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Attachment style and the structure of romantic love.

Three studies (N = 337) explored adult attachment processes. Studies 1 and 2 examined differences between secure, avoidant and ambivalent people in the concept of romantic love, and Study 3 examined differences between the three groups in actual experiences in ongoing love relationships. Study 3 explored relationships from the point of view of both partners, and examined differences among attachment groups in perceptions of both actual and ideal relationships. Findings indicated that secure people put more emphasis on intimacy than avoidant and ambivalent people, and that their relationships were characterized by high intimacy and congruence of real-ideal and self-partner loves. The romantic relationship of ambivalent people was characterized by their failure to realize their desire for a warm and secure love. Avoidant people experienced less intimacy than secure people, but more commitment than ambivalent people in their relationships. They were found to underestimate partners' love and to want less intense love than secure and ambivalent people.

Adult↗

Love in the therapeutic alliance.

Volumes have been written about the patient's love for the therapist, but there has been relatively little discussion of the therapist's love for the patient. In an attempt to create a theoretical and technical space for discussing the appropriateness and role of love in the therapeutic relationship, a revised concept of the therapeutic alliance is applied to provide technical guidelines and understanding of two kinds of love between patient and therapist, corresponding to two systems of self-esteem regulation: an open, reality-oriented system and a closed, sadomasochistic system organized according to omnipotent beliefs. Examples of the role of love through the phases of treatment illustrate the interrelationship of love and the accomplishment of therapeutic alliance tasks.

Adult↗

The subjective experience of partnership love: a Q Methodological study.

The social scientific literature seems increasingly to accept that defining partnership or 'romantic' love in a singular and timeless fashion might not be a realisable task (Fehr, 1988). One clearly discernible response to this situation takes the form of a turn towards studying the subjective experience of partnership love. The work of Marston, Hecht, Manke, McDaniel, and Reeder (1998) and Sternberg (1995, 1996, 1998) are highlighted as theoretical and methodological exemplars in this regard. Each successfully abstracts a range of cultural conceptions of partnership love from the subjective experiences of their participants. It is argued, however, that the subjective experiences of the participants themselves, and particularly the holistic or Gestalt nature of those experiences, are left behind in the process of abstraction. This new research seeks to rectify that situation. An alternative (but nonetheless related) approach to the study of partnership love is duly outlined and an illustrative Q-Methodological study is reported which reveals eight distinct subjective experiences of partnership love at work amongst our participants (N = 50). Each of these holistic experiences is presented in the form of a narrative account. These accounts are then discussed and situated in relation to existing academic, cultural and historical conceptions of partnership love.

Adolescent↗

Cognitive algebra of love through the adult life.

The study was aimed at characterizing the exact algebraic structure of the love schema in order to trace possible changes in the conceptualization of love throughout the adult life cycle, notably as regards the weight attributed to the three components of love: passion, intimacy, and commitment. The methodological framework was the Functional Theory of Cognition. Irrespective of the gender and age of the participants (from 18 to 93), the structure of the love schema was shown to obey an equal-weight-averaging rule; the love schema was conceived as a strictly compensatory schema. Irrespective of age and gender, passion was the most important factor (w = .51), followed by intimacy (.29) and commitment (.20). The relationship between overall love value and degree of passion (or intimacy or commitment) was not conceived as a linear one, but as an exponential one. The weight of passion was shown to decline over age, and the weight of commitment was shown to increase over age. This change was, however, very limited and observed in elderly participants only.

Adolescent↗

Age and responses to the Love Attitudes Scale: consistency in structure, differences in scores.

Two separate issues concerning the relation between age and love are addressed in this article. The first issue is concerned with the age generalizability of the factor structure produced by responses to the Love Attitudes Scale. The data presented indicate that the factor structure of responses to the Love Attitudes Scale is highly similar in college-aged and middle-aged participants. The second issue concerns the relation between age and actual scores on the sub-scales of the Love Attitude Scales. The data indicate that age is related to responses on the Mania and Agape sub-scales, particularly for females. Collectively, these data suggest that general structural conceptions of love remain relatively constant into middle-age, but that there is a relation between age and some specific love styles.

Adolescent↗

Colors associated with styles of love.

Colors associated with different love attitudes were examined using the Hendrick and Hendrick Love Attitudes Scale for six love styles. 143 college students rated the extent to which each love style reminded them of 12 colors. As expected, Lee's representation of the love-color analogy was not supported. Each love attitude was associated with relatively distinct colors.

Adult↗

The Neurobiology of Love.

Love is a complex neurobiological phenomenon, relying on trust, belief, pleasure and reward activities within the brain, i.e., limbic processes. These processes critically involve oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, and serotonergic signaling. Moreover, endorphin and endogenous morphinergic mechanisms, coupled to nitric oxide autoregulatory pathways, play a role. Naturally rewarding or pleasurable activities are necessary for survival and appetitive motivation, usually governing beneficial biological behaviors like eating, sex, and reproduction. Yet, a broad basis of common signaling and beneficial neurobiological features exists with connection to the love concept, thereby combining physiological aspects related to maternal, romantic or sexual love and attachment with other healthy activities or neurobiological states. Medical practice can make use of this concept, i.e., mind/body or integrative medicine. Thus, love, pleasure, and lust have a stress-reducing and health-promoting potential, since they carry the ability to heal or facilitate beneficial motivation and behavior. In addition, love and pleasure ensure the survival of individuals and their species. After all, love is a joyful and useful activity that encompasses wellness and feelings of well-being.

Happiness↗

Taiwanese love styles and their association with self-esteem and relationship quality.

This study is an examination of how Lee's (1973, 1977, 1988) love styles are related to Taiwanese attitudes toward romantic relationships. Traditional literature was explored to ascertain Chinese beliefs about love and customs surrounding courtships and marriage. Taiwanese students at the University of Texas completed the Love Attitudes Scale (C. Hendrick & S. Hendrick, 1990), a measure of Lee's love styles. Six factors were extracted, using a principle components analysis, that were similar in many ways to the love styles derived from American samples, but that reflected Chinese beliefs and attitudes. The relationships of Taiwanese love styles to self-esteem and relationship quality (i.e., satisfaction, the probability of breaking up, and the number of conflicts experienced in a month) suggested the significance of Chinese traditions as well as current social changes in Taiwan.

Adolescent↗

Real time device for biosensing: design of a bacteriophage model using love acoustic waves.

Love wave sensors (ST-cut quartz substrate with interdigital transducers, SiO(2) guiding layer and sensitive coating) have been receiving a great deal of attention for a few years. Indeed, the wave coupled in a guiding layer confers a high gravimetric sensitivity and the shear horizontal (SH) polarization allows to work in liquid media. In this paper, an analytical method is proposed to calculate the Love wave phase velocity and the gravimetric sensitivity for a complete multilayer structure. This allows us to optimize the Love wave devices design in order to improve their gravimetric sensitivity in liquid media. As a model for virus or bacteria detection in liquids (drinking or bathing water, food em leader ) we design a model using M13 bacteriophage. The first step is the anti-M13 (AM13) monoclonal antibody grafting, on the device surface (SiO(2)). The second step is an immunoreaction in between the M13 bacteriophage and the AM13 antibody. The Love wave device allows to detect in real time the graft of the AM13 sensitive coating, as well as the immobilization of the M13 bacteriophages. With a pH change, the M13 bacteriophages can be removed from the sensor surface, in order to be numerated as plaque forming unit (pfu). Results on the sensitivity of Love waves are compared with similar immunological works with bulk acoustic wave devices, and demonstrate the high potentialities of Love waves sensors.

Acoustics↗

Barriers to love between patient and analyst.

Analysts tend to avoid the full range and force of love and hate in themselves and in their analysands. Such affective constriction in the analyst interferes with full analysis of patients' defenses against passionate feelings, loving and hating. I contend that our analytic ego ideal tends to encourage constriction and discomfort with our loving feelings for analysands. My intention is not to advise analysts to love their patients, but to focus carefully on mutually constructed barriers that serve to prevent loving feelings in the analytic setting. I describe some of my loving feelings toward two analysands and some of the obstacles with which I had to struggle in order to preserve such feelings for the sake of these patients' analytic growth and change.

Adult↗

Loving the patient as the basis for treatment.

The author's conviction is that a successful treatment is based on feelings of love by the therapist/analyst toward his or her patients. One should differentiate between love that is based on biological erotic-sexual drives and emotional love without erotic biological drive. The treatment process, especially for severely disturbed personalities, should be regarded as a process of new birth and new kind of development. Thus what the patient needs most is a kind of parental "primary love" (according to Balint). This paper presents a full report of a session through which the basic love to the patient is illustrated as enabling the treatment.

Countertransference↗

Hormonal changes when falling in love.

To fall in love is the first step in pair formation in humans and is a complex process which only recently has become the object of neuroscientific investigation. The little information available in this field prompted us to measure the levels of some pituitary, adrenal and gonadal hormones in a group of 24 subjects of both sexes who had recently (within the previous six months) fallen in love, and to compare them with those of 24 subjects who were single or were part of a long-lasting relationship. The following hormones were evaluated by means of standard techniques: FSH, LH, estradiol, progesterone, dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), cortisol, testosterone and androstenedione. The results showed that estradiol, progesterone, DHEAS and androstenedione levels did not differ between the groups and were within the normal ranges. Cortisol levels were significantly higher amongst those subjects who had recently fallen in love, as compared with those who had not. FSH and testosterone levels were lower in men in love, while women of the same group presented higher testosterone levels. All hormonal differences were eliminated when the subjects were re-tested from 12 to 24 months later. The increased cortisol and low FSH levels are suggestive of the "stressful" and arousing conditions associated with the initiation of a social contact. The changes of testosterone concentrations, which varied in opposite directions in the two sexes, may reflect changes in behavioural and/or temperamental traits which have yet to be clarified. In conclusion, the findings of the present study would indicate that to fall in love provokes transient hormonal changes some of which seem to be specific to each sex.

Adult↗

Measuring passionate love in intimate relationships.

Theorists such as Farber argue that in adolescence passionate love first appears in all its intensity. Both adolescence and passion are "intense, overwhelming, passionate, consuming, exciting, and confusing". As yet, however, clinicians have been given little guidance as to how to deal with adolescents caught up in their passionate feelings. Nor has there been much research into the nature of passionate love. In Section I of this paper, we define passionate love, explain the necessity of developing a scale to measure this concept, and review evidence as to the nature of passionate love. In Section 2, we report a series of studies conducted in developing the Passionate Love Scale (the PLS). We present evidence as to the PLS's reliability, validity, and relationship to other factors involved in close relationships. We end by describing how we have used this scale in family therapy to open conversations about the nature of passionate love/companionate love/and intimacy... and discussing profitable directions for subsequent research.

Adolescent↗

Alteration of the platelet serotonin transporter in romantic love.

BACKGROUND: The evolutionary consequences of love are so important that there must be some long-established biological process regulating it. Recent findings suggest that the serotonin (5-HT) transporter might be linked to both neuroticism and sexual behaviour as well as to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The similarities between an overvalued idea, such as that typical of subjects in the early phase of a love relationship, and obsession, prompted us to explore the possibility that the two conditions might share alterations at the level of the 5-HT transporter. METHODS: Twenty subjects who had recently (within the previous 6 months) fallen in love, 20 unmedicated OCD patients and 20 normal controls, were included in the study. The 5-HT transporter was evaluated with the specific binding of 3H-paroxetine (3H-Par) to platelet membranes. RESULTS: The results showed that the density of 3H-Par binding sites was significantly lower in subjects who had recently fallen in love and in OCD patients than in controls. DISCUSSION: The main finding of the present study is that subjects who were in the early romantic phase of a love relationship were not different from OCD patients in terms of the density of the platelet 5-HT transporter, which proved to be significantly lower than in the normal controls. This would suggest common neurochemical changes involving the 5-HT system, linked to psychological dimensions shared by the two conditions, perhaps at an ideational level.

Adult↗

What does sexual orientation orient? A biobehavioral model distinguishing romantic love and sexual desire.

Although it is typically presumed that heterosexual individuals only fall in love with other-gender partners and gay-lesbian individuals only fall in love with same-gender partners, this is not always so. The author develops a biobehavioral model of love and desire to explain why. The model specifies that (a) the evolved processes underlying sexual desire and affectional bonding are functionally independent; (b) the processes underlying affectional bonding are not intrinsically oriented toward other-gender or same-gender partners: (c) the biobehavioral links between love and desire are bidirectional, particularly among women. These claims are supported by social-psychological, historical, and cross-cultural research on human love and sexuality as well as by evidence regarding the evolved biobehavioral mechanisms underlying mammalian mating and social bonding.

Affect↗

Nature of romantic love in female adolescents.

In the present study, I intended to determine the similarity between Rubin's (1970) Love Scale components and five of Lee's (1976) six lovestyles in a relatively homogenous sample of 301 16- and 17-year-old British females. Items describing loving behaviors toward a particular individual were formulated to measure these lovestyles together with that of Ludus. The six orthogonal factors extracted from the correlation matrix of these and Rubin's items were called Love, Mutual Love, Respect, Similarity, Physical Attraction and Hostility. The results suggested that Rubin's Love Scale contained elements of Mania and Agape but none of Ludus, which could not be further differentiated. Rubin's (1970) Liking Scale, however, could be further subdivided into Respect (Pragma) and Similarity (Storge).

Adolescent↗

Love attitudes of white South African and British university students.

The Munro-Adams Love Attitude Scale was administered to 133 randomly chosen final-year undergraduate White South African and British university students in this examination of their attitudes toward love, courtship, and marriage in relation to the observation that, although South African tertiary educational institutions exist within the authoritarian and restrictive culture of apartheid, they nevertheless are modeled on the British educational system, which has its roots deeply embedded within a politically democratic context. Results indicated that the South African sample's endorsement of the love attitude items was weaker, except for those pertaining to the power of love, than that of their British counterparts. In addition, the South African scores were lower than those previously reported in other similar cross-cultural research, and there was a differential ranking of the three love styles by the male and female subjects.

Adult↗

On love.

This paper aims to stimulate awareness of the relationship between adult heterosexual love and sexual health. Although rarely discussed in professional circles, adult love is a powerful ideal that strongly influences both individual and relationship psychology. A gap between one's personal ideal of love and the actual experience of it inevitably appears within a long-term relationship. The feelings and behavior that stems from the gap become a crucial management issue for each individual in a relationship. The gap is minimized by an array of defenses and competing life demands, which either enhance or destabilize individual and relationship well-being. Idealization, denial, and rationalization are necessary to preserve the internal sense of loving at all phases of the committed relationship. The limitations of various definitions of sexual health are reviewed. Sixteen suggestions for preserving sexual health in long-term relationships are offered. Most of these involve guidelines for overcoming narcissism. The limitations of modern therapists, even sex therapists, for forthrightly dealing with sexual problems in terms of love are highlighted.

Adult↗