The Privatization of Affects: Rigid Roles, False Self, and Psychic Collapse in Intimate Relationships

Theoretical essay. This article proposes a psychoanalytic and systemic reading of rigid affective roles in intimate relationships, with emphasis on conjugal, family, and intergenerational dynamics. It starts from the hypothesis that many bonds organize themselves through a silent distribution of emotional functions: one subject comes to occupy the place of the "calm one," the "strong one," the "good one," or the "mediator," while another occupies the place of the "irritable one," the "fragile one," the "demanding one," or the "explosive one." The article argues that psychic suffering does not stem only from the presence of conflict, but from the impossibility of affects circulating within the bond. Drawing on Freud, Winnicott, Jung, Klein, Bion, Benjamin, Bowen, Minuchin, and the contemporary literature on emotion regulation and self-silencing, the concept of the privatization of affects is proposed to designate the rigid appropriation of particular emotions by particular members of the relational system, and it is delimited against neighboring concepts such as repression, expressive suppression, self-silencing, the false self, projective identification, and differentiation of self. This record contains the English version (privatization_of_affects.pdf) and the Portuguese version (privatizacao_dos_afetos_PT.pdf) of the manuscript. Resumo (PT): Este ensaio teórico propõe uma leitura psicanalítica e sistêmica dos papéis afetivos rígidos nas relações íntimas. Propõe-se o conceito de "privatização dos afetos" para designar a apropriação rígida de determinadas emoções por certos membros do sistema relacional, delimitando-o frente a recalque, supressão expressiva, autossilenciamento, falso self, identificação projetiva e diferenciação do self. Defende-se que a saúde do vínculo depende menos da ausência de afetos negativos e mais da possibilidade de que todos possam ser, em medidas humanas, bons e maus, fortes e frágeis, serenos e irritados.