Affects like Signifiers

Psychoanalysis often speaks of the power of putting feelings into words. However, this notion retains a differentiation between language and emotion. I propose that affects not only push to be connected to signifiers; affects themselves are organized like signifiers. Panksepp’s basic emotional systems are structured like a language. Here, I demonstrate how affects can undergo linguistic-symbolic operations like displacement, condensation, and substitution through the prioritization function of the midbrain decision triangle. I further propose that the fundamental fantasy (as an abstract cognitive control hierarchy) organizes these chains of affect through predictions of precision.