In a blogpost entitled Is It Infatuation or Love? I discussed the concepts of infatuation, love, and true love in accordance with my interpretation of Creative Marriage. Using a chewing gum metaphor, I ultimately concluded:
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.
Expanding upon this consideration, the authors of Creative Marriage define love thusly: “Love is a more or less intense emotional attachment, affection, or involvement with another individual” (page 89).
This is a nebulas description, as “involvement with another individual” obscures its meaning. Using this definition of love, my frequent interaction with a staff member at a local supermarket constitutes a loving relationship. As I truly don’t love that person, I challenge this definition.
Generally, I concur with the notion that love references intense emotional attachment and/or affection. This may occur with a friend, intimate partner, family member, child, or even a staff member at a local supermarket – if the latter is someone in whom you’re affectionately involved.
Regarding love in general, the authors state (page 89):
One may, for example, love mildly or violently; sexually or non-sexually; for a day or a decade; heterosexually or homosexually; sacredly or profanely; monogamously or plurally; romantically or non-romantically; conjugally or non-conjugally; etc.
All the same, the focus of the current blogpost aims to expand upon love through societal focus. Mainly, I’m addressing romantic or an intimate partner pair bond. Concerning this form of love, the authors of Creative Marriage suggest (pages 89-90):
In our monogamously oriented society, evidently, we make our young people so ashamed of falling in love frequently and then falling promptly or eventually out of love again—which my study showed that they actually do most of the time—that they are loath to confess, even to themselves, how often they do love. They consequently divide amorous attachments into “loves” and “infatuations,” and call their past loves infatuations and their present infatuations loves.
From lifelong personal and professional experience, I’ve practiced and observed the correlation between love and societal expectations addressed by the authors. I suspect that you’ve also endured or witnessed similar circumstances.
For instance, person X falls in love with person Y. They remain romantically tethered through off-again, on-again patterns of association for months or even years. All the while, and even when still loving person Y, person X begins to love person Z. Sounds familiar?
Noteworthy, when addressing the “societal” element herein, I’m speaking of the United States (U.S.). Even though I’ve experienced and observed similar effects when living in other countries, I’ll keep the societal focus to my nation of origin and current residence.
Anecdotally, I was taught the concept of “true love” from various sources throughout my upbringing. In specific, the authors of Creative Marriage effectively describe precisely what this form of love actually meant when they suggest (page 88):
In societies like our own, where enforced monogamy is the rule and non-monogamous forms of union are disapproved and discouraged, love commonly is confused with marriage, and “true” love is defined, as is “good” marriage, in terms of its being enduring. Similarly, devotees of various creeds attempt to define “true” love in terms of their own prejudices: so that, it often comes to mean to members of these creeds legitimatized, Christian, family-centered, “mature,” non-sexual, “pure,” or some other qualified form of love. All these qualified modes of “true” love are obviously arbitrary; and none of them is fully accepted by all observers.
If you were born in the U.S. prior to 2010, I suspect that you’ve also experienced or witnessed the Judeo-Christian and puritanical modes of love illustrated by the authors. This is a valueless observation I’m making, as I’m not labeling this matter as bad, wrong, evil, or otherwise.
Although society may not control how a U.S. citizen engages in the process of love, I think you’d be hard-pressed to legitimately deny the influence of societal members on people who love one another. There are virtually countless examples of shame regarding this matter.
Without preplanning in regard to an illustrative example, while drafting this post I typed “love” into Google and selected the News category. Voila! An example from two days ago immediately popped up, as one source reports:
[I]n society, teenage love is dismissed. The phrase “puppy love” is used, denoting something juvenile: a transient, infantile affection. There seems to be a real appetite and respect for teenage lovers in fiction – from Romeo and Juliet to Normal People’s Connell and Marianne – that is utterly at odds with the attitudes held about teenage love in the real world. It is as though we give ourselves permission to acknowledge the power of adolescent love in stories, but cannot acknowledge it publicly about ourselves.
Ostensibly, the author of the aforementioned source outlines a critique on love through societal focus. Worth noting, guilt regards an unpleasant emotion pertaining to personal responsibility or regret for wrongdoing, as shame relates to a similar emotion pertaining to humiliation or disgrace.
When teaching clients about rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), I invite people to conceptualize guilt as from-the-inside-out and shame from-the-outside-in. In this way, people experience shame in regard to their beliefs about what others express concerning love.
In the aforementioned source, the author argues that adolescent love is often dismissed to the point whereby people may internalize their feelings (emotions) out of fear of shame. In REBT, a belief-consequence (B-C) connection is what causes both fear and shame of this sort.
When viewing love through societal focus, I acknowledge that the B-C connection is a matter worth addressing in psychotherapy so that people can unlearn shame-inducing beliefs while learning how to practice unconditional acceptance. Of course, I also admit certain limitations of this approach.
As an example, in a blogpost entitled A Place for Shame, I stated:
I advocate the shaming of school shooters. While humiliation in this regard may not impact the consciousness of wrongdoing or foolish behavior for prospective shooters, I doubt such shaming would prove more detrimental than the experience victims of these events endure.
Herein, I’ll slightly modify my previous proposal. I advocate the shaming of school shooter behavior, though not the fallible human beings who commit such egregious crimes against humanity.
Considering this slight modification, I view love through societal focus and further outline a personal limitation in regard to minor-attracted persons (MAPs, pedophiles, “pdf files,” etc.). I shame the behavior of these fallible people, though I unconditionally accept their imperfect nature.
Within my personal and professional approach to life coaching since the ‘90s and psychotherapy since 2011, I’ve worked with MAPs. Thus far, I’ve yet to encounter a person who wasn’t burdened by and shameful of such societally-disgraced behavior.
In other words, I haven’t met someone who said to me, “Damn right, I fuck kids! What of it!?” Even if an unrepentant Albert Fish-esque individual presented to me and was boastful about such behavior, I could unconditionally accept the incredibly flawed nature of this imaginary person.
Nevertheless, acceptance of the person and rejection or shaming of the behavior aren’t synonymous. Thus, I endeavor to better understand the perspective reported by authors of Creative Marriage who propose (page 90):
Love is love. However transient, mild, profane, plural, or foolish it may be, let us acknowledge it as a real, often enjoyable, and true experience.
For context, humor me one personal and one professional anecdote. In the ‘90s, when residing in a children’s home, I lived in an all-male cottage wherein a boy who lived down the hall from me was removed from his home for sexually molesting a child.
He appeared “normal,” was mild-mannered, had a warm smile, and without knowledge of his crime (as told to me by other children), I wouldn’t have easily guessed why he was placed in the children’s home. This boy and I never discussed his deviant behavior.
All the same, I learned from my interactions with him that he could function as much like a friend to me as any other resident of the cottage. He wasn’t a monster and although I didn’t know the inner workings of his mind, he didn’t know of what I was capable either.
Back then, I was ready and willing to take the life of another human being – and with very little provocation. In essence, I may’ve been just as dangerous, if not more so, than my fellow resident.
Given the impression of my children’s home peer, I imagine that he was capable of love. Even if he truly loved the minor who he sexually assaulted or raped, I suspect that there’s a case to be made that he could’ve genuinely loved his victim.
Similarly, at around the time that I began practicing psychotherapy, I maintained a number of registered sex offenders (RSOs) on my justice diversion caseload at a behavioral health clinic. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not many other staff members were willing to work with RSOs.
In any case, one of my clients was detained and pending adjudication for having sexually penetrated two children under the age of 14 (aggravated circumstances in the state of Texas). By today’s standards, this individual would be colloquially referred to as a MAP.
This client told me that while he did in fact perpetrate the crime, he did so as an act of love. He was genuinely convinced that the two girls regarding whom he was detained loved him. No matter how delusional his belief was, he truly maintained the tautological expression that love was love.
Although you may not have expected to read about these personal and professional anecdotes in a blogpost regarding love through a societal focus, people like my former children’s home peer and RSO client exist within society. They, too, are capable of love – even if misguidedly so.
When it comes to varying degrees of assault against children, I can unconditionally accept the imperfect individuals who perpetrate these acts. Simultaneously, I can shame their behavior as a means of influencing societal norms and outcomes.
Thus, I contend that this approach remains in accordance with REBT practice, as well as my belief in the Non-Aggression Principle. Nevertheless, I will assert as I did in the blog entry entitled A Place for Shame:
Of course, I realize that a therapist advocating shame isn’t without controversy. Thusly, I remain open to changing my mind about this topic with consideration of further information.
How about you? Do you maintain that societal influence on the concept of love (in its many forms) can influence the experience of guilt and shame endured by people who use unfavorable beliefs about their own behavior? If so, what are your thoughts about shame in regard to MAPS, RSOs, etc.?
How about the tautological expression “love is love,” do you agree that all forms of love are equally valid? Even if valid, do you maintain that each mode of love is morally and ethically sound?
If you find yourself endeavoring to better understand the perspective of those who don’t think or believe in the same way as you, you aren’t alone. As expressed within the current blogpost, I also strive to comprehend different views.
In closing, I don’t profess to have all of the answers to questions about complex systems such as human beings. After all, we can’t all agree on a single definition of love, much less to whom that love should or shouldn’t apply. Ergo, love through societal focus is blurry. (Aren’t many topics?)
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
Photo credit (edited), fair use
References:
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