Emotional Expectations. Husserlian Reflections on the Emotional Relation to the future and the Possibility of Regulating Negative Emotional Dispositons.

CELIA CABRERA

Nicosia

Congreso; Phenomenology and Mindfulness; 2022

In this paper, I approach Husserl´s perspective on our emotional relation to the future. I do this by analyzing particularly the notion of "emotional expectation" (Gemütserwartung), a concept used by Husserl in different works and contexts to describe a subject´s direction towards what is coming as an affective tension. My aim is to explore the possible contributions of Husserl´s analysis of the relation between different levels and temporal phases of consciousness to the debate in mindfulness regarding the possibility to focus on present experience and observing emotions. First, I will present the concept of emotional expectation in the framework of Husserlian phenomenology and I will give an overview of the sedimentation and "resonance" of feelings in emotional dispositions. Second, I will refer to the possibility of regulating negative emotional dispositions, by analyzing the role of attention in redirecting consciousness to the now, and in the observation of emotions. In general terms, I will try to briefly describe the passive genesis of disposition that predelineate present experience and expectations regarding the future, and also to explore the possibility of actively intervening in the present to reconfigure this passive predelineation.