Affect Imagery Consciousness

"...brilliant..."--Malcolm Gladwell, Author of Blink "The writings for which this essay is offered as a Prologue consumed him from the mid-1950s throughthe end of his life in 1991. Knowing it was his ìlifework,î Tomkins conflated ìlifeî and ìwork,î reifyingthe superstition that its completion would equal death and refusing to release for publication long-completedmaterial. He knew the risks associated with this obsessive, neurotic behavior, and the results were as bad aspredicted. The first two volumes of Affect Imagery Consciousness (AIC) were released in 1962 and 1963,Volume III in 1991 shortly before he succumbed to a particularly virulent strain of small cell lymphoma, andVolume IV a year after his death. This last book contains Tomkinsís understanding of neocortical cognition,ideas that are even now exciting, but until this current publication of his work as a single supervolume, almostnobody has read it. The bulk of his audience had died along with the enthusiasm generated by his ideas. Bigscience is now more a matter of big machines and unifocal discoveries as the basis for pars pro toto reasoningthan big ideas based on the assembly and analysis of all that is known. Tomkins ignored nothing from anyscience past or present that might lead him toward a more certain understanding of the mind. Every idea,every theory deserved attention if only because significant observations can loiter in blind alleys."--From the Prologue by Donald L. Nathanson, MD Volume 1 of Springer's magisterial new two-volume edition of Tomkins's magnum opus comprises The Positive Affects and The Negative Affects.

Tomkins' magnum opus, Affect, Imagery, Consciousness, was published by Springer Publishing Company in four volumes over 30 years. When Tomkins began writing the book in the 1950's, American psychology was dominated by psychoanalytic and behaviorist theories - neither of which placed much importance on the role of basic emotions in everyday human behavior. Tomkins challenged the status quo by developing - over the span of nearly 2,000 pages -- a theory of consciousness and motivation that placed emotion at the core of the human experience. Because so few psychologists were studying emotion at that time, Tomkins drew liberally from other academic disciplines to help formulate his ideas and support his arguments: evolutionary biology, ethology, cybernetics, literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and neurophysiology, among others. In the process, Tomkins practically invented the field of "nonverbal behavior" through close observation of emotional expressions in people, including his own infant son. His work was a brilliantly eccentric pastiche of ideas that adhered to no strict disciplinary or ideological boundaries. In time, however, AIC came to prominence through the research of his disciples, notably Paul Ekman and Carroll Izzard, who went on to become major researchers in the psychology of emotion. Today, Tomkins's book is influential not just in psychology but in philosophy, sociology, communication studies, even in "affective computing. Springer Publishing Company is pleased to continue to offer this magisterial work in four volumes.

Tomkins' magnum opus, Affect, Imagery, Consciousness, was published by Springer Publishing Company in four volumes over 30 years. When Tomkins began writing the book in the 1950's, American psychology was dominated by psychoanalytic and behaviorist theories - neither of which placed much importance on the role of basic emotions in everyday human behavior. Tomkins challenged the status quo by developing - over the span of nearly 2,000 pages -- a theory of consciousness and motivation that placed emotion at the core of the human experience. Because so few psychologists were studying emotion at that time, Tomkins drew liberally from other academic disciplines to help formulate his ideas and support his arguments: evolutionary biology, ethology, cybernetics, literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and neurophysiology, among others. In the process, Tomkins practically invented the field of "nonverbal behavior" through close observation of emotional expressions in people, including his own infant son. His work was a brilliantly eccentric pastiche of ideas that adhered to no strict disciplinary or ideological boundaries. In time, however, AIC came to prominence through the research of his disciples, notably Paul Ekman and Carroll Izzard, who went on to become major researchers in the psychology of emotion. Today, Tomkins's book is influential not just in psychology but in philosophy, sociology, communication studies, even in "affective computing. Springer Publishing Company is pleased to continue to offer this magisterial work in four volumes.

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