Emotions and pre-reflective

I think Damasio's concept of emotions is very close to what Butt is referring to as pre-reflective in the sense that both mechanisms are "automatic" and are not activated by conscious effort. Damasio's view of emotions is that they are unconscious body responses to the stimuli. We become aware (get the feelings) after the emotions occurred. This is very close to what Butt means by "Our connection with others is primarily pre-reflective". While we are connecting with others we are in a process of connecting, so to speak. We do not reflect on the words we use, for example, while we are talking. We can reflect on them after we said them. Our connection with others is in a way unconscious, meaning that our conscious awareness in a social situation is focused on connecting with others, not on ourselves.