Message what is love. What is love. What is love - chemical definition

A complex affective state and experience associated with the object's primary libidinal cathexis. The feeling is characterized by high spirits and euphoria, sometimes ecstasy, sometimes pain. Freud referred to love as "the re-finding of the object", it can be seen as an affective reproduction of a state of symbiotic unity. It is probable that the child first experiences love in the form of attachment to and desire for the mother during and after the differentiation of representations of self and objects.

The development of love in early childhood largely depends on the mutual affection of the mother or the one who first cares for the child. Initially, the child loves both the narcissistic object and himself; early love is characterized by pronounced oral and narcissistic goals and properties.

Love is considered in three main dimensions: narcissistic love - object love, infantile love - mature love, love - hate. At the same time, an important factor affecting the quality and stability of love is the degree of hatred associated with it, aggressive goals that oppose the goals of attachment, that is, ambivalence. The development of object permanence necessary for later mature love depends on a number of factors. Among them: the resolution of intense ambivalence, the consolidation of stable, coherent representations of self and objects, resistance to self regression and loss of attachment in a situation of frustration and separation from the object. In order to feel loved, the constancy of the Self and a healthy secondary narcissism are necessary. Important elements of a love relationship are the ability to find in each other a means of making up for past losses or healing traumas, as well as establishing and strengthening a sense of unique mutual closeness. The desire to satisfy sexual desire is usually mutual, but the concept of love must be distinguished from the concept of the primacy of genitality, which is currently understood as the ability to achieve orgasm, regardless of the level or nature of the object relationship.

Freud discovered that love is based on infantile prototypes. Transfer love is the revitalization of real and imagined infantile love relationships; its analysis helps the patient understand how infantile goals and attachments influence adult actions and attitudes. Even relatively internally consistent and stable love is subject to regression and infantile fixation. In severe regression or in the case of developmental delay, the individual may not be capable of love. This inability is often accompanied by primitive aggression, hatred of oneself and the object.

Once the primary psychosexual object attachment is established, love takes on many forms and directions for forbidden purposes. Structurally, love includes the id, the ego, and the superego. The love, approval, pleasure of the parents are internalized into a mature and good Superego; the rough and cruel Superego destroys the ability to love and be loved. Love can shift from original objects to collective objects and affairs, but religion, to artistic, intellectual or physical sublimation, to pets, to personal interests. The boundaries of the concept of love are difficult to define; adult love includes both mature and infantile unconscious features and always involves a tendency to identify with and idealize the loved object.

Love

LOVE

Psychologists would perhaps be wise to decline the responsibility for analyzing this term and leave it to the poets. The confusing confusion that arises from lack of wisdom and excess of courage can, however, be systematized according to the following classification scheme. First, we present the two most common patterns of use of this term. 1. An intense feeling of strong affection or liking for some particular thing or person. 2. A persistent feeling for a person, causing a desire to be with this person and concern for the happiness and pleasure of this person. Note that both of these meanings may or may not contain connotations of sexuality. Of course, the first meaning is often used in reference to cats, tennis, teachers or academic subjects, while the second refers to parents or children - all without sexual or erotic connotations. However, a value of 1 can also apply to lovers, and a value of 2 to wives, husbands, and lovers. The main thing is that love in any of these meanings is an emotional state that colors all interactions with a loved one or thing and their perception. This is the component, of course, that makes love so attractive to psychologists.

One may turn to psychoanalytic theory in the hope of getting clarifications. But even in it one will have to face an opinion similar to that expressed by the British analyst Rycroft: "There are just as many problems with the definition of this diverse concept as elsewhere." It is used according to

in various ways, for example: 3. Any emotional state defined as basically the opposite of hate. 4. Emotion subject to sublimation or inhibition. 5. Equivalent to Eros and an instinctive force close to either the life instincts or the sexual instincts, depending on whether the author adheres to the early or late Freudian point of view (for clarification, see libido).

The value 3 does not seem to be of much value to psychologists; it necessarily distinguishes definitions. Usage patterns 4 and 5 are close to the classical psychoanalytic meaning, especially in that all manifestations of love - love for oneself, for children, for humanity, for a country, or even for abstract ideas - are seen as manifestations of a basic instinctive force and, therefore, are subject to action. protective mechanisms. However, some complications arise, especially as some theorists additionally introduce the concept of object love and interpret the ideas contained in the meanings 4 and 5 as a manifestation of the need to have a relationship with objects, including, of course, with people.

The use of the concept of love as a scientific term causes several types of contradictions. First, the issue of sex and sexual expression: is it an essential component, or can love exist entirely apart from it? Secondly, the problem of instinct: is love innate or is it an acquired emotional reaction? Thirdly, the problem of the way emotions are manifested: can a feeling be unrelated to behavior, or does emotion always leave an imprint on behavior?

LOVE

a generalized concept used to describe and characterize the experiences and feelings of a person related to his attitude to other people, objects, ideas, the world as a whole and himself.

In classical psychoanalysis, love was primarily understood as such a relationship between people, which is due to the affective manifestation of libido, that is, sexual energy. Although Z. Freud believed that the essence of what is called love in psychoanalysis is nothing more than the usual understanding of love sung by poets, namely sexual interaction between people, nevertheless, the idea of ​​love that goes beyond exclusively intimate relationships. It is no coincidence that in his work “Mass Psychology and Analysis of the Human Self” (1921) he wrote: “However, we do not separate everything that is generally in any way connected with the concept of love, that is, on the one hand, love for oneself , on the other hand, the love of parents, the love of children, friendship and universal love, we do not separate and devotion to specific objects or abstract ideas.

In historical terms, love was correlated by Z. Freud with a person's attraction to a sexual object and acted on a par with external need, due to the need for people to live together. In this respect, Eros and Ananke (need) were for him the "ancestors of human culture." Love was considered as the "foundation of culture", causing the strongest experience of pleasure sexual (genital) love - as a prototype of human happiness.

In the understanding of Z. Freud, love laid the foundations of the family in antiquity. She does not renounce direct sexual satisfaction in modern culture. Moreover, love continues to have an impact on culture, including in the form of tenderness, which is sexual activity modified and inhibited in purpose. In both forms, it performs an important function, that is, it binds together many people. Another thing is that the ordinary use of the concept of love in speech turns out to be vague, making it difficult to understand what is really being discussed.

Z. Freud proceeded from the fact that the inaccuracy of the use of the word "love" has its own "genetic basis". In his work “Dissatisfaction with Culture” (1930), he explained his idea as follows: “Love is the relationship between a man and a woman who have created a family to satisfy their sexual needs. But love is also good feelings between parents and children, brothers and sisters, although such relationships should be designated as love or tenderness inhibited by purpose. Initially inhibited by purpose, love was at the same time sensual. It remains so in modern culture, with the only difference being that it turns out to be unconscious. Both types of love (sensual and inhibited in purpose) go beyond the family, as a result of which the necessary connection is established between those who were previously alien to each other. Thus, sexual love leads to new family unions, while love inhibited by purpose leads to friendly, culturally significant associations of people in which the limitations of sexual love are overcome. However, as Z. Freud believed, in the course of development, love began to lose its unambiguous relationship to culture. “On the one hand, love comes into conflict with the interests of culture, on the other hand, culture threatens love with tangible restrictions.”

Such a split is manifested, according to Z. Freud, primarily in the form of a conflict between the family and larger communities of people. The psychic energy expended for the purposes of culture is taken away from sexual life, the restriction of which leads to cultural development, but at the same time turns into neuroticization of a person. Already the first phase of culture brought with it a ban on incest, which inflicted, according to Z. Freud, "the deepest wound of all time in the love life of a person." The highest point of this development of culture and the restriction of sexuality is Western European culture, where manifestations of child sexuality were banned. And although such a ban is psychologically justified, since without prior suppression in childhood it would be a hopeless task to tame sexual desires in adults, nevertheless, as Z. Freud believed, there is no justification for the fact that culture generally rejects the existence of children's sexuality as such.

From the point of view of the founder of psychoanalysis, the contradiction between love and culture has a marked effect on human development. In the first phase of his development, usually ending by the age of five, the child finds in one of his parents his first love object. The subsequent repression of his desires leads to a forced rejection of sexual goals and a modification of his relationship to his parents. The child remains attached to them, but his feelings take on the character of tenderness. With the maturity of the child, his love is directed to other sexual objects. However, under unfavorable conditions of development, sensual and tender inclinations may turn out to be so incompatible with each other that a full-fledged love life of a person will be in question.

Thus, a man can find a romantic attraction to a highly esteemed woman without any need for loving, sexual intercourse with her and will have real sexual relations only with those "fallen" women whom he does not love and despises. He will have a conflict between insensible, heavenly, divine and sensual, earthly, sinful love. Psychoanalytic practice, which makes it possible to get acquainted with the field of the love life of neurotics, reveals a type of man for whom the most valuable object of sexual love is not a respectable woman, but one who is a prostitute. A man of this type often turns out to be mentally impotent in dealing with a respectable woman and reveals his sexual power only with a humiliated sexual object, with which the possibility of complete satisfaction is mentally connected.

To resolve the conflict between love and culture in the history of mankind, various ideal demands of the cultural community have been put forward. One of these requirements appears in the form of a well-known commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Assessing this requirement, Z. Freud spoke about its psychological failure in real life. Love is an unconditional value for a person, and he cannot irresponsibly scatter it, especially since not all people are worthy of love. If the commandment sounded "love your neighbor as he loves you", then it would not cause objections. But if another person does not attract me with any virtues and does not matter to my feelings, then, Z. Freud noted, it is difficult to love him, and this is unfair in relation to close people who deserve my love. “If I have to love him, and with a kind of universal love, simply because he inhabits the earth - like an insect, an earthworm or an annelids - then I am afraid that little love will fall to his lot.”

Often, love is perceived by a person as a life strategy that contributes to finding happiness. In this case, love is placed at the center of the life orientation to love and be loved. Such a mental attitude stems from the experience of infantile love for parents, as well as sexual love, which introduced a person to a previously experienced feeling of pleasure. However, as Z. Freud noted, “we never find ourselves so defenseless in the face of suffering than when we love; we are never so hopelessly unhappy as at the loss of a beloved being or his love.

Z. Freud's ideas about love were further developed in psychoanalytic literature. Some psychoanalysts paid more attention to the phenomenon of love, considered through the prism of marital relations between people, others to the neurotic need for love, others to love as a solution to the problem of human existence.

Thus, the German-American psychoanalyst K. Horney (1885–1952) distinguished between love and the neurotic need for love, based on the fact that “the main thing in love is the very feeling of attachment, while in a neurotic the primary feeling is the need to acquire confidence and calmness, and the illusion of love is only secondary. In The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937), she revealed the “thirst for love” often found in neurosis, in which a person is not able to love, but feels an urgent need for love from others, he has a subjective conviction of his devotion to others, in while in reality his love is nothing more than "clinging to other people to satisfy one's own needs." If the neurotic comes close to realizing that true love is being offered to him, then he may experience a feeling of horror. According to K. Horney, the distinguishing features of the neurotic need for love are, first of all, its obsessive nature and insatiability, the main forms of which can be jealousy and the demand for absolute love. If Z. Freud believed that the basis of the neurotic need for love is the sexual dissatisfaction of a person, then K. Horney refused to recognize the sexual etiology of the need for love. Giving sexuality a genuine meaning was regarded by her as one of the greatest achievements of the founder of psychoanalysis. However, as K. Horney emphasized, many phenomena are considered sexual, which in reality are an expression of complex neurotic states, mainly "an expression of a neurotic need for love."

For the American psychoanalyst E. Fromm (1900–1980), love is an art that requires labor and knowledge, a real force in a person that presupposes the preservation of his integrity. For most people, the problem of love is the problem of how to be loved, while in reality, according to E. Fromm, it lies in how to love yourself. To love means first of all to give, not to receive. Considering love from the standpoint of humanistic psychoanalysis, E. Fromm was critical of the Freudian understanding of love as an expression of sexual desire. However, he criticized Z. Freud not because he overestimated the role of sexuality in human life, but because the founder of psychoanalysis "understood sexuality not deeply enough." Therefore, if Z. Freud only touched on the issue of different types of love, then E. Fromm paid considerable attention to the consideration of the specifics of love between parents and children, maternal love, brotherly love, erotic love, self-love, love of God. This was reflected in his work "The Art of Love" (1956), in which he not only considered, like K. Horney, neurotic disorders in love, but also revealed such forms of pseudo-love as "sentimental", "idolatrous" and neurotic love. based on the use of projective mechanisms by a person in order to get away from solving his own problems.

In the understanding of E. Fromm, love is a personal experience that a person experiences only for himself and for himself: love depends on the ability to love, which, in turn, depends on the ability to “depart from narcissism and from incestuous attachment to mother and family”, from the ability to develop a fruitful attitude towards the world and towards oneself. Or, as he wrote in The Healthy Society (1955), "love is union with someone or something outside of oneself, while maintaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self."

LOVE

1. A high degree of emotionally positive attitude that distinguishes its object from others and places it at the center of the subject's vital needs and interests: love for the motherland, for mother, for children, for music, etc.

2. Intense, intense and relatively stable feeling of the subject, physiologically conditioned by sexual needs; expressed in a socially formed desire to be as fully represented by one's personally significant features in the life of another (-> personalization) in such a way as to awaken in him the need for a reciprocal feeling of the same intensity, tension and stability. The feeling of love is deeply intimate and is accompanied by situationally arising and changing emotions of tenderness, delight, jealousy and others, experienced depending on the individual psychological characteristics of the individual.

As a generic concept, love covers a fairly wide range of emotional phenomena that differ in depth, strength, subject orientation, and other things: from relatively weakly expressed approving relationships (sympathy) to experiences that completely capture a person, reaching the power of passion. The fusion of the individual's sexual need, which ultimately ensures the continuation of the family, and love as the highest feeling that gives the individual the best opportunity to be continued, ideally represented in another significant, practically does not allow one to be separated from the other in reflection. This circumstance served as one of the reasons why different philosophical and psychological trends allowed illegal absolutization of either the biological principle in love, reducing it to the sexual instinct (love as sex); or, denying and belittling the physiological side of love, they interpreted it as a purely spiritual feeling (Platonic love). Although physiological needs are a prerequisite for the emergence and maintenance of a feeling of love, but due to the fact that in a person’s personality the biological is removed and appears in a transformed form, as a social one, love in its intimate psychological characteristics is a socio-historically conditioned feeling that reflects social relations and features of culture, acting as the moral basis of relations in the institution of marriage.

Studies of ontogeny and the functions of love show that it plays an important role in the formation of personality and in the development of the self-concept. It has been established that the frustration of the need for love leads to a deterioration in the somatic and mental state. There is a close connection between the individual feeling of love and the traditions and norms of society and the peculiarities of family upbringing: both of these groups of variables are the source of the ways of interpreting one's condition accepted by the subject. In psychology, many attempts have been made to study the internal structure of love in general and the relationship of its individual components with various personality characteristics. The most important of the results obtained is the establishment of a connection between the ability to love and the attitude of the subject to himself. This fact and a number of other similar ones, as well as the role of love in creating a family, make the problem of love extremely important for psychotherapy and psychological counseling, for the education and self-education of the individual.

According to Z. Freud, the core of love is sexual love, which has the goal of sexual union. But everything involved in the word love is inseparable from this concept: selfishness, love for parents and children, friendship, philanthropy, devotion to concrete objects and abstract ideas. Love originates from the ability of the ego to satisfy part of its drives autoerotically, experiencing pleasure from the function of the organs. Initially, it is narcissistic, then it passes to objects that merge with the expanded I. It is closely connected with the manifestation of later sexual drives and, when their synthesis is completed, coincides with the sexual desire in its entirety.

According to E. Fromm, love is an attitude, an orientation of character that sets a person’s attitude to the world in general, as well as a form of manifestation of a sense of care, responsibility, respect and understanding for other people, a desire and ability of a mature creative character to be actively interested in life and development object of love. Sexual attraction is just a form of manifestation of the need for love and connection. Love is an art that requires a variety of knowledge and skills, including discipline, concentration, patience, interest, activity and faith. In modern society, love relationships follow the laws of the market and are realized in numerous forms of pseudo-love (-> pseudo-love: the normal form).

To the question "What is love: briefly and clearly?" most people expect to hear that love is a disease, a poison, an inexplicable attachment that passes with time. But from the height of 29 years of my love, I want to say that I categorically disagree with this.

True love is, first of all, selfless service to a loved one and daily care. True love does not pass away, but grows over time, like a snowball that two lovers roll in front of them through their lives.

Over time, you begin to understand that you love your loved one, not because he has blue eyes or because he drives a cool car but because he tenderly cares for you and your children. And "tenderly caring" only sounds so cute but it's actually a lot of work.

And it's not just my opinion. based on my experience. In ancient times, people had a different understanding of what love is. Namely: by love, they understood selfless service, and not the romance of relationships. That is why they skipped many of the stages of love that are characteristic of our selfish society- stages of grinding, quarrels, self-assertion . They are immediately moved from the romantic stage to the stage of service and then, to the stage of true love.

To make my point clearer, let's look at what is love from the point of view of psychology in the modern world. Consider 7 stages that every love goes through. Read this short article to the end and you will learn something new about love.

The first stage of love is falling in love.

Everyone knows the 1st stage is the so-called "candy-bouquet period". During this period, you do not notice any shortcomings in your lover. He seems perfect to you.

The 2nd stage of love is addiction.

Some time passes and you are no longer so worried and less admired by your loved one. You begin to perceive it more adequately.

The 3rd stage of love is lapping.

I will not open America if I say that during grinding most lovers begin their first quarrels. You yourself have probably gone through this stage. Here, I think, it all depends on the size of the ego of each of the lovers.

As you know, there are no people without flaws. It is at this stage that many begin to see only the shortcomings of their partner. There were flaws before, but just at the stage of falling in love, due to the physiological and hormonal state, the lovers did not notice them.

It is at this stage that lovers most often break up., never knowing that ahead of them are the most interesting and most important stages of their love. And a whole life ahead!

The 4th stage of love is the stage of patience.

Thanks to the patience stage (which can last for some for several years), enduring to the end all inconveniences and even pain, lovers receive a reward - they pass to the next stage. The stage of service, when you realize that there is something more important than proving your case and defending your opinion.

The 5th stage of love is service.

At this stage, you get pleasure from selfless service, selfless care for your loved one. True love is not a desire to GET something from a partner, but a desire to serve each other.

The 6th stage of love is friendship.

The stage of service passes into the stage of friendship, when they have undergone all the grinding, they feel good and comfortable together, they speak the same language, understand each other perfectly. You will be surprised when you find out what the next stage is the stage of friendship.

Stage 7 - REAL love.

This is a real reward for those who have overcome all the previous stages. You become one. You seem to be bound by an invisible rubber band. Many studies show that people who have lived many years in love even have synchronized heart rate, blood pressure, etc.

Such love is especially bright manifests itself in trouble, when you are ready to give everything, even your life to save your loved one.

I assure you, this is not just my opinion based on my experience. Many famous philosophers and writers talk about this. Here are just a few quotes:

In ancient times, people did not spend so much time at the stage of quarrels, grinding, patience, because they understood love in a different way. Namely: as selflessness, as disinterested service to each other, as friendship. This is true love. This is what Cicero's words quoted above are about.

And if someone asks you what love is from a scientific point of view (philosophical) and what love is from the point of view of psychology, you can safely answer that it is, first of all, tender friendship, the joy of daily service and care for each other.

Write in the comments what do you think about these thoughts? Share your love story.

See you soon on the blog pages. I wish you all love and joy!

Watch this amazing video. This simple secret needs to be passed on to children. Life is not like a journey, but like a dance! A fragment of a lecture by the British philosopher Alan Watts "why life is not like a journey"

Problems in the field of love arise due to the fact that everyone often understands this feeling in their own way. Answering the question of what love is, psychology does not give a single definition of this phenomenon. Experts talk about many varieties of manifestations of love.

The Soviet psychologist A. V. Petrovsky defines love as an intense, intense feeling, physically conditioned by sexual needs and expressed in the desire to be as fully represented by one’s personally significant features in the life of another in such a way as to awaken in him a reciprocal desire of the same intensity.

Social psychology about love

Studying the works of other psychologists on love, we come to the conclusion that the term covers a much wider range of feelings and experiences. In the 70s, Canadian sociologist John Alan Lee identified three main types of love that occur between a man and a woman.

1. Pragma is a calm, down-to-earth feeling. Such relationships are often referred to as "love of convenience." And it doesn't have to be about self-interest. Pragmatists are more likely to be guided by ordinary worldly wisdom. They tend to treat marriage more as a common business than the desire for vivid romantic experiences. Great importance is attached to the fulfillment of the obligations assumed to each other.
2. Mania - love-obsession, love-addiction. At the heart of feelings lies jealousy and passion. We can say that people who are inclined towards this kind of love live in anxious expectation of the appearance of problems in relationships. And if they are absent, they themselves create them. For example, a woman constantly falls in love with married or otherwise unavailable men. Because the obstacles to the expression of love create the intensity of emotions necessary for her temperament.
3. Agape - selfless, selfless love, selfless devotion to a loved one. In the first place - concern for the well-being of the partner, even to the detriment of their own interests and needs. A person inclined towards this type of love can be happy if his partner knows how to appreciate his sacrificial nature and does not turn into a complete egoist.

True love, from the point of view of psychology, includes all three of the above manifestations of feelings. Since each of the aspects is important for True love always finds its expression in physical passion. Moreover, the attraction reaches such strength that a loved one becomes the only possible source of full sexual satisfaction.

True love also manifests itself in an active interest in the happiness and development of the one we love. People in love often treat their partner as a child whom they want to please, pamper and protect from adversity and sorrow. Moreover, the desire to give is not accompanied by regrets about the time, energy, and money spent. A loving person does not need compensation in the form of reciprocal care, since the very state of being in love gives him the necessary energy supply.

Despite this fact, there is a common misconception in society that to love means to lose means to always receive less than you give in a relationship. What is more profitable to be loved than to love yourself. However, according to the psychology of love, for a truly in love person, giving in a relationship is just as pleasant as taking. If you are experiencing something else, you may be nothing more than infatuated.

Finally, love always breeds a sense of responsibility. Responsibility for the fate of the person with whom we connect our lives, responsibility for maintaining good and sincere feelings for each other. Love is impossible without respect for the feelings of a loved one, his dignity. When making decisions affecting the interests of the beloved, his opinion is necessarily taken into account and is decisive.

Analytical psychology about love and relationships

The German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm made the following conclusions about the existence of two different feelings that are called love in psychology, but lead to opposite results:

1. Love according to the principle of being is a fruitful feeling that implies interest, care, pleasure. It can be directed both to a person and to an inanimate object - a flower, a work of art, an idea. Such love spiritually enriches, fills with energy, enhances the feeling of fullness of life. Generates a desire for activities that involve caring for the object of love.
2. Possessive love is a destructive feeling. It manifests itself in destructive passion, which does not enrich the life of the object of sympathy, but suppresses, stifles it.

The psychoanalyst argued that psychologically immature individuals, neurotics, are characterized by the same immature, neurotic love on the principle of possession. The first step to take on the path to building a happy personal life is to realize that love is not just a feeling, a vivid emotion. This is the same art as the ability to play a musical instrument, build buildings, perform surgical operations. And in order to succeed on the love front, the art of creating and maintaining relationships needs to be trained as hard as any other business.

To build a happy relationship, a person needs to reach a new level of consciousness. Analyze your feelings and experiences in relation to the object of passion, identify possessive motives hidden deep in the subconscious. Psychological sessions with the use of hypnosis techniques by a psychologist-hypnologist will help with this. Baturin Nikita Valerievich

The psychology of love - everyone should know this

There are many myths in our culture generated by people who have failed on the love front. These are the same immature personalities that Erich Fromm spoke about. The wrong conclusions that they have made based on their life experiences prevent them from finding happiness in a love relationship. Let's debunk the main ones.

1. "Romantic feelings are required only to justify the need for procreation, sexual desire." With the help of such a position, a person protects his wounded ego. The failure in love did not befall him because his personality was not attractive enough. It is better to pretend that love simply does not exist. That this is nothing more than a sexual instinct.
2. "You can't do without love." In fact, the role of a husband or wife can be skillfully performed even without falling in love with a partner. This is a social role. Emotional love is the level of interpersonal relationships.
3. "Love depends entirely on the person you love." In fact, the state of love lives within you. And the other person just turns it on. We fall in love not with the person himself, but with one of the facets of his personality, which coincided with our psychological projection. For example, a woman feels a desire for intellectual development, broadening her horizons. This desire can be realized in falling in love with a university professor, a person from a higher cultural class, a foreigner. Other personal qualities of a man will not be so important for her. And if the beloved ceases to satisfy her craving for new knowledge, then the feeling of strong attraction to him will disappear.
4. "All love is doomed to failure." Such a myth is generated by those who do not take into account the evolution of feelings. The problem is that people often mistake for love what it is not - the primary surge of feelings, the so-called love-mania, built on an endorphin high. is the same drug as a syringe. In the presence of the chosen one, the endorphin group begins to stand out sharply, you experience an increase in strength. In his absence, you experience withdrawal, strive to see the object of your passion as soon as possible. This state can last from six months to four years. That is, it is not love that is doomed to die, but only passion. The initial love must pass into a new quality.
5. “Love can only be for one person. And if something did not work out in a relationship, then all hopes for personal happiness can be buried. True love can be one for life, but this does not mean that relationships full of tenderness and passion can be built with only one specific partner. The so-called second half simply does not exist. Rather, in the course of life you can meet many such "halves" - suitable partners in temperament and mindset. And a healthy, spiritually developed person, not a neurotic, is able to establish good relations with almost anyone.

What is love: the psychology of relationships

If there were no relationships in your life, other people, you would not be able to focus on your inner world. In other words, without relationships it is impossible to feel your personality, individuality.

Psychologists do not get tired of reminding: in each of your new relationships, you first of all build a new relationship with the same person - yourself. Your partner is just an indicator of the evolution of your personality. If you are happy, then relationships with others will only increase these feelings. However, there is no person in the world who could compensate for your lack of inner harmony.

Your joy should not depend on other people and their attitude towards you. Only the ability to rely on one's own resources helps to maintain a state of inner happiness and warm feelings for a loved one for many years. The desire for symbiotic unity in relationships helps to overcome feelings of loneliness and own inferiority only for a short time. As soon as a close relationship with a loved one is threatened for some reason, the dependent partner will experience a state of intense fear, horror. That is why love is mistakenly called the source of suffering. The desire for symbiotic unity is manifested in the tendency to tolerate any relationship, no matter how bad it may be.

Psychology: how to understand if you love or not?

At the beginning of a relationship, when passion is boiling, it is difficult to figure out how deep our feelings for a partner are. As a rule, it is possible to understand that everything was nothing more than falling in love, only when difficulties begin.

To make sure that your feelings are real, you need to imagine yourself with your loved one in a difficult situation and analyze the emotions that arise. claims that if you are not ready to stay with a person, if he has a serious illness, then you do not love him.

Often we realize the true value of things only when we irretrievably lose them. Another effective technique is to imagine that your chosen one has died or that you have never met. How uncomfortable are these thoughts for you? Can you imagine your life without your lover?

Psychology of love and relationships - how to understand that you are loved?

Feelings are not always expressed in words. A man may be shy or reluctant to open his feelings for fear of scaring you off by an excessively high rate of convergence. On the other hand, some representatives of the strong half of humanity can talk beautifully about affection without actually experiencing it. To understand the true state of things, pay attention to the following actions and actions of a man.

1. It is difficult for a person in love to maintain eye contact. But at the same time, he often glances at the object of sympathy.
2. A man in love tries to demonstrate his best sides to the woman he likes, begins to carefully monitor his appearance.
3. He tries to spend all his free time with you.
4. A man is interested in absolutely everything about you. Your hobbies, dreams, preferences.
5. Making compliments, a man will admire not only your appearance, but also character traits.
6. He easily agrees to your requests and is always ready to help in solving problems.
7. An important indicator of the seriousness of feelings is that you appear in his plans for the future.

Try asking close friends or relatives what they think about the feelings of your chosen one. Own emotions often cover the eyes. And relatives who sincerely wish you happiness will be able to objectively assess how devoted a man is to you.

Psychology of men in love: features and secrets of his relationship

If you did not find signs of love in your chosen one, do not be upset. The psychology of love and relationships will give a hint on how to win the heart of a loved one. In the subconscious of every man lives 4 female archetypes.

• Eve - the keeper of the hearth, mother, cozy earthly woman;
• Elena is the archetype of the ideal lover, able to charm with her eroticism;
• Maria - comrade-in-arms, fighting friend;
• Sophia is a wise adviser, an ideological inspirer.

What is love? Each of us asked this question more than once - and each time he could not express it in words. Why does this feeling visit a person, what is the secret of his power over us, how to determine that what we feel for another person is that same love?

What does love mean?

This is perhaps the most intimate feeling that a person can experience in relation to another person. Love is an irresistible attraction to another person, a desire to be with him, to take care and protect, to sacrifice oneself for the sake of a loved one - and at the same time not to feel dependent, to be internally free, to remain oneself. Love is impossible without mutual respect, care, fidelity, responsibility.

Far from each of us is given to know true love - after all, only a few are ready for a deep knowledge of love and constant work to preserve its strength for many years. As a rule, a person treats love more or less selfishly, enjoying only positive emotions from this feeling, and when love encounters inevitable obstacles, he refuses it.

What is the meaning of love? It is believed that only a loving person is able to understand another person and accept him as he is, with all the advantages and disadvantages. Love is considered one of the components of human socialization and is characteristic exclusively for homo sapiens - it is likely that it was the ability to love, and not to work, that made “man out of a monkey”. Without love, a person cannot understand others and himself, find a place for himself in this world, and enjoy life. This is an unfortunate person, deprived of the main joy of life. And only a loving person will be able to know life in all its glory, to feel the fullness of feelings that can be experienced in relation to another person.

It is difficult to answer unequivocally the question, what is the essence of love. Despite the existing definitions, love is individual for each person and can inspire completely different actions, actions, emotions. For some, this is a source of inspiration, a stimulus for creativity. For others, it is a destructive force, exhausting and not bringing joy (in most cases this applies to unrequited love). For the third - it's just bliss and complete dissolution in another person.

Love stands apart from other human feelings, differing from them in its spirituality, sublimity, motivation for creation and self-improvement. One of the main “symptoms” of love is when a person gets more pleasure from what he gives than from what he receives, while not demanding anything in return. This is not about material things, but about spiritual ones - roughly speaking, by loving, we give our life to a person, because from now on all thoughts, all joys and sorrows are connected with a loved one. That is why a person who relates to love only from a consumer point of view, who only seeks to receive his attention and care from another person, cannot be called loving.

Typology of love

In search of an answer to the question "What is love?" people have been around since ancient times. Even the ancient Greeks brought out a whole classification of types of love, which is quite reasonable and has not lost its relevance in our time. According to this typology, love is of the following types:

- "eros" - love-passion, the constant companions of which are the predominance of the sensual side, the physiological need for each other, pathos, jealousy, complete dedication and sacrifice, in which a person loses his own "I", completely dissolving in the object of love;

- "Filia" - love-friendship, based on the spiritual component of the relationship. This is love-sympathy that arose as a result of communication between two people who were connected by common interests, outlooks on life, mutual understanding and mutual respect;

- "storge" - love, which is based on family ties. It is love between husband and wife, parents and children, brother and sister. Storge - tender and calm love, based on mutual trust;

"agape" - reasonable love, based on an objective assessment of the merits and demerits of a loved one. In this love, there is no place for feelings and emotions - the mind takes over. Perhaps rational love is not as poetic as passionate eros, but it is more durable and creative.

What is the essence of love - the opinion of scientists

Scientists have their own view of what love means. According to the latest research by anthropologists, love is just a chemical and biological process that takes place in the human body.

So, during passionate love, the brain produces dopamine, a substance that increases excitability, giving a feeling of emotional uplift. The production of this substance is unstable, it lasts from 6 months to 3 years, and this time is usually enough for lovers to tie their lives to reproduce.

Subsequently, the production of dopamine stops, the passion dulls, and the spouses sigh, saying that "everything is stuck, and love is gone." In fact, everything is not so sad - dopamine can be produced in the brain as a result of new sensations. To do this, you must not forget to bring romance into relationships throughout your life together.

The meaning of love for each of us lies in something of its own, intimate and inexpressible in words. Love is multifaceted like no other human feeling. A person who knows true love is happy, but even more happy is the one who was able to keep it after many years.

"Love is who knows what, which comes from who knows where and ends who knows when." This definition was given by the French writer Madeleine de Scuderi.

In her own way, she was right: a person who is crazy about someone can easily mistake his own torment for a mystical obsession.

And yet it is worth arguing with her ...

Is there love or not?

And I don't know what love is. Why do you even think it happens? It all comes down to bed first, and then to a banal habit.

But everything starts with love! Without it, the world would not exist...

How many such empty discussions we had as first-year students! Noisy, offended at each other. And all because they talked about different things.

The concept of "love" has many meanings. On the one hand, it is freely used when distributing subjective assessments that do not imply rejection or disgust (I love Vasya Pupkin / Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto / fish salad). On the other hand, it has been turned into a fetish.

You yourself will instantly remember a couple of films and books in which the attraction of heroes to each other helps to save humanity from the great and terrible Forces of Evil. I find it hard to believe in the reality of love that destroys the Dark Lords. To equate it with a primitive gastronomic addiction is also ridiculous.

It would be more correct to talk about the special relationship between a man and a woman, which is a complex combination of physical states, behaviors and, of course, feelings. Which ones?

Everyday ideas

Doctor of Biological Sciences Yuri Shcherbatykh conducted a survey in 2002. The students of the medical academy had to give definition love. The answers of some survey participants clearly contradicted the versions of others - it turned out that in love, “selfishness” and “self-sacrifice”, “delight” and “mental comfort”, “enjoyment” and “need for another person”, “madness” and “ meaning of life".

Other scientists also tried to find some key points in the ideas about the main thing - for example, E.V. Varaksina and L.D. Demin (see the article “On the Problem of Psychological Research of the Meaning of Love: Methodology, Hypotheses, Methods and Results” (“Proceedings of the Altai State University, 2007).

They worked with two age groups - with high school students and with students of several faculties. The children were asked to speculate on the topic “Why do a man and a woman love each other?”. Content analysis of the responses made it possible to identify five main functions of love from the point of view of young people:

1. “find a loved one and not be lonely”;
2. to give and receive "care, understanding, tenderness, support, trust";
3. experience a "feeling of happiness";
4. "create a family and have children."

Oh, yes - there was also a fifth option, very much in the spirit of the Madeleine de Scudery mentioned above - "we love in order to love."

• “happy” (focused on mutual support and respect, serving as the foundation for a friendly family);
• “like everyone else” (relationships that people enter only out of fear of being lonely);
• “for the sake of sex” (a connection that allows you to have power over a partner; often gives a chance to increase social status and receive material benefits).

I did not find an article that dealt with the understanding of special feelings by people over the age of thirty. I think the point is that by the beginning of the fourth decade, the question "What is love?" often ceases to arouse keen interest.

Unless, of course, it is asked not to a psychologist, for whom the topic of interpersonal relationships is the main strong point.

Psychology of love and affection

The methodology of classical science did not allow the study of phenomena of this kind. The scientists said:

• about positive reactions that initially arise in the form of a child's reaction to the touch of a caring mother (DB Watson);
• about sexual desire (libido) as the primary source of all attachments (S. Freud);
• on the selective search for a suitable marriage partner for procreation (S. Samygin).

However, from about the middle of the 20th century, the humanistic approach turned out to be “in trend”. Freedom, responsibility, creativity have become acceptable topics for dissertations and monographs.

Abraham Maslow, the founding father of humanistic psychology, declared that love is vital—that is, it is vital.

Even neo-Freudians have ceased to prioritize the notorious libido: in particular, Karen Horney refused to recognize the sexual etiology of the need for love.

Here is an example of the definition of love from a modern source (“Psychology of interpersonal communication”, Belarusian-Russian University, Mogilev, 2014):

Love is a type of interpersonal relationship, expressed in a high degree of emotionally positive attitude towards a partner, which distinguishes him from others and places him in the center of vital interests.

Dry, inelegant from the point of view of Romeo and Juliet, but generally true.

What is love and what is it like?

Psychologists, after R. Stenberg, usually call her three component:

• emotional - intimacy;
• motivational - passion;
• thinking - devotion.

Intimacy implies a feeling of warmth and participation, a common interest, a willingness to trust. Passion is understood as an ardent desire for unity (physical and not only), and devotion is a conscious decision to maintain feelings for a person.

The formula of love that Count Cagliostro was looking for in the film of the same name does not exist. For some, the kinship of souls comes to the fore, for some, relationships are based on the joint practice of poses from the Kama Sutra.

Scientists can only describe the most common combinations of "ingredients".

J. A. Lee. highlights the following styles of love (bet you start looking for yours now?):

• storge - strong love-friendship based on trust and mutual understanding;
• agape - selfless patient adoration, strong spiritual passion;
• eros - a stable feeling with a pronounced sexual beginning; the lover is attracted by the bodily beauty of the chosen one or chosen one;
• mania - unstable, contradictory and stormy love-jealousy;
• pragma - a calm and largely rational attachment, dictated partly by sympathy, partly by sober calculation;
• ludus is a superficial hedonistic game, almost devoid of intimacy; people just want to please themselves.

I will add for the sake of order that love is often divided into platonic and sensual: they say, there are high souls who serve a beautiful lady, and there are mere mortals who are ruled by animal instinct.

I don't know, I don't know... The poets who showed the world examples of Platonic service were, in fact, also people of flesh and blood. For example, Francesco Petrarca selflessly adored his married beloved Laura all his life, but did not deny himself earthly pleasures either - he cohabited with commoners, started romances with free noble ladies.

Biochemistry of tender feelings

Love is not in vain compared to a disease. You catch His or Her gaze - and at least call an ambulance: your head is spinning, your palms are sweating, your cheeks are red, your heart is pounding ... The lover forgets to eat and is tormented by insomnia.

Who about what, and I'm all about science.

There was Arthur Aron, a student at the University of California. Once a young man fell head over heels in love with a classmate Helen and experienced all the symptoms of passion on himself. As a future psychologist, Aron decided to find out what caused these peculiar sensations. There was enough material for work for years. Subsequently, the young scientist involved in the study of other specialists - physicians, biologists.

Together they observed what changes occur in the human brain when looking at a photo of a loved one or loved one and “scrolling” in the memory of romantic moments. The reaction was typical: the ventral region and the caudate nucleus were activated. Both zones are links of the “reward system”. They “turn on” when waiting for some pleasure - a favorite dish, a pleasant gift.

Hormonal storm

Love is at first close to euphoria thanks to dopamine. Its excess provides loss of appetite and worsening sleep.

Dopamine gives a feeling of high - which, however, from time to time is replaced by a deep blues. A lover is able to suddenly burst into tears because of sheer nonsense. Why? Another important pleasure hormone, serotonin, is in short supply.

He contributes his five kopecks and epinephrine.

Epinephrine is usually produced in response to stress. Its function is to prepare the body for an emergency situation. It helps the muscles get more oxygen and increases the heart rate. It is he who should say “thank you” for sweating at the most delicate moment of the palm.

These hormones rage for a limited time - up to 2-3 years. Then passion subsides. Stop, how come? If a guy and a girl date for more than two years, does their love expire?

Calm after the storm

Relationships just go to another level. Help to support them oxytocin and vasopressin.

Oxytocin equalizes blood pressure, calms breathing, slows down the heart rate. Its release occurs with handshakes, with hugs - and even friendly ones. The hormone signals: “Relax! This man is yours!”

Vasopressin is in many ways akin to oxytocin. It is very likely that it works somewhat differently in women and men.

Experiments show that this hormone provides a tendency to monogamy. In 2004, American scientists Yang and Lim set up a two-stage experiment with voles. The female mice tried to form stable bonds with the males at the first stage, after the administration of oxytocin. At the same time, males did not seek to maintain contact with one female. However, after the introduction of vasopressin, they immediately began to behave as if they had taken an oath of love to the grave.

How and why to love a person?

The question "Why love?" sounds cynical - you can’t experience a great feeling by preliminary calculation! It is forbidden. But even blind love is not good enough.

Women consider the following features of men to be the main ones:

• mind (35%);
• devotion to family (17%);
• ability to earn (14%);
• fidelity (11%);
• good character (6%);
• the ability not to lose tender feelings (6%);
• the ability to do everything around the house (3%).

External attractiveness means almost nothing - only 0.2% of the women surveyed believed that it was significant. There is no need for men to complex due to the lack of relief muscles. With other conclusions, I would wait.

Did you notice that women answered much less unanimously? Yes, we are. Try to please us.

Ideal relationship

In Soviet times, a song was in vogue with the words: "If I came up with you, become the way I want." The worst setting for love, perhaps, cannot be imagined.
Attempts to remake a partner will certainly lead to quarrels. What happens next depends on his upbringing and character. Your loved one will either leave or stop being sincere with you.
We must respect each other's decisions, even if they seem stupid (I note: without fanaticism; otherwise there is a risk of falling into a partner).

Love is an active interest in the life and development of what we love. Where there is no active interest, there is no love.

The quote above is from the book. Erich Fromm "The Art of Love". Fromm understands high feelings not so much as a source of heavenly pleasures, but as hard work. In order for the composer to be able to write a masterpiece opera, he will have to learn the language of music, and then pore over music paper for more than one month. So it is in relationships.

Relationships are harmonious when partners consciously learn to fill each other's needs.

G. Chapman is curious about the languages ​​of love, though in a slightly narrower sense.

Chapman is a practitioner with over twenty years of experience in marriage and family counseling.
He notes that it is helpful for couples to speak the following "languages" more often:

• physical touch - even after ten years of marriage, it is very appropriate to hug, kiss, walk by the hand;
• acts of service - intentionally performing actions that are pleasant for a loved one (watch football with him, help her with cooking, etc.);
• quality time - the ability of lovers at some moments to completely focus on communication with a partner, not just automatically respond to remarks, but think about them;
• approval of each other's actions and deeds - the ability to support, praise;
• receiving gifts - this means symbolic gifts, signs of attention (a gladiolus from a grandmother's garden in this sense is not much inferior to a diamond necklace from a jewelry boutique).

Chapman's theory is not very slender, but it works in practice.
So, you have read almost two thousand words, learned (or remembered) scientific facts. Maybe this data has helped you understand yourself better.

But - do not rush to state them when it will be necessary to briefly and clearly explain to a girl or boyfriend what love is. Carry in a gentle voice any romantic nonsense that comes to mind. For "a type of interpersonal relationship, expressed in a high degree of emotionally positive attitude towards a partner," from the victim of Cupid, you can get it over the ears. 🙂

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