Intense, exaggerated emotional expression is often perceived as a personality trait, a temperamental feature, or a sign of emotional expansiveness. In the clinical practice of MindCareCenter, however, affectation is understood not only as a mode of emotional expression, but also as a defensive style of emotional regulation. In the opinion of Dr. Daniel Reinhardt, intensified affectivity frequently develops in conditions where direct contact with one’s inner experiences is difficult or unsafe, and emotion becomes a means of maintaining attention, connection, and internal cohesion.
Affectation performs a compensatory function. By amplifying emotional intensity, the psyche attempts to structure internal tension and make it perceptible and manageable. The expressed emotion, however, does not always correspond to the underlying experience. Demonstrative anxiety may conceal fear of loss, sudden outbursts of anger may mask helplessness, and dramatization may reflect an unmet need to be seen and acknowledged. In such cases, emotion is not used for genuine experiencing, but rather as a way to sustain connection with others or with oneself.
Within the clinical approach of MindCareCenter, affectation is viewed as a particular language of the psyche – one that emerges when more subtle and differentiated forms of emotional expression are unavailable. We observe how heightened emotionality becomes a way of avoiding inner emptiness, uncertainty, or a sense of invisibility. Emotion is displayed outwardly, yet remains poorly integrated into inner experience.
Over time, this style of expression may become fixed and habitual. A person begins to perceive intensity as the only way to be heard, to feel significant, or to experience a sense of aliveness. In the work of MindCareCenter, we see how affectation gradually displaces the capacity to differentiate emotional states – feelings merge, become abrupt and difficult to regulate, and increasingly contribute to internal exhaustion.
Affectation impacts not only the emotional domain, but also the bodily level. Heightened reactions are often accompanied by muscular tension, accelerated breathing, and a sense of emotional overflow or loss of bodily control. In the clinical analysis of MindCareCenter, particular attention is given to how the body becomes involved in sustaining affective intensity, reinforcing emotional surges and consolidating them as automatic responses.
Therapeutic work is not aimed at suppressing emotions or reducing their intensity at any cost. Rather, at MindCareCenter, the focus shifts toward restoring contact with the experiences that lie beneath the affective form. Gradually, the capacity for slowing down emerges – differentiating feelings, tolerating pauses between impulse and expression, and developing more precise and contained emotional responses.
As therapy progresses, affectation may lose its defensive necessity. The individual begins to sense that connection is possible without emotional amplification, and that being heard does not require heightened intensity. At Mind Care Center, this process is supported carefully, with respect for the protective function of affectivity and without dismantling it prematurely.
Affectation as a defensive style is not a sign of “incorrect” emotionality. It is an adaptive mode of regulation formed in conditions where other forms of emotional expression were unavailable or unsafe. Clinical work makes it possible to expand the emotional repertoire while preserving emotional vitality, and to restore depth, flexibility, and internal coherence to emotional life.
Previously, we wrote about the psyche as a dynamic system of self-regulation and MindCareCenter clinical perspective on mechanisms of stability and breakdown