La joie partagée (Mitfreude) : accordage affectif et travail émotionnel

Abstract

Since the seminal works of Scheler and Husserl, the phenomenology of emotions has taken a close interest in the interpersonal dimension of feeling and has emphasized that affectivity is one of the original modalities of our relationship to others. Considered in this intersubjective dimension, feeling appears as a co-feeling or a sense-with (Mitgefühl, in the language of Scheler – term that has been translated as sympathy). By extending these classic analyses, we propose to show that this interaffectivity involves not only an affection and a receptivity to the other, but also a considerable part of emotional effort. We propose to describe this dimension of emotional agency by highlighting two complementary conceptual tools: the notion of affective tuning, stemming from psychoanalytic-oriented child psychiatry developed by Daniel Stern, and that of emotional work, derived from the sociology of emotions developed by Arlie Russell Hochschild. The guiding thread of our reflection is provided by a phenomenological analysis of the affective situation of shared joy (Mitfreude) between parents and children.