Feeling

The conscious registration of an emotion or affect. Emotion is a physiological state of arousal governed by the brain’s limbic system that places the body in an attitude of fear, rage, lust, disgust, etc. Emotions are automatic responses that occur before an individual has a chance to think about what is going on. Feeling occurs as the conscious recognition that an emotional state is already in effect.

In Jungian psychology, feeling is – along with thinking, sensation, and intuition – one of the four “psychic functions” for apprehending the two worlds: inner and outer. While “sensation” (the five senses) determines that something is there before me and “thinking” determines what it is, feeling evaluatesthe people, situations, and objects that I meet. Feeling establishes that something is attractive or disgusting, benign or threatening, gratifying or enraging, etc., and it does so on a hierarchical basis, determining which object is more lovable or inspiring than another. Because it...