Anne Alvarez on “The Role of Emotion in Thinking: The Problem of Deficits in the Internal Object”

Abstract: Classical psychoanalysis has taught us much about the passions. What has received less attention in the literature are the passionless, often mindless and empty states which certain passive patients present to us.  I suggest that some patients’ passivity seems to be the result not of a defensive or aggressive retreat but of having given up in despair. They seem to be not hiding, but lost.  Their internal objects seem to be unvalued rather than devalued and nothing much matters. Expectation and anticipation are low and this may affect the desire to follow a train of thought. I discuss research on the effect of emotional neglect on cognition and the implications for analytic technique to address what is missing.

Bio: Anne Alvarez, PhD, M.A.C.P is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist (and retired Co-Convener of the Autism Service, Child and Family Dep’t. Tavistock Clinic, London, where she still teaches.). She is author of Live Company: Psychotherapy with Autistic, Borderline,  Deprived and Abused Children. and has edited with Susan Reid, Autism and Personality: Findings from the Tavistock Autism Workshop. A book in her honour, edited by Judith Edwards, entitled Being Alive: Building on the Work of Anne Alvarez was published in 2002. She was Visiting Professor at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society in November 2005 and is an Honorary Member of the Psychoanalytic Centre of California. Her latest book, The Thinking Heart: Three Levels of Psychoanalytic Therapy with Disturbed Children was published in April 2012 by Routledge.