The concern in this book is both with emotions as events and with emotional regulation as a core feature of normative and individual development. Theoretical treatments have rarely been this broad. Generally, they emphasize one aspect or the other. Therefore, it will be necessary to draw on insights from a variety of perspectives. There are excellent works on the emergence of the affects (e.g., Izard, 1978, 1990), the instigation of emotion (Frijda, 1988; Lazarus, 1991; Mandler, 1984), and emotional regulation (Fogel, 1993; Schore, 1994; Thompson, 1990).

According to Arnold (1960), a “balanced” theory of emotion differentiates emotional experience from other experience, accounts for the arousal of emotion and bodily change, and specifies the place of emotion in goal-directed action. A “complete” theory also distinguishes emotions from feelings and one emotion from the other, and it specifies neurophysiological mechanisms and the significance of emotion in personality integration. Thus, emotions and emotional life are multifaceted, entailing a consideration of physiological, cognitive, and social factors, and expressive as well as internal components (Schore, 1994).