Emotion pp 153-166 | Cite as

What Is This Thing Called Love? Narratives from Two Generations

  • Joanne Brown
Chapter

Abstract

Consider a woman in her 20s who cannot leave what she feels is an emotionally neglectful relationship, after a childhood of inattention, loss and loneliness, or a man in his 60s who wants to change his enmeshed, suffocating relationship with his wife after 40 years of projective gridlock,1 or the woman in her 30s who might want a relationship, but simultaneously declares that she is no fit state for one and feels repellent to people, or the man in his 40s who wants to try to be more emotionally present for his wife and family, but eschews conflict.

Keywords

Emotional Life Romantic Love Gender Expectation Psychosocial Research Transformational Object 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Barthes, R. (1978) A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
  2. Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1995) The Normal Chaos of Love, Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar
  3. Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing, London: BBC.Google Scholar
  4. Berman, M. (1983) All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, London: Verso.Google Scholar
  5. Bollas, C. (1987) The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Unknown, London: Free Association Books.Google Scholar
  6. Bollas, C. (1989) Forces of Destiny: Psychoanalysis and Human Idiom, London: Free Association Books.Google Scholar
  7. De Botton, A. (1993) Essays in Love, London: Picador.Google Scholar
  8. Brown, J. (2005) ‘The Compelling Nature of Romantic Love: A Psychosocial Perspective’, Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, 10, 23–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Brown, J. (2006a) ‘Reflexivity in the Research Process: Psychoanalytic Observations’, The International Journal of Social Research Methodology: Theory and Practice, 9(3), 181–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Brown, J. (2006b) A Psychosocial Exploration of Love and Intimacy, London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Collins, R. (1972) ‘A Conflict Theory of Sexual Stratification’, in Dreitzel, H. P. (ed.) Family, Marriage, and the Struggle of the Sexes, Recent Sociology No. 4, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
  12. Craib, I. (1998) Experiencing Identity, London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Day Sclater, S. (1999) Divorce: A Psychosocial Perspective, Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
  14. Derrida, J. (1967/1972) Writing and Difference, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  15. Elam, D. (1992) Romancing the Postmodern, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  16. Freud, S. (1923/1991) The Ego and the Id, London: Penguin — The Penguin Freud Library, Volume 11 (first published 1923).Google Scholar
  17. Giddens, A. (1992) The Transformation of Intimacy, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
  18. Hochschild, A. R. (1998) ‘The Sociology of Emotion as a Way of Seeing’, in Bendelow, G. and Williams, S. J. (eds) Emotions in Social Life: Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  19. Kernberg, O. (1995) Love Relations: Normality and Pathology, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
  20. Klein, M (1963/1975) ‘On the Sense of Loneliness’, in Envy and Gratitude, London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
  21. Luhmann, N. (1986) Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy, Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar
  22. Lyotard J.-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
  23. Mills, C. W. (1959/1976) The Sociological Imagination, Oxford: OUP (paperback edition used).Google Scholar
  24. Mitchell, S. (2003) Can Love Last? The Fate of Romance Over Time, London: W.W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
  25. Morgan, M. (1995) ‘The Projective Gridlock: A Form of Projective Identification in Couple Relationships’, in Ruszczynski, S. and Fisher, J. (eds) Intrusiveness and Intimacy in the Couple, London: Karnac.Google Scholar
  26. Raphael-Leff, J. (1993) Pregnancy: The Inside Story, London: Sheldon Press.Google Scholar
  27. Richards, B. and Brown, J. (2002) ‘The Therapeutic Culture Hypothesis: A Critical Discussion’, in Johansson, T. and Sernhede, O. (eds) Lifestyle, Desire and Politics: Contemporary Identities, Gothenberg: Daidalos.Google Scholar
  28. Rieff, P. (1966) The Triumph of the Therapeutic, London: Penguin.Google Scholar
  29. de Rougemont, D. (1940/1983) Love in the Western World, New Jersey: Princeton University.Google Scholar
  30. Salecl, R. (1994/1998) Perversions of Love and Hate, London: Verso.Google Scholar
  31. Sartre, J. P. (1943) Being and Nothingness, London: Routledge (first English translation in 1958 by Methuen and Co. Ltd. Routledge, 1989 edition used).Google Scholar
  32. Storr, A. (1988) Solitude, London: Flamingo.Google Scholar
  33. Wolf, N. (1990) The Beauty Myth, London: Vintage.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Joanne Brown 2009

Authors and Affiliations

  • Joanne Brown

There are no affiliations available

Personalised recommendations