“Historically, how has ‘love’ been perceived in psychology?”G.B.
For a long time, psychology has limited the definition of love almost exclusively to the man-woman relationship. In a therapist patient relationship, patients are always assessed in relation to their first deep emotional relationship: that between them and their mother. This is a relationship that, according to many psychologists, conditions other sentimental relationships of all adult existence.
However, I think that the time has arrived for a paradigm shift. This is to conceive of love in psychology as freedom, and not as an attachment to anyone or anything. It means not seeing oneself as being attached to someone in order to love or be loved but, above all, being FREE to love someone.
What kind of love am I speaking about? It is a love that liberates because it does not make us feel “owned,” possessed or suffocated, by someone else. It is a kind of love which, the more it is shared, the more it multiplies. It is not “exclusive:” rather, it is an intelligent love that profoundly understands the soul’s inner depths. It is farsighted: it doesn’t only think of the here and now, but it is also genuinely interested in what is good for the other person. It is a love that is able to say NO and be firm in its decisions. At the same time, it is a creative love, able to innovate in situations, coming up with new ways of getting together, of entering into a relationship with others.
Alas, today, love is often lived in a shallow and impersonal way. Love is loosely defined and often confused as erotic and temporary. Many have unlearned love because the more society frees sexuality, the more it represses the “eros.” People are confused and think that eros is synonymous with sex. Instead, they are two different things. Sex is a physical need, while eros is an emotion.
It is possible then to have sex without eros, where sex becomes something mechanical or without true passion. In eros, intimacy means a total giving of self to become one with the other person. In our society today, such a thought is scary, too intense. After all, it means to give up one’s individuality. To many, this is a daunting, even intimidating, idea. This is why all (or at least a great part of) attention is focused on sex.
However, this is impoverishing because many very important feelings, such as tenderness and enthusiasm, are ignored, disowned or repressed. This in turn opens the door to impersonal, shallow and oftentimes, temporary “love.”
Towards the end of the 1960’s, psychologist Rollo May had affirmed that there are various forms of love: eros, phylia (friendship, fraternal and brotherly love) and agape (altruistic or spiritual love). True love, which contains all three, should be a perfect blend and a balance of all these three dimensions.
Not one of these can stand by itself if it’s to be true, profound and lasting love.
Pascal Ionata and Jenni Bulan
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