The often misunderstood term inflation can be defined as a feeling of foolish or obsessively strong love for, admiration for, or interest in someone or something (strong and unreasoning attachment) or the object of an unreasoning or foolish attachment.
When practicing rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) with clients, I frequently hear of instances in which individuals report being infatuated or in-love with other people. Typically, their irrational beliefs about this occurrence cause the experience of being lovesick.
Not a diagnostic condition, the matter of being lovesick is sometimes debated during or after the unpleasant experience of breaking up during which self-disturbance through use of unhelpful assumptions occurs. Before I proceed any further, it may be useful to define what love is.
Although a somewhat subjective term, love may be defined as strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, attraction based on sexual desire (affection and tenderness felt by lovers), or affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests.
During the process of a breakup or after the undesirable event has already transpired, people question themselves. Is it infatuation or love that ultimately results in lovesickness? Addressing this matter in a blogpost entitled Alone, regarding rapper Alfred Banks’ song “Alone,” I stated:
Banks describes a common experience of the in-love or infatuation stage of romantic interest. Unlike love acquired over time, through the endurance of hardship and ability to compromise regarding desires and needs, initial fascination can leave people speaking gibberish to themselves and others. Regarding this experience, I stated in a blogpost entitled Luv(sic):
I suppose one could argue from a materialist perspective, declaring that the chemical composition of attraction—or what many refer to as being “in love”—is comprised by fluctuation of dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and phenylethylamine.
In a literal sense, people can make themselves high – and altogether nonsensical – while experiencing infatuation of this sort. When intoxicated on one’s own chemicals, it isn’t likely that rational thinking based on logical and reason will automatically occur.
Noteworthy, in order for a proposition, thought, or belief to be considered rational, it needs to be both logical and reasonable. Given this framing, both infatuation and love aren’t inherently rational ideas.
This isn’t to suggest that these terms or experiences are bad. Rather, I’m merely stating that they serve as irrational concepts. If you’d like to self-disturb with unproductive beliefs regarding this matter, you’re welcome to do so.
In any event, the authors of Creative Marriage address the infatuation versus love conundrum in chapter seven of the book. When a client (“Josie”) inquires whether or not her sentiment for her intimate partner (“Roger”) is actually love, the authors write (pages 87 and 88):
“No,” she wanted me to say, “of course what you have felt, what you still may at times feel for this man is not true love. It is sickness, a mere infatuation, and like all infatuations it will soon pass away and leave you whole, no longer sullied. It will go, just like a bad dream, and soon you will hardly even remember his name.”
This is what Josie wanted me to say; but, in all honesty, I could not. This is what scores of counseling and psychotherapy clients wish the counselor to say: that love and infatuation are completely different; that true love remains and infatuations pass; that it is not difficult to distinguish the one from the other; and that it is therefore relatively easy to avoid getting too deeply entangled with those with whom you are infatuated and to remain maritally free until you meet, at long last your true, true love.
Instead of perpetuating this solacing myth, however, the honest counselor is professionally and scientifically obligated to tell his clients the truth about love and infatuation.
I appreciate that the authors described it as an obligation for psychotherapists not to validate irrational beliefs of our clients, though to speak truth. This is an especially challenging experience when a client sits in front of a therapist while weeping, snot dripping from the nose.
Some clients may irrationally demand that a professional mental, emotional, and behavioral health practitioner should, must, or ought to placate one’s own self-disturbed beliefs which cause unpleasant consequences. Truly, I’m no stranger to this sort of illogical and unreasonable belief.
As an example, a client may foolishly believe, “I pay Deric to make me feel better, so he should tell me everything’s gonna be all right and that I’ll find true love one day.” However, I disabuse clients of such nonsense as earnestly as I did in a blog entry entitled Tru Wuv, in which I stated:
Reflect upon everyone you’ve ever known, contemplate the people you currently know, and even take into consideration your own lived experience.
Setting aside the love said to be extended from a deity to an individual or that love which is presumed to exist among biological family members, has anyone in your life – from the perspective of romantic love – actually experienced unconditional love?
In a blogpost entitled Unconditional Acceptance, I outlined how I suspect that my late stepmom loved me unconditionally. Being that we weren’t biologically connected, I cede the point that unconditional love is possible.
Still, from a romantic standpoint, is such an occurrence likely to exist? Given personal experience and anecdotal evidence that I’ve gathered throughout my life, I remain skeptical of such a claim.
This isn’t to suggest that true (unconditional) love in intimate partner relationships doesn’t exist. Rather, much like the claim about 7 World Trade Center collapsing on its own footprint during 9/11, and without being significantly impacted by an outside force, I have questions.
In any case, the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)-inspired book Creative Marriage states of tru wuv… uh… true love (page 22):
Love, especially what is vaguely referred to as “true love,” is represented as somehow entirely separate from the “baser” sex impulses and is supposed to follow various ethereal and unrealistic channels as described in our movies, television scripts, magazine stories, and other sources of romantic beliefs.
Infatuation is irrational. Love is, as well. Unconditional love, although irrational, isn’t without warranted skepticism. True love, on the other hand? What differentiates this concept from either infatuation or love? The authors of Creative Marriage also answer this question (page 88):
There is no such thing, first off, as “true” love. True means conformable to what is actual, real, factual, or existent. In this sense, all love, in that it is an emotion that actually exists, is true. True also means faithful, trustworthy, loyal, honest, reliable. But virtually all loves, while they last, are faithful, loyal, and reliable. After love has faded, it naturally is no longer existent, faithful, loyal, or reliable. But this cannot gainsay the fact that during its heyday it was true.
Two thoughts come to mind when considering words of the authors. First, I appreciate critical thought expressed by outright challenging whether or no love as an emotion actually exists. I say this, because it’s defined in so many different ways that the term becomes arbitrary at some point.
Second, I invite you to think of a time when you may’ve chewed gum. In my younger years, I enjoyed Big League Chew, Hubba Bubba, Fruit Stripe, Bazooka, Double Bubble, Bubble Yum, Juicy Fruit, and other chewing gum brands which I found pleasurable.
No matter which brand I enjoyed, the flavor eventually ran out and I was left chomping on what once was an enjoyable product that then turned into a bit of a chore until I spit it from my mouth. While the taste lasted, I was all-in.
However, all things pass and this includes flavor, as well as attraction, the intensity of infatuation, and in many cases the experience of love. There’s no reason to bemoan this fact. Juicy Fruit was flavorful and enjoyable to me, and then it merely wasn’t.
Nevertheless, once the chemicals in Juicy Fruit expired and I was left chewing on a largely flavorless product, it wouldn’t have been rational to conclude, “That was never really gum, because it lost its flavor.” It was gum and it lost its flavor. Loss of the latter doesn’t negate the former.
Therefore, in the matter of Josie and those clients with whom I’ve worked who present with similar quandaries, whether it was perceived as infatuation or love – flavorful or flavorless – it was still love. Expelled Juicy Fruit that now lies in the trash can was still gum regardless of taste.
Summarizing what I’ve outlined in my gum comparison, the authors of Creative Marriage offer an empirical must statement by concluding that “we must acknowledge that all love is true love—as long as, even for a moment, it actually exists” (page 88).
Therefore, a simple answer remains in reference to the namesake of the current blogpost. Is it infatuation or love? It’s love—in that it is an emotion that actually exists. If it was once love, then it’s reasonable to conclude that it was true even after it eventually lost its flavor.
If you’re looking for a provider who works to help you understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply helping you to feel better, I want to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
References:
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