Love and Relationships

Love Defined:

Worldly, Spiritually, Psychologically

Throughout history scholars have grappled with and speculated the concept of love.

The dictionary defines love as, “a profoundly passionate affection for another person, a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child or friend, and sexual passion or desire”. Sigmund Freud viewed love as being a result of sexual instincts. He theorized that during the oral stage from birth and for the first two years of development a child’s mouth is the focus of libidinal gratification, which comes from the pleasure of oral exploration of their environment. As a result the infant associates their mother as being the first object of love (BOOK, p. 460). Much later in development, from puberty into adulthood, an individual learns that sexual satisfaction can come from a partner and the attraction that we feel to that individual is love. Freud attributes love directly to sexual attraction and satisfaction. He denotes that just as in the oral stage of development whereas the mother is responsible for oral gratification an individual’s sexual partner fulfills the need for sexual satisfaction (BOOK, p. 460). This theory equates the need for love as a need for sexual gratification. While studies have been found to prove that an individuals relationship with their parents is attributed for determining an individual’s attachment style; which is strongly correlated with their romantic attachment style. (BOOK, p. 461).

Erik Erikson identifies in his theory of psychosocial development eight stages of maturation. In his sixth stage he identifies our innate need for intimacy or isolation (BOOK, p. 131). As young adults we begin to form intimate, loving relationships with o...

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... will feel loved. However, by keeping the primary goal this self-focused, the counseling fails to sufficiently help set the stage for the transforming power that comes from unselfish love of God and love of others” (Cheong and DiBlasio, 2007, p. 15)

Works Cited

Cheon, R. K., & DiBlasio, F. A. (2007). Christ-like Love and Forgiveness: A Biblical Foundation for Counseling Practice. Journal Of Psychology & Christianity, 26(1), 14-25.

Strong, S. R. (1977). Christian counseling in action. Counseling And Values, 21(2), 89-128. doi:10.1002/j.2161-007X.1977.tb01164.x

Thurston, N. (1994). When 'perfect fear casts out all love': Christian perspectives on the assessment and treatment of shame. Journal Of Psychology And Christianity, 13(1), 69-75.

Worthington, E. L. (1994). Marriage counseling: A Christian approach. Journal Of Psychology And Christianity, 13(2), 166-173.