There has recently been a flurry of theoretical activity in affective neuroscience and neuropsychoanalysis. This book argues that the ability to integrate biological and psychological levels of understanding is inhibited by two important issues. First is the assumption made by most theorists that physical and mental phenomena are essentially different ("the Hard Problem"). Second, is the ambiguity of the widely used "Affect Concept". Ideas about the autonomic nervous system are integrated with those from the author's previous text A Basic Theory of Neuropsychoanalysis. The Realization of Concepts is based on four key assumptions: (1) There is no "Hard Problem"; (2) Motivational theory and cognitive theory can be integrated to create more valid models of body, brain and mind interactions; (3) "Affect Concepts" are superfluous and work to inhibit theory integration; and, (4) Affect theory developed as a "compromise formation" in response to radical reductionism.

Plan of the book , Preface , Introduction , Part I , Scientific concepts and human evolution , Theory-building organisations , Barriers to knowledge and theoretical integration , Recent consensus and longstanding problems , Controlling sensations, concepts, feelings, and overt behaviour , Recapitulation of axiomatic assumptions and their connections , Part II , Parasympathetic systems and affect theory , Autonomic nervous systems I: stress and anxiety , Scientific concepts and human evolution , Psychopathology , Part III , Information processing, mental competence and psychotherapy , Authority, self-control, and metatheory , Moving through space, time, and light , L'esprit D'escalier , Psychosomatics in religion and science