Freud, in the sense of metapsychology, called for the economic thesis of the determination of affects. Metapsychology addresses Freud's view that goes beyond what can be experienced. (d) For this reason he also used the term “excitation sum ”, which is synonymous with affect amount . More recently, another model of quantifiable neuronal excitation has been designed that uses the term synapse weight instead of affect amount .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Uwe Henrik Peters : Dictionary of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology . 3rd edition, Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 1984:
    (a) p. 8 on Wb.-Lemma: “Affect amount”;
    (b) p. 450 f. to Wb.-Lemma: "Psychophysics";
    (c) p. 193 on Wb.-Lemma: “Fechner, Gustav Theodor”;
    (d) p. 349 f. to Wb.-Lemma: "Metapsychology".
  2. ↑ a b c d Sigmund Freud : The repression . In: Collected Works, Volume X, “Works from the years 1913-1917”, Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M 1999, ISBN 3-596-50300-0 :
    (a) p. 255 on tax. “Affect amount”;
    (b) p. 254 f. to Stw. "Imagination and Drive";
    (c) p. 254 f. to Stw. “psychic energy, libido”;
    (d) p. 255 f. Re. “Changes in the amount of affect”.
  3. ↑ Sigmund Freud : The defense neuropsychoses. Attempt of a neurological theory of acquired hysteria, many phobias and obsessions and certain hallucinatory psychoses [1894] In: Gesammelte Werke, Volume I, “Studies on Hysteria. Early writings on the theory of neuroses ”, Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M 1999, ISBN 3-596-50300-0 ; P. 63 on tax. "Excitation sum".
  4. ↑ Manfred Spitzer : Spirit in the net , models for learning, thinking and acting. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag Heidelberg 1996, ISBN 3-8274-0109-7 ; Pp. 21 ff., 29, 31 ff., 45 ff., 57, 220 on “Synapse weight”