About Professor Helen Fisher and true love. E Pushkarev
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Philosopher and writer Richard David Precht "Love", The book is in our library: "Love, family, sex and about..."
Four of her books were published in Russia:
“Why we love. The nature and chemistry of romantic love ”. 2012 The book is in our library: "Love, family, sex and about ..." , can be downloaded.
“Formula of love. The key to a successful relationship". 2013 g.
“Alchemy of Love. Formula of Successful Relationships”. 2014
"Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Go astray". 2016 Nov.
On her personal site you can watch videos with her lectures in English, on the network there are videos with interlinear translation into Russian.
Dr. Helen Fisher has written several books on the evolution and future of sexuality, monogamy, adultery and divorce: Sexual Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior (1983), Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery and Divorce (1995), Gender 1: A Woman's Natural Talents and How They Are Changing the World ”(1999).
Take the Helen Fisher test to select partner for the best hormonal compatibility.
Through her research, Professor Fischer has studied the nature of divorce and marriage in 58 societies and adultery in 42 different cultures.
“I know what men think and how women feel in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, at the mouth of the Amazon River, New York, Tokyo and Moscow,” she replies on her website when asked what the long years of studying the nature of love.
- The whole picture became clearer to me, I figured out how to turn romantic love into long-term affection. But my own ideas about love did not suffer from such a deep immersion in the subject.
You may know every piece of chocolate cake, but still eat it with pleasure. Or every note in a Beethoven symphony - but enjoy it again and again.
By analogy, I know a lot about the nature of romantic love, but nevertheless I can still feel its magic".
Studying the works of Helen Fisher, you learn a lot of new things, but I would like to argue with something. I start this dispute only to emphasize that the confusion in amorous - erotic concepts and phenomena, which has lasted for several thousand years, has not led to anything good.
Helen Fisher identifies three mental types of love:
* Lust.
* Romantic love.
* Long-term affection.
The first is lust, the search for a partner for the possible conception of a child. May target multiple people.
The second - the object is found, the beloved person becomes the center of the Universe for us. Romantic love is characterized by a release of dopamine and lasts an average of 18 months to three years.
The third - attachment - may be the longest. Needed in order to raise children.
Each of these varieties is characterized by its own chemical picture in the human body.
The peculiarity of American researchers is that they do a great job of collecting source material, in large volumes, for a long time, persistently and thoroughly. But at the same time, they are so keen on their ideas (concept, paradigm, interpretation) that they are not at all interested in similar studies of other specialists, including those who are more authoritative than themselves. They end up trying to invent a bicycle that is already on the road. And after they have assembled a bicycle of their own design, they begin to assure everyone that it is their bicycle that is the best in the world.
Let's consider these three mental states point by point, and how they relate to love, or not:
Lust or, lust, "vexation of the flesh", libido (according to Freud), impersonal sexual attraction caused by sexual hunger,
Sexuality, female and male orgasms.
All articles about sex, orgasms (M and F) and their implications.
This is a sensual sexual desire, the need for sexual satisfaction, in relaxation it is a purely biological experience, not associated with specific relationships, and therefore impersonal. It is most pronounced in people with high sexual constitution . At certain age periods, for example, adolescence, or pubertal hypersexuality, is associated with the maximum production of testosterone, a similar surge is characteristic of spring. Various aspects and hypotheses about sexual attraction are described in doctrine of Freud .
"The meaning ... of sexual love should not be sought in any way in the idea of generic life and its reproduction ... We find striking confirmation of this in the following great fact. Within the living, reproducing exclusively sexually (vertebrates), the higher we climb the ladder of organisms , the power of reproduction becomes less, and the power of sexual desire, on the contrary, is greater".
V. S. Soloviev
Below are the opinions of authorities on the connection between lust and love.
Aristotle (384 - 322 BC): "Love, therefore, comes more from friendship than from sensual attraction. But if most of all from friendship, then friendship is the goal of love. Therefore, sensual attraction or in general is not a goal, or it is for the sake of friendship".
Erich Fromm The Art of Love 1956 (a classic work that undoubtedly influenced subsequent research on this topic) : “Due to the fact that sexual desire in the understanding of most people is connected with the idea of love, they easily fall into the error that they love each other when they are physically attracted to each other. When the desire for sexual confusion is caused by love, then physical intimacy is devoid of greed, the need to conquer or be subdued, but is full of tenderness. If the desire for physical union is not motivated by love, if erotic love is not yet complemented by brotherly love, this will never lead to a unity that would be more than an orgiastic transitory union. Sexual attraction creates for a brief moment the illusion of unity, but without love, this unity leaves strangers as strangers to each other as they were before. Sometimes it makes them ashamed and even hate each other, because when the illusion disappears, they feel their alienation even more than before".
Supporters of the transvital theory of love (Simmel, Buber, Scheler, Frank, etc.) believe that the nature of love has no direct connection with sexual needs and functions. Love, although it can arise on the basis of sexual attraction, which sometimes serves as a precondition for the emergence of love feelings, but as such is not identical and is not subject to them, at the same time, it can coexist quite harmoniously.
Roberta Crookes, Karla Baur "Sexuality" : “Although we tend to associate sex with love, the nature of this connection is far from always obvious. There is no doubt that some couples, both single and married, are in sexual relations without love for each other. Conversely, love can exist independently of the presence of sexual attraction or any form of sexual activity".
T. Rake "On love and lust": "I am sure that love and sex are different in nature and origin. Sex is a biological instinct aimed only at relieving physical stress, and love is a product of culture, aiming at achieving happiness by establishing very close personal relationships".
Morgan Scott Peck "UNBROWN ROAD, a new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual development" : “It is obvious - and usually indisputable - that sexual activity and love, although they occur simultaneously, are most often not connected in any way; in essence, these phenomena are completely different. Sexual intercourse itself is not an act of love. Nevertheless, the experience of sexual intercourse and, in particular, orgasm (even with masturbation) is also associated with more or less destruction of the boundaries of the ego and the accompanying rapture. Thanks to this expansion of boundaries, we can, turning to a prostitute in a moment of pleasure, exclaim "I love you!" or "My God!", but a few seconds later, when the borders fall into place and the doors of our Self are shut, we will have no passion or interest for her".
Professor V. Albisetti "LOVE: How to stay together all your life" :
“Feeling sexually attracted to a partner, a person believes that he has found great love. Moreover, it is taken as proof of the intensity and correctness of the relationship, when in fact it is just proof of a deep inability to communicate in other ways.
For falling in love, sex is crucial, in a love relationship it is optional. Many people consider themselves "cunning", living the way they live: more in love than in love. But they behave this way only because they do not want to admit the poverty of their emotions and their inability to communicate in any way other than sexual".
Masters and Johnson, in their book On Love and Sex, state: “Some moralists would be happy if it was possible to prove the inferiority of sex without love. However, there is no sign that this kind of sex is less satisfying than if you love. We have experienced hundreds of intimate, loving relationships, the sexual side of which left much to be desired, and at the same time, we know hundreds of people enjoying sex without loving their partners".
N. A. Berdyaev
Relying on the opinion of reputable professionals, we come to the conclusion that lust, sexual attraction has nothing to do with love. these phenomena are different in their origins and nature.
It was good for the ancient Greeks because they excluded such amorous - erotic confusion. The ancient Greek language was wiser and more diverse in comparison with modern languages, not only Russian, English, but also others.
In addition to six already well-known terms: filia, agape, storge, pragma, mania, ludus, eros, there were: potos - lust, sexual attraction; ennoia - giving love; aphrodisia - "affairs of Aphrodite", acolasia - pleasures of the body, were the terms denoting pleasures delivered through sight, hearing and smell; haris - gratitude and respect, etc.
It should be emphasized that these terms and concepts were known during the earthly life of Jesus Christ and influenced the first ideologues of Christianity.
And to combine emotional attraction, love with sex is not an idea of nature, it was invented by man.
Victor Tancher "Sociology of Intimacy: Erotica and Love in Postmodern Dexonstruction".
Only under a slave system, through moral and legal norms, sex and conception are limited to the framework of the family. A man, the head of a family, as the owner of a large property, did not want to inherit his wealth and power to non-biologically related children. This is how a new moral concept of marital fidelity appeared, and the Roman poets Ovid and Horace for the first time began to write about sexual fidelity in love in the 1st century BC. BC.
History of the culture of love feelings. E. Pushkarev
It is not hard to guess that for romantic love, Helen Fisher implies an explosive mixture natural falling in love with Poor quality falling in love, which are mental disorders that are well studied.
Various feelings of love and being in love. E. Pushkarev.
Poor quality falling in love - mania. E. Pushkarev.
Poor quality falling in love - ludus. E. Pushkarev.
Poor quality falling in love - eros. E. Pushkarev
If Erich Fromm came to the conclusion that falling in love is a form of pseudo-love.
Erich Fromm (1965)
Then Dr. Morgan Scott Peck said more specifically that falling in love is : "a genetically predetermined instinctive component of mating. In other words , the temporary destruction of its boundaries, allowing the emergence of a state of love, is a stereotypical reaction of a human being to the configuration of internal sexual impulses and external sexual stimuli, which serve to increase the likelihood of mating and the emergence of mutual obligations in order to ensure the survival of the species". Therefore, falling in love is not the first stage of love, but an independent feeling that has nothing to do with love.
And Professor V. Albisetti clarified: "Falling in love belongs to the animal nature of man, love - to his maturity."
Romantic love is a well-studied, researched and described phenomenon:
"Romantic love": aspects, analysis and consequences. E Pushkarev.
The theory of romantic love. Ph.D. V.P. Shestakov : "However, romantic love, as a spiritual and mystical affinity, knows no boundaries and marriage for it is not a prerequisite and criterion for the full value of moral feelings."
Morgan Scott Peck "UNBROWN ROAD, a new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual development" :
“In our culture, this illusion is supported by the generally accepted myth of romantic love, which traces its origins to the beloved childhood fairy tales in which the prince and princess join hands and hearts and live happily for the rest of their lives.
If I usually admit that great myths are great precisely because they represent and embody great universal truths (I will consider several such myths in this book), then the myth of romantic love is a monstrous lie. Perhaps this lie is necessary because it ensures the survival of the human race by encouraging and approving the state of falling in love that lures us into marriage. But the heart of a psychiatrist is almost daily constricted in pain at the sight of excruciating delusions and suffering generated by this myth. Millions of people spend a lot of energy desperately and hopelessly trying to reconcile the reality of their lives with the unreality of myth".
A comprehensive study of romantic love was conducted by Robert A. Johnson at “We. The deeper aspects of romantic love " and his other books.
What is love, what is romance and what is the difference between them.
Romantic love, following its paradoxical nature, constantly fools us.
Robert A. Johnson: "Love has already been turned into a religion. Human love is so clouded by the excessive suffering and experiences of romanticism that we are deprived of the opportunity to treat it the way it deserves."
In conclusion of his informative book, Robert A. Johnson gives advice on saving love from the quagmire of romanticism.
From Fisher's books and articles, one can understand that she is not only a follower of this religion - romantic love, but her preacher, and one of the latter. From the famous book by Dr. E. Giddens “Transformation of intimacy. Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Contemporary Societies".
We learned: there was a change in the dominant types of love relationships: the ideal of romantic love gave way to a new "amorous" standard - the so-called confluent love, i.e. "Fluid", transient, not oriented, in contrast to romantic love, on the search for the only one (s) beloved (s) and on finding eternal love; the main thing in it is not the uniqueness of the other (beloved / beloved), but the peculiarity of specific relationships that have developed here and now and, in general, do not in any way predetermine the future of the participants in these relationships. To characterize confluent love, he uses two more terms: "plastic sexuality" - that is. sexuality, which becomes a consciously cultivated personality trait; "pure relationships" - relationships maintained only for the satisfaction they bring.
"Romantic love and sexual addiction." Ts.P. Korolenko.
“The ideal of romantic love in the“ post-romantic era ”R. G. Apresyan. : "In our era, under the pressure of female sexual emancipation and autonomy, the ideals of romantic love tend to fragmentation and transformation ..."
Romantic love peak, which fell on the 19th century is already history, and from the second half of the last century confluent love began a victorious procession.
J. Sand.
In her classification of the varieties of love, Fisher did not mention another one - passion, which in the international classifier of diseases is called "love addiction." Unfortunately, it is it that is accepted in our culture as “the brightest all-conquering love”, its propaganda is actively carried on the state television channel “Culture”, but worst of all, this disorder is imposed at school as well.
Psychiatric confusion with love in school literature. E. Pushkarev The confusion between love and suicide, as well as other less violent passions - disorders, is not only dangerous, but also harmful. Because of biased sexual conflicts, there are indeed a lot of murders and suicides, but because of alcoholism there are more of them, and because of drug addiction, more than from alcoholism. Because the main reason for suicide is a low level of psychological or mental health. But love has nothing to do with it.
S. Feret, neuropathologist
Psychological health is a prerequisite for love. E. Pushkarev
Another reason for suicide and less severe problems due to biased sex is the extremely unfavorable cultural ecology of love.
More details: Ecology of the culture of love. E. Pushkarev
K.psychol. A.L. Fedosov, Institute of Psychology. G.S. Kostyuk APN Ukraine
The second stage of love mania and Anna Karenina. E. Pushkarev
Addiction (compulsive) love. M. Litvak
Love addiction. K. Horney, P. Kutter, O. Murzina.
Why is love sometimes painful? O. Kurakin
Love relationships and their violations. A.Adler.
Neurotic need for love. Karen Horney.
These mental disorders are so well studied that it is possible to test - to identify people for a predisposition before they occur:
Love and addiction. S. Peel, A. Brodsky
Individual psychological determinants of love addiction in girls. S. Skvortsova
There are techniques for getting rid of these "love" disorders:
How to get rid of "love"? E. Pushkarev
Marilyn Monroe syndrome. S. Izraelson, E. Makavoy
If we take a closer look at the causes of suicide that Fisher talks about, we will once again make sure that she confuses love with pseudo-loves.
American anthropologist Margaret Mead, in a study on Samoan natives, describes how she told them the story of Romeo and Juliet. They found her very comical and died laughing at such an absurd behavior of a young man and a girl.
Compare:
The expression and experience of feelings of love in Russians differs from those of other nationalities:
- subjects of Russian nationality are characterized by inconsistency, irrationality. Love is associated with beauty, happiness, joy, delight - on the one hand, and with sadness, suffering, longing, sadness, tears - on the other.
- the subjects of the Chinese nationality are characterized by rationality, there is no contradiction, love for them is harmony, perfection, music, melody, poem.
Candidate of cultural studies A.V. Sevryuk
It is impossible for the natives to commit suicide because of love, and for the Chinese it is also impossible, and it should be noted that the Chinese ethnos is much older than the Russian, especially the American. So the reason is something else? She is in the extremely unfavorable current "ecology of the culture of love" and mental or psychological health of people experiencing amorous - erotic feelings, and therefore suicide has nothing to do with love.
Long-term affection, or rather true love .;
True love, it is also compatible love. E. Pushkarev.
Friendship + Love = Filia. E. Pushkarev.
Culture of longevity of love. A culture of separation grief. E. Pushkarev.
Singling out as one of the varieties of love - "long-term affection", Fischer clearly does not modify it. Just as a few decades before her, psychologist Zeke Rubin (1973) from the University of Michigan conducted a lot of interesting research on happy and unhappy couples in love. Z. Rubin managed to identify three main components of sexual individual love: affection, care and intimacy (trust). Affection is defined as the desire for the physical presence of a loved one and the willingness to receive - to show emotional support. Caring is anxiety and actions to ensure the well-being of another. Intimacy, close, trusting relationship with a person, when each in a pair not only without fear shares his experiences, thoughts, ideas with the other, but also with confidence to be understood and supported. Based on three significant components, Zeke Rubin developed a "love scale".
More details:
Test for love: “scale of love” by Z. Rubin.
After getting acquainted with the researches of Z. Rubin, it becomes clear that Helen Fischer put in third place in her kind of love and is real love, and everything else is pseudo-loving experiences, passions, mythical romanticism.
- The brain circuitry during romantic love is not designed for eternal activity. It develops for specific purposes: forces men and women to focus energy on each other and save time and energy during courtship and stimulate reproduction.
Romantic love is characterized by a release of dopamine and lasts on average from 18 months to three years.
Why is it necessary to distinguish between love and pseudo-loving experiences - the most diverse love and lust. But because, these phenomena have a different nature: origins, flow, completion.
And true love lasts until the end of life.
Robert A. Johnson: "For us Westerners who have absorbed a romantic liqueur with our mother's milk, Belorukaya Isolde (a symbol of earthly love) seems to be a secondary figure. We are programmed for a different drama: with secret dates and partings, intrigues, unearthly passion, similar to the one that rages between Tristan and the Beautiful Isolde".
Throughout the entire existence of mankind, women have never been as educated and attractive as in the 21st century. I think this century will go down in history as a time of symmetrical, or equal, marriages.
"In the United States, where the romantic view of marriage, unlike other countries, has been taken seriously and where laws and customs are based on the sentimental dreams of spinsters, divorce rates are huge and happy marriages are extremely rare".
Bertrand Russell. Nobel Prize Laureate. 1929
This is the first third of the last century.
Love and its decay in modern society. E. Fromm
About the destructive influence of the "consumer society" on sexual love. E. Fromm
This is the middle of the last century.
And here's what is happening now:
"It turns out that America is the only country in the world where love is a national issue. It seems that a huge number of Americans of both sexes are in a state of confusion about love," says Raul de Roussy de Seims.
Rollo May from the book "LOVE AND WILL": "... And meanwhile, against the background of the constant increase in the number of divorces, the persistent vulgarization of love in literature and the visual arts and the undoubted fact that for many people sex has become so however senseless, as far as accessible, this very "love" began to seem an incredible rarity, if not a complete illusion. Some representatives of the "new left" came to the conclusion that love has been destroyed by the very nature of our bourgeois society, and the reforms proposed by them are aimed at building "the world , in which there will be more opportunities for love.
Truly, love has become such an internally contradictory phenomenon that some researchers of family life have come to the conclusion that "love" is simply the name of the way stronger family members subdue the weaker ones. Ronald Laing simply argues that love is a cover for violence".
"In recent years, wherever I travel to meet with statesmen and religious leaders, asking them what is the biggest problem in their country, I usually get the same answer: the state of the family. I hear it in the Caribbean, in South America, in the United States, in Israel - wherever I go - family breakdown is a universal problem.
That the institution of the family is subject to such attacks by the enemy should not surprise us. The disintegration of the family will lead to the collapse of civilization. The family is the first and fundamental unit of human society". Dr. Miles Monroe.
Consumer society and its antilove essence. E. Pushkarev
Is a happy marriage possible in the era of the sexual revolution? T. Brykova
This is largely due to the confusion of true love with pseudo and near-love experiences, passions, frustrations.
Thanks to the works of E. Fromm, Z. Rubin, M. S. Peck and others, we learned what true love is.
And true love over the years only becomes stronger and more wholesome.
At the age of 18, the young poetess Zinaida Gippius met her first and only love - Dmitry Merezhkovsky, who from now on and for life became her husband, companion, friend, ally, just like she was for him. Their spiritual and creative union was distinguished by extraordinary longevity - it lasted 52 years, until the last day of Dmitry Sergeevich's life. Over the years, they have not parted for a single day.
Dopamine - a hormone produced in the adrenal glands is responsible, among other things, for "the pleasure of life and joy."
And many more similar stories "Examples of true love."
Modern psychology knows almost everything about love,
The essence of love. E. Pushkarev.
If you eliminate the confusion of love with pseudo-loves. E. Pushkarev
This is a malicious word "love". E. Pushkarev
How to distinguish love from falling in love and other pseudo-lovers. E. Pushkarev
therefore, despite the fact that Helen distinguishes three mental types of love, you should know:
When the writer A. Kuprin was dying, he held the hands of his wife Liza in his hands. Leaving for another world, he was so afraid of parting with his beloved woman that she had bruises on her wrists.
Moreover, even when sharing a matrimonial bed with your husband, you can "jump" from affection for him to romantic love for another.
This cerebral "polygamy" and becomes the cause of jealousy, adultery and divorce.
Therefore, true love is not something big, white and fluffy, it is an extremely positive life reality in different periods of life, acquiring different shades, but not changing its wholesome essence.
Sigmund Freud about love.
The results of the tomographic studies conducted by Helen Fisher are certainly interesting and useful, but much still depends on how they are interpreted? So no less famous tomographic work and studies of love by Stephanie Ortig allow us to draw somewhat different conclusions.
Not all agree with Helen Fischer and Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki of University College London, they discovered areas of the brain that are activated when a person is in a state of love. Scientists recruited students who were "head over heels in love" to the study, scanned their brains and analyzed the structure of brain activity.
The results were interesting. First, only a relatively small area of the human brain is involved during the period of falling in love - in comparison, say, with the situation of ordinary friendship. "It's amazing," the scientists conclude, "that it takes such a small part of the cerebral cortex to create a real storm of feelings." The second surprise is that the part of the brain "struck" by falling in love includes areas, one of which is responsible for instinctive feelings, while others generate euphoria, similar to that caused by drugs. Thus, the state of the brain of people in love differs from the state of the brain of people experiencing other strong emotions, and rather resembles the brain of a person drugged with a drug.
This means that each person must take care of both his knowledge and actions to gain love.
Leo Tolstoy.
E Pushkarev Chairman of the Internet Club "ENLIGHTED LOVE"
The chemistry of love. Components of attraction, infatuation, affection, and separation. D. Amen
Guide to the site and the main milestones in the knowledge of love. E. Pushkarev
The essence of love. E. Pushkarev.
Briefly about love. E. Pushkarev
Man and woman: compatibility, love. E. Pushkarev
Man and woman: relationships. E. Pushkarev
Man and woman: leadership in love and marriage. E Pushkarev
Psychology of love. E. Pushkarev
Love test: "love scale" by Z. Rubin.
If you eliminate the confusion of love with pseudo-loves. E. Pushkarev
The concept of "love". E. Pushkarev
The religion of love. R. Precht
Fucked up and hypersexual. R. Precht
A. Gulenkov "Chemistry of Love"
Larry Young, Brian Alexander “The Chemistry of Love. A scientific view of love, sex and attraction".
and others
