Sigmund freud relationships
7 Things Sigmund Freud "Nailed" About Love & Sex
If there is one thing that almostallof my patients speak about in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in one shape or form, it’s LOVE. Am I really lovable? How do I make my relationship work? Why can’t I find a stable partner? Is there something I am doing wrong?Sound familiar? Maybe you are one of the few people out there who doesn’t ask themselves similar questions.
Either way, we all NEEDto feel loved, especially around Valentine’s Day. Love, sex, fantasies, and relationshipsare on our minds today consciously AND unconsciously. If were being honest, when it comes to sex and love, Sigmund Freud got some things wrong (i.e. there is no such thing as a clitoral orgasm), BUT he did get some things right. The American Psychoanalytic Associationshares with us what they are:
7 Things Sigmund Freud Nailed About Sex & Love
1)Sexuality is Everyone’s Weakness and Strength: Sex is a prime motivator and common denominator for all of us. Even the most prudent, puritanical-appearing individuals may struggle greatly against their sexual appetites and expression. For evidence one need only look to the many scandals that have rocked the Vatican and fundamentalist churches alike. Freud observed this prurient struggle in men and women early on in Victorian Vienna. But our sexuality defines us in healthy and altogether essential ways, too. If you dont believe your Freudian therapist, just ask Samantha Jones, from HBOsSex and the City.
2)Every Part of the Body is Erotic: Freud knew that human beings were sexual beings right from the start. He took his inspiration from the baby nursing at the mothers breast to illustrate the example of a more mature sexuality, saying, No one who has seen a baby sinking back satiated from the breast and falling asleep with flushed cheeks and a blissful smile can escape the reflection that this picture persists as a prototype of the expression of sexual satisfaction later in life.
He knew, too, that sexual excitation is not restricted to genitalia, as pleasure is achieved through erotic attachment to potentially any idiosyncratically defined area of the body. Even today many people have great difficulty accepting this idea.
3)Homosexuality is Not A Mental Illness:?He noted that gay people are often distinguished by especially high intellectual development and ethical culture. In 1930, he signed a public statement to repeal a law that criminalized homosexuality. And in his famous letter to a mother wishing to cure her son of homosexuality, Freud wrote, Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness.” This was in 1935.
4)All Love Relationships Contain Ambivalent Feelings: Among Freud’s various discoveries was the ambivalence involved in all close and intimate relationships. While we may consciously feel genuine and realistic loving towards a spouse, partner, parent or child, things are never exactly what they seem.
In the world of the unconscious, beneath even the most loving and caring involvement are feelings, fantasies, and ideas that are negative, hateful, and destructive. Freud recognized that this mixture of love and hate in close relationships is part of human nature and not necessarily pathologic.
5)We Learn to Love from our Early Relationships with Parents and Caregivers: Our early relationships with parents and caregivers help us to form a love map that persists throughout our lives. This is sometimes referred to as transference. Freud pointed out that when we find a love object we are actually re-finding it. Hence the often recognized phenomenon of individuals who select partners that remind them of their mother/father. Weve all seen it.
6)Our Loved One Becomes a Part of Ourselves: Freud noted that the characteristics, beliefs, feelings and attitudes of those we love become incorporated into ourselves–part of the psyche.
He termed this process internalization. His concept concerning the depth of connection between people is contained in such expressions as referring to our loved one as “my better half.”
7)Fantasy is an Important Factor in Sexual Excitement: Freud observed that sexual excitement comes from three directions: the external world (relationships, sexual history), the organic interior (sex hormones) and mental life (sexual fantasies). In our sexual fantasies we often conjure up all kinds of strange and perverse scenarios which add to sexual excitement and hopefully lead to climatic pleasure. This is quite normal and it doesnt mean that we actually want to engage in such scenarios (or maybe we do). Think about it, Valentines Day is a sexual and romantic fantasy. Many of us love the day, others loathe it, some are ambivalent and scared. All perfectly normal. So choose to engage or dont.
You may also like:
Are you a good candidate for psychoanalytic treatment?
What psychoanalysis says about love
7 Secrets to a happy, long-term relationship
Fifty Shades of Grey: When Love Equals Pain
7 Things Sigmund Freud "Nailed" About Love & Sex
If there is one thing that almostallof my patients speak about in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in one shape or form, it’s LOVE.
Am I really lovable? How do I make my relationship work? Why can’t I find a stable partner? Is there something I am doing wrong?Sound familiar? Maybe you are one of the few people out there who doesn’t ask themselves similar questions.
Either way, we all NEEDto feel loved, especially around Valentine’s Day. Love, sex, fantasies, and relationshipsare on our minds today consciously AND unconsciously. If were being honest, when it comes to sex and love, Sigmund Freud got some things wrong (i.e. there is no such thing as a clitoral orgasm), BUT he did get some things right. TheAmerican Psychoanalytic Associationshares with us what they are:
7 Things Sigmund Freud Nailed About Sex & Love
1)Sexuality is Everyone’s Weakness and Strength: Sex is a prime motivator and common denominator for all of us. Even the most prudent, puritanical-appearing individuals may struggle greatly against their sexual appetites and expression.
For evidence one need only look to the many scandals that have rocked the Vatican and fundamentalist churches alike. Freud observed this prurient struggle in men and women early on in Victorian Vienna. But our sexuality defines us in healthy and altogether essential ways, too. If you dont believe your Freudian therapist, just ask Samantha Jones, from HBOsSex and the City.
2)Every Part of the Body is Erotic: Freud knew that human beings were sexual beings right from the start. He took his inspiration from the baby nursing at the mothers breast to illustrate the example of a more mature sexuality, saying, No one who has seen a baby sinking back satiated from the breast and falling asleep with flushed cheeks and a blissful smile can escape the reflection that this picture persists as a prototype of the expression of sexual satisfaction later in life. He knew, too, that sexual excitation is not restricted to genitalia, as pleasure is achieved through erotic attachment to potentially any idiosyncratically defined area of the body.
Even today many people have great difficulty accepting this idea.
3)Homosexuality is Not A Mental Illness:?He noted that gay people are often distinguished by especially high intellectual development and ethical culture. In 1930, he signed a public statement to repeal a law that criminalized homosexuality. And in his famous letter to a mother wishing to cure her son of homosexuality, Freud wrote, Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness.” This was in 1935.
4)All Love Relationships Contain Ambivalent Feelings: Among Freud’s various discoveries was the ambivalence involved in all close and intimate relationships. While we may consciously feel genuine and realistic loving towards a spouse, partner, parent or child, things are never exactly what they seem. In the world of the unconscious, beneath even the most loving and caring involvement are feelings, fantasies, and ideas that are negative, hateful, and destructive.
Freud recognized that this mixture of love and hate in close relationships is part of human nature and not necessarily pathologic.
5)We Learn to Love from our Early Relationships with Parents and Caregivers: Our early relationships with parents and caregivers help us to form a love map that persists throughout our lives. This is sometimes referred to as transference. Freud pointed out that when we find a love object we are actually re-finding it. Hence the often recognized phenomenon of individuals who select partners that remind them of their mother/father. Weve all seen it.
6)Our Loved One Becomes a Part of Ourselves: Freud noted that the characteristics, beliefs, feelings and attitudes of those we love become incorporated into ourselves–part of the psyche. He termed this process internalization. His concept concerning the depth of connection between people is contained in such expressions as referring to our loved one as “my better half.
”
7)Fantasy is an Important Factor in Sexual Excitement: Freud observed that sexual excitement comes from three directions: the external world (relationships, sexual history), the organic interior (sex hormones) and mental life (sexual fantasies). In our sexual fantasies we often conjure up all kinds of strange and perverse scenarios which add to sexual excitement and hopefully lead to climatic pleasure. This is quite normal and it doesnt mean that we actually want to engage in such scenarios (or maybe we do). Think about it, Valentines Day is a sexual and romantic fantasy. Many of us love the day, others loathe it, some are ambivalent and scared. All perfectly normal. So choose to engage or dont.
You may also like:
Are you a good candidate for psychoanalytic treatment?
What psychoanalysis says about love
7 Secrets to a happy, long-term relationship
Fifty Shades of Grey: When Love Equals Pain
Sigmund Freud about love | PSYCHOLOGIES
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Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanity.
***
He who loves many knows women, he who loves one knows love.
***
A person recovers by giving free rein to his sexuality.
***
We are never more defenseless in the face of suffering than when we love.
***
The husband is almost always only a substitute for the man he loves, and not the man himself.
***
Why don't we fall in love with someone new every month? Because when we part, we would have to lose a particle of the heart.
People are more moral than they think, and much more immoral than they can imagine.***
The unconscious does not know the word "no". It can do nothing but desire.
***
If one could not find in the other what needed to be corrected, then the two of them would be terribly bored.
***
Touch marks the beginning of any possession, any attempt to subjugate a person or object.
***
Ideal, eternal, hate-free love exists only between the addict and the drug.
***
When an old lady gets a dog and an old bachelor collects figurines, the former compensates for the absence of married life, while the latter creates the illusion of numerous love victories. All collectors are a kind of Don Juan.
A real masochist will always turn his cheek where there is an opportunity to get hit***
We choose each other not by chance - we meet only those who already exist in our subconscious.
In the course of the development of culture, so much of the divine and holy was extracted from the sexual that the impoverished remnant began to be despised.
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A person loves what his "I" lacks to achieve the ideal.
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In order not to get sick, we need to start loving.
***
It is terrible when two loving hearts cannot find either a worthy form or time for tender words. They seem to cherish tenderness in case of unexpected trouble, when the situation itself will force them to do so.
Don't skimp on tenderness. The more you spend it, the more it is mutually replenished. If tenderness is forgotten, then the spiritual connection is gradually lost and the relationship of the spouses in this case is like a rusty castle. It seems that there is a lock, but how will you open it if it is all rusty?
***
Chemistry is two thirds of waiting. Life, apparently, too.
Only a complete absence of sex can be considered a sexual deviation***
A woman should soften, not weaken a man.
***
Cruelty and sexual desire are closely related.
***
The unconscious of one person can react to the unconscious of another without any participation of consciousness... Everyone in his unconscious has a tool that allows him to interpret the messages of the unconscious of other people.
***
The great question that I still cannot answer in spite of my thirty years of research into the female soul: What does a woman want?
***
People are generally insincere in sexual matters.
They do not openly show their sexuality, but hide it by wearing a thick coat made of a material called “lie”, as if the weather is bad in the world of sexual relations.
Text: Maria Malygina Photo Source: Getty Images
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How love and natural selection are connected, why marriage became the basis of the capitalist state and what is pseudo-love ? Theories and Practices studied the views of famous scientists on love and tested how they applied their theories in their personal lives.
Charles Darwin: love as a factor in natural selection
1809–1882
“With birds, this rivalry is often more peaceful. All who have been interested in this subject believe that in many species the males compete strongly with each other, attracting females with their singing. In the Guiana thrush, the bird of paradise, and some other birds, males and females flock to the same place; the males take turns carefully spreading their brightly colored feathers and making strange gestures in front of the females, who remain spectators until they choose the most attractive partner for themselves. Those who have happened to closely observe the manners of birds in captivity know very well that they often show individual preferences and dislikes; thus, Sir R. Heron reports a single motley peacock, which especially attracted all its peacocks.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
Darwin believed that love is an element of sexual selection. This idea was quite revolutionary for traditional Victorian society, because it said that a woman chooses her partner, and not vice versa.
According to Darwin, males fight for the attention of females in every possible way. As a result, in the course of evolution, the signs and traits of character necessary for victory are fixed in them. For example, large antlers on male deer or bushy tails on peacocks are all that can attract a female. It’s the same with people: love occurs when a partner has a certain set of qualities that make him an attractive candidate for a monogamous relationship. In turn, these qualities (like loyalty and kindness) appeared as a result of sexual selection.
Darwin's wife was his cousin Emma Wedgwood. Some aspects of their personal lives were indirectly mentioned in the works of the scientist. For example, Darwin wrote that relationships between close blood relatives can end in sickly and weak offspring. He came to this conclusion as a result of a personal tragedy: three of the Darwin children died at an early age.
Friedrich Engels: love as mutual respect
1820–1895
“Modern sexual love differs essentially from simple sexual desire, from ancient eros.
Firstly, it presupposes mutual love in a beloved being, in this respect a woman is on an equal footing with a man, while for ancient eros her consent was by no means always required. Secondly, the strength and duration of sexual love are such that the impossibility of possession and separation appear to both parties as a great, if not the greatest misfortune, they take great risks, even put their lives at stake, just to belong to each other, which happened in ancient times. except in cases of adultery. And finally, a new moral criterion appears for condemning and justifying sexual intercourse: they ask not only whether it was married or extramarital, but also whether it arose out of mutual love or not.
Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
In his opus magnum, Engels links the origin of monogamous marriage with the emergence of private property, which in turn became the basis of the capitalist state. According to Engels, the love on which marital relations are built in a Catholic or Protestant society is different from real feelings.
In this case, she acts as one of the decent reasons for marriage - a deal on the redistribution of property. As a result, another patriarchal family emerges. The future lies with “individual sexual love”, which is based on genuine feelings, passion and freedom of choice, and not the commercialism of relatives. Such love implies equality of partners and mutual respect, which was quite a bold idea in the era of the beginning of the struggle for equal rights for women.
Friedrich Engels himself adhered to the philosophy of freedom of choice. In the 40s of the 19th century, he met the sisters Mary and Lizzie Burns. Mary became his civil partner: Engels lived with her for about 20 years, and they officially got married just a few hours before her death. Relations with the second sister Burns developed according to a similar scenario: 15 years of marriage and registration of marriage before the death of her beloved.
Sigmund Freud: love as sexual attraction
1856–1939
“The genitals, together with the whole human body, did not develop towards aesthetic perfection, they remained animals, and therefore love is fundamentally just as animal now as it has been from time immemorial.
Love inclinations are difficult to educate, their education gives either too much, or too little. What culture seeks to make of them is unattainable; those who remain without the use of excitation make themselves felt with active sexual manifestations in the form of dissatisfaction.
Sigmund Freud, Essays on the Psychology of Sexuality
Love, according to Freud, is like a mental illness: a psychiatrist studies it through symptoms and causes. According to Freud, the basis of any relationship and love is "libido" - the unconscious sexual desire of a person, which he seeks to realize. All romantic feelings are just a desire for sexual intimacy. This formed the basis of the theories of psychoanalysis and the psychosexual phases of personality development.
But in life Freud was less categorical. He met his only wife, Martha Bernays, in 1882. Before getting married, the lovers corresponded for four years - during this time, Freud sent about 900 love letters. According to his biographers, the psychiatrist's letters could well fit into sentimental novels.
However, some researchers believe that Martha was not his only woman. Freud is credited with having an affair with his wife's sister Minna, who often accompanied the couple. Opponents of these rumors believe that the mores of the time would not have allowed a psychiatrist to behave in this way.
Erich Fromm: love as work on oneself
1900–1980
“Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, a realization of human power, which can only be realized in freedom and never in coercion.
Love is an activity, not a passive affect, it is a help, not a passion. In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by the statement that love means first of all to give, and not to take.
Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
The German sociologist challenges the popular belief that love is just a sentimental feeling, an infatuation that arises as a result of a happy coincidence. According to Fromm, this is pseudo-love, which is imposed by romantic films and books.
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