ON ROMANTIC LOVE PHILOSOPHY IN ACTION Small Books about Big Ideas Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, series editor Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith Philip Kitcher Morality without God? Walter Sinnott-Armstrong The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters Thomas Hurka Better than Human: The Promise and Perils of Enhancing Ourselves Allen Buchanan What’s Wrong with Homosexuality? John Corvino On Romantic Love: Simple Truths about a Complex Emotion Berit Brogaard ON ROMANTIC LOVE Simple Truths about a Complex Emotion Berit Brogaard 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brogaard, Berit. On romantic love : simple truths about a complex emotion / Berit Brogaard. pages cm. — (Philosophy in action) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-937073-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Love. I. Title. BD436.B755 2015 128'.46—dc23 2014017757 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper I was afraid of losing him. Now I am afraid of forgetting him. I try to hold onto him, the little I have left. I can still see his con- tours but I can’t see his face. Sometimes I imagine that he turns around and walks away. The door shuts closed. Then everything gets dark. I never want that to happen. —zoe There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness —friedrich nietzsche (“On Reading and Writing”) CONTENTS Preface xi Acknowledgments xv 1. Dangerous Liaisons: Letter from a Friend 1 2. Gravitation Is Not Responsible for People Falling in Love: The Chemistry of Love 12 Your Brain on Crack 14 Beliefs and Brain Chemistry 16 Taking the Drug Away 20 Addicted to Grief 24 Emotional Pain 29 Stress, Pimples, and Gray Hair 32 Love and Hate 34 3. I Have Feelings Too: The Philosophy of Love 38 Love as an Emotion 38 Basic and Complex Emotions 44 Is Love a Bodily Sensation? 46 Uniting Body and World 59 Strange Connections 65 Emotional Responses to Fiction 66 Perceived Responses 68 4. Hopelessly Devoted To You: Irrational Love 73 Does the Idea of Irrational Love Make Sense? 76 You Call It Madness, I Call It Love 82 Irrational Compassionate Love 84 viii Contents The Transcendent View of Love 87 Love as a History 91 Personal Identity and the Value of Our Beloveds 96 Is Love Unconditional? 99 5. Why Was I Holding onto Something that Would Never Be Mine? Relationships and Love Attachment 102 Secure versus Insecure Attachment 102 Childish Relationships 106 Avoidant Attachment 107 Anxious Attachment 109 Familiar Love 113 Jealousy and Anxious Attachment 121 Avoidance and Love as a History 130 Can Attachment Styles Change? 133 Attachment Love 135 Can Animals Love? 137 6. Sometimes the Heart Sees What Is Invisible to the Eye: Unconscious Love 143 Opponents of Unconscious Affection 144 Unconscious Affect 147 Two Emotional Pathways 152 Unconscious Love 154 In Your Dreams 158 Is Love a Disposition? 161 7. He’s Just Not That into You: And Other in-between Cases of Love 165 Prototypes 166 “Love” Is Gradable 169 He’s Just Not That Into You 173 Love and Ambivalence 176 Contents ix 8. I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That): Love and Sex 181 Non-Monogamous Love as In-Between Cases 181 Love and Casual Sex 187 The Other Dimension of Sex 190 9. Un-Break My Heart: How to Fall Out of Love 193 Never Mind Searching for Who You Are. Search for the Person You Aspire to Be 195 Psychoanalysis and Talk Therapy 200 Emotional Regulation and Avoidance Behavior 202 The Repetition Technique 206 Prolonged Exposure Therapy 208 Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing 214 Deep Relaxation and Meditation 215 Heartbreak and Placement Conditioning 217 The Sinclair Method 219 Out, Damned Spot: Using Soap to Wash Away Your Negative Feelings 220 10. Happiness Is Love. Full Stop: Love, Marriage, and the Pursuit of Happiness 223 Emotional Regulation as a Route to Happiness 224 Negative Thinking as a Path to Happiness? 225 Marriage and Happiness 229 Love and Happiness 231 Sometimes the Heart Wants What It Wants: The End 234 Notes 239 Bibliography 247 Index 265