In this thesis, I provide an analysis of the causal structure of occurrent emotions understood as complex, episodic and dynamic psychological continuities over time. The broad aim of the analysis is to uncover and theorise the relations between the temporality of emotion episodes–i.e., their having temporal extension, boundaries, trajectories etc.–and their ‘agentiality’–i.e., the aspect under which they are ways, or products of ways, of being active. My main proposal is that emotion episodes, unlike other kinds of affective reaction–such as, e.g., pain, sensory pleasure, physical craving etc.–are not wholly passive phenomena. Although they are elicited–viz., initiated–in us from without–what causes them to persist or unfold over time is an interplay between affective changes and agential cognitive processes–e.g., perceptual attending, imagining, ruminating, anticipating etc. These processes jointly constitute our ‘sustained attentional engagement’ with emotional situations, an affective species of interest-driven attending.