Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 2015; 2 : 61–74 DOI: 10.12740/APP/42669 henry Zvi lothane: MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. E-mail address: Schreber@lo- thane.com The primacy of emotions: a continuation of dramatology Henry Zvi Lothane Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point; on le sait en mille choses. (Pascal) Summary: Psychiatry means healing the psyche or soul that belongs to an individual human being, that is, a per- son, with a body and a capacity for acting, feeling, emoting and speaking, perceived by the five senses or imagined, seen figuratively in the mind’s eye, in images of dreams and daydreams. Since the total per- son appears before us with all the characteristics, an all-in-one package, I ask, how is it that psychiatry has lost its psyche? Dramatology approaches human encounters, events, and scenes as dramatic enact- ments of characters in conflict and crisis. It comprises two forms: dramatisation in thought and emotion that involves images and scenes lived in memories, dreams, daydreams, fantasy scenarios, and drama- tisation in act. This paper is a continuation of my earlier publication in this journal. emotions / dramatology / freud EMOTIONS IN lIfE, DISORDER AND ThERAPy For an introduction to the concept of drama- tology, please see Lothane [1]. Freud’s original insight into the reciprocal re- lations of body and soul and its role in interper- sonal relationships can be seen in an early 1890s paper which Freud published in 1905 [2, 3]: “Psychische Behandlung (Seelenbehandlung)”, henceforth cited as “Psychical treatment”, which begins thus: “Psyche is a Greek word which is translated in German as Seele, i.e. soul. One might guess what is meant by this: the treatment of morbid manifestations of one’s emotional life. But this is not the meaning of the word. Psychi- cal treatment says more than that: it is treatment that has its beginning in the soul, treatment of psychical or bodily complaints through means (Mitteln) which operate from the start and di- rectly upon the psyche or the soul of the per- son. Foremost among such means is the use of words; and words are the essential tool of psy- chical treatment. But ‘mere words’ is like being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing but watered-down magic, [due] to their former magical power” (p. 283, my translation). Words are the most important means by which man seeks to bring his influence to bear on an- other; words are a good method of producing psychical changes in the person to whom they are addressed. We shall explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power. So that there is no longer