Cognition and emotion : from order to disorder

This volume is the first book which seeks to review and integrate the various areas which fall under the umbrella of 'Cognition and Emotion'. The text has two principal aims. The first is to integrate work on normal emotions with work on the so-called emotional disorders. Within the cognition and emotion literature, there are a number of influential theories of 'normal' emotions; however, these rarely address the issue of disordered emotions. Similarly, there are numerous theories which seek to explain one or more emotional disorders (e.g. Depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), but which rarely discuss normal emotions. The present book introduces a theoretical framework which can be applied to both normal and disordered emotions. The second aim of this book is to provide a core cognition and emotion textbook by including a comprehensive review of the basic literature. This aim reflects the increased emphasis on cognition and emotion in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The book is in two parts. The first part provides a broad theoretical overview of the cognition and emotion literature, with chapters on the cognitive philosophy of emotion, theories of normal emotion and theories of emotional disorder. The key points from these three review chapters are carried forward to an integrative theoretical chapter in which a framework for analysing both normal and disordered emotions is outlined. The second part of the book contains separate chapters on the five basic emotions of fear, sadness, anger, disgust and happiness. Each chapter provides a broad review of the relevant empirical and theoretical literature, a discussion of disordered variants of the emotion and an analysis of the normal and disordered presentations within the theoretical framework proposed in Part I.