Where Do We Fall When We Fall in Love? (Hardcover)

Where do we fall when we fall in love? Evolutionary psychologists have a ready description: they tell us that we fall into a pool of natural amphetamines in our brains. These hormonal processes make us feel exhilarated, speeded up. For psychoanalysts, however, the question is much more difficult to answer. What are the differences between narcissistic love and affectionate love? What are the contrasts between sexual instinctual relations and ego relations? Are all human beings by nature bisexual? How did one type of female homosexual end up the only type in psychoanalytic literature? These are some of the subjects that Elisabeth Young-Bruehl explores in her upcoming collection of essays. She traces the mystery of love to its sources, bringing her expertise as a philosopher and a writer to focus on the subject from a psychoanalytical perspective. In these new writings, many of them published for the first time in this volume, the author reconceptualizes psychoanalytical theory of instinctual drives and object relations. Among a wide range of issues, she considers sexual identity and gender theory along with character theory. These essays continue the investigation of love that she began with her groundbreaking previous coauthored book, Cherishment: Psychology of the Heart.