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Affect consciousness refers to an individual's ability to consciously perceive, tolerate, reflect upon, and express affects. These four abilities are operationalized as degrees of awareness, tolerance, emotional (nonverbal) expression, and conceptual (verbal) expression of each of the following nine affect categories : • # Interest/Excitement

• # Enjoyment/Joy

• # Fear/Panic

• # Anger/Rage

• # Shame/Humiliation

• # Sadness/Despair

• # Envy/Jealousy

• # Guilt/Remorse

• # Tenderness/Care The Affect Consciousness Interview (ACI) (Monsen et al., 2009), a semi-structured interview, is used to evaluate an individual's affect consciousness. The ACI evaluates the individual's awareness, tolerance, emotional expression, and conceptual expression of each of the nine affect categories are evaluated using a nine-point Affect Consciousness Scale (ACS) ; the most current version contains eleven affect categories.

AC Continuum
A person with a low level of affect consciousness is expected to be unable to make sense of both his or her own feelings and the emotions of others and to have difficulties attributing causes for his or her own and others’ behaviors. A person with high AC is expected to make sense of both his or her and others' emotions. Conversely, a personal with a high level of affect consciousness is expected to be well-able to understand, interpret, and reflect upon both his or her own and others' emotions.

Adult Attachment
Lech's et al. research found a correlation between scores on the Affect Conscious Scale an adult attachment style. High affect consciousness was associated with secure attachment style; and, low affect consciousness was associated with insecure attachment style. The ability to experience and respond to others' affects seems to contribute to the development of a secure attachment style. The relationship between an individual's level of affect consciousness and attachment style may have implications in psychological treatment at changing maladaptive affective and relational patterns.

Children
The Affect Consciousness Interview requires the individual to have a relatively well-developed vocabulary in order to express and organize his/her own and other's emotions; consequently, affect consciousness interviews are not relevant to clinical work with children. Affect consciousness, as measured by the ACI, presumes a wide specter of verbal ability; this requirement for a developed vocabulary might be difficult to find in children, especially those seeking psychological treatment. Affect conscious measures will not have the same therapeutic benefits in children as they do in adults.

Affect Consciousness as a Predictor of Psychopathology
As noted by Solbakken et al., the Global Affect Consciousness scores (overall mean of all aspect-scores across affects) are strongly correlated with all the relevant measures of psychological dysfunction. Affect integration (operationalized through Affect Consciousness constructs and measured with the ACI and ACS) at different levels are stable correlates of psychopathology and psychological dysfunction.

Mentalization
It has been suggested that affect consciousness and the concept of mentalization partly overlap ; however, there are several noted distinctions between the two concepts. First, compared to mentalization, affect consciousness places more emphasis on the explicit, conscious awareness and expression of affect states. Second, mentalization theory argues that affects develop in a relationship (primarily between the mother and the infant) while affect consciousness theory focuses on the individual's own perception and organization of his or her own affects.

Additional Readings
Monsen, J. T., & Monsen, K. (1999). Affects and affect consciousness: A psychotherapy model integrating Silvan Tomkins' affect- and script theory within the framework of self psychology. In A. Goldberg (Ed.), Pluralism in self psychology: Progress in self psychology, Vol. 15. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.

Solbakken, O. A., Hansen, R. S., Havik, O. E., & Monsen, J. T. (2011). The assessment of affect integration: validation of the affect consciousness construct. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93, 257-265.

Solbakken, O.A., Hansen, R. S., & Monsen, J. T. (2011). Affect integration and reflective function; clarififcation of central conceptual issues. Psychotherapy Research, 21, 482-496.

Tomkins, S. S. (2008a). Affect Imagery Consciousness: The complete edition. Volumes 1-4. New York: Springer Publishing Company.