In Robert C. Roberts’ article “What an emotion is: A sketch” he lays out seven “facts” a theory of emotion must account for. Number one states (among other things) “… emotions are not always felt, being sometimes “subceived” and sometimes wholly beneath consciousness.”
The main reason behind this fact seems to be the idea of repressed feelings. Feelings which the mind, unable to cope with the horrific event don’t feel the associated emotions with them. The role of therapists has been to bring these feelings to the surface. I cannot deny this is a convincing line of thought, but is it necessary? What would a suppressed positive emotion be?
The example presented was the joy of an inheritance from Steve, your dearly departed Uncle. Only after realizing how that elation conflicts with how you should feel — one would assume sorrowful — do you forcefully stop feeling happy.
If this is a misunderstanding on my part, the proper view might be that a subconscious or subceived emotion is in fact felt once, thence affecting, or coloring, all subsequent emotional events with that object. Taking the previous example of a passed-away uncle; if we knew we should receive a large sum of money as inheritance, might our construal of his departure be so colored as to see it as a good thing? A fellow student argued that such a thing would be not felt in the immediate, yet influence our ability to construe subsequent situations.
Might this be a subconscious emotion? If that’s the case, perhaps my criticisms of the first fact are left wanting. Next I’ll consider this understanding of subconscious emotions, and the role therapy would with helping an individual with trauma.
Roberts’ article was published in The Philosophic Review, Vol. XCVII, No. 2 (April 1988).
