Tompkins, however, is less congenial to constructivism in his
biological concetualization of universal emotions. He is usually
taken as an advocate of the anti-cognitive school of emotion theory.
While I agree that Kelly's emotion theory is limited, and certainly
does not take into account all the phenomenon that are usually
considered to be emotion, I believe that his conceptualization of
emotion as the awareness of transition has a profound core that is
ignored by most and has rarely been elaborated. His paper on
Hostility is a classic and provides insights that I have never seen
anywhere else, though it does have resemblences to Shapiro's Rigid
Character.
cheers,
Stephen
************************************************************
Stephen Soldz
Director of Research
Boston Institute for Psychotherapy
520 Commonwealth Ave.
Boston, MA 02215
&
Dept. of Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School
(617) 469-3576
ssoldz@warren.med.harvard.edu
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