The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals a greater role for the higher cortical centres in the regulation of the emotional response, and touches on the theme of gender differences in emotional expression, anticipating the approach of sociologist Norbert Elias in "The Civilizing Process". In 1905, Sir Arthur Mitchell, a psychiatrist who had served as William A.F. Browne's deputy in the Scottish Lunacy Commission, published "About Dreaming, Laughing and Blushing", bridging some of Darwin's concerns with those of psychoanalysis. Freud's early publications on the symptoms of hysteria (with his influential concept of unconscious emotional conflict) acknowledged debts to Darwin's work on emotional expressionand Darwin's impact on psychoanalysis
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals shows how human emotions link mental states with bodily movement, and are genetically determined, deriving from purposeful animal actions. He comments on the implications of the book: a single origin for the entire human species, with universal human expressions; and he stresses the social value of expression, citing the emotional communication between mother and child. This was one of the first books to be illustrated with photographs – with seven heliotype plates – and the publisher John Murray warned that this "would poke a [terrible] hole in the profits". The published book assembled illustrations rather like a Victorian family album,