20. kafli – Maintaining Close and Intimate Relationships
Your soul is your relationship with other people. What you say and do does not die.
Tom Wolfe
Introduction: The Three phases of love
Love represents a cognitive, behavioral and emotional stands toward others that takes 3
prototypical forms.
1. Child's love for parent
2. Parents love for child
3. Romantic love
Future relationships are influenced by caregiver and child bonding and feelings of
security
Freud (1905/1962) was among the first to describe the commonalities between love for a child
and romantic love. Both spend a good deal of time in mutual gazing, cuddling, kissing and
having skin to skin contact along with touching body parts that are considered „private “. Today
there is apiological evidence for similar neurochemical underpainting between the two types.
Oxytocin released during suckling/ nursing is thought to induce feelings of bonding and
attachment between mother and child. The same chemical is released at sexual climax and is
believed to play a role in the cuddling and feelings of closeness that followed intercourse.
The Universial Need for Love
Maslow (1954/1970) posited that human motives are • Maslow’s hierarchy of needs –
1. Physiological
hierarchically arranged. Ascending in order from a base of
2. Safety
• Six broad virtues – biological needs, hunger and thirst, 3. Belongingness and love
– Wisdom next the need for safety (i.e. To 4. Esteem
– Courage 5. Self-actualization
– Humanity become free from threats of danger
– Justice both psychologically and physically) come into play. Next in the
– Temperance
hierarchy is the need for attachment which leads to our request for
– Transcendence
connection to others, to love and to be loved. When these are satisfied
our motives turn toward the need to feel valued or esteemed by ourselves and others. The drives
toward knowledge, understanding and novelty are grouped together as cognitive needs. We then
experience aesthetic needs which become manifest in our desires for order and beauty. At the
1
, upper tier of the hierarchy is the need for self -actualization – „the full use and exploitation of
talents, capacities and potentialities“. The self-actualized individual is characterized by
spontaneity, autonomy, sense of humor and deep interpersonal relationships. At the apex of the
hierarchy is the need for transcendence, pertaining to spiritual or religious needs.
In Character strengths and virtues, Peterson and Seligman (2004) classify the six broad
virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture. From both Peterson and Seligman and
Maslow ‘s perspectives, the capacity to establish and maintain deep interpersonal relationships is
germane to the experience of happiness and filling one's potential. This view of the intimate
connection between optimal life experience and the capacity to form close interpersonal bonds is
also a vital component of value of our view of natural highsas self -induced changes in brain
chemistry the result in positive feeling states, health, and well-being for the individual and
society.
The characteristics of Peterson and Seligman ‘s (2004) core virtue of „humanity “are helpful in
conceptualizing ideal human connections.
Humanity: Interpersonal Strengths that involve tending and befriending others!
Capacity to Love and be Loved: Valuing close relations with others, in
particular those in which sharing, and caring are reciprocated; being close with
other people
Kindness (generosity, nurturance, care, compassion, altruistic love,
“niceness”): Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care
of them
Social intelligence (emotional and personal intelligence): Being aware of the
motives and feelings of other people and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into
different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.
Secure Attachment: A Prototype for Successful Relationship
The roots of scholarly work in the area of human connectedness are found in the study of
traumatic separation and failed relationships.
2
Your soul is your relationship with other people. What you say and do does not die.
Tom Wolfe
Introduction: The Three phases of love
Love represents a cognitive, behavioral and emotional stands toward others that takes 3
prototypical forms.
1. Child's love for parent
2. Parents love for child
3. Romantic love
Future relationships are influenced by caregiver and child bonding and feelings of
security
Freud (1905/1962) was among the first to describe the commonalities between love for a child
and romantic love. Both spend a good deal of time in mutual gazing, cuddling, kissing and
having skin to skin contact along with touching body parts that are considered „private “. Today
there is apiological evidence for similar neurochemical underpainting between the two types.
Oxytocin released during suckling/ nursing is thought to induce feelings of bonding and
attachment between mother and child. The same chemical is released at sexual climax and is
believed to play a role in the cuddling and feelings of closeness that followed intercourse.
The Universial Need for Love
Maslow (1954/1970) posited that human motives are • Maslow’s hierarchy of needs –
1. Physiological
hierarchically arranged. Ascending in order from a base of
2. Safety
• Six broad virtues – biological needs, hunger and thirst, 3. Belongingness and love
– Wisdom next the need for safety (i.e. To 4. Esteem
– Courage 5. Self-actualization
– Humanity become free from threats of danger
– Justice both psychologically and physically) come into play. Next in the
– Temperance
hierarchy is the need for attachment which leads to our request for
– Transcendence
connection to others, to love and to be loved. When these are satisfied
our motives turn toward the need to feel valued or esteemed by ourselves and others. The drives
toward knowledge, understanding and novelty are grouped together as cognitive needs. We then
experience aesthetic needs which become manifest in our desires for order and beauty. At the
1
, upper tier of the hierarchy is the need for self -actualization – „the full use and exploitation of
talents, capacities and potentialities“. The self-actualized individual is characterized by
spontaneity, autonomy, sense of humor and deep interpersonal relationships. At the apex of the
hierarchy is the need for transcendence, pertaining to spiritual or religious needs.
In Character strengths and virtues, Peterson and Seligman (2004) classify the six broad
virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture. From both Peterson and Seligman and
Maslow ‘s perspectives, the capacity to establish and maintain deep interpersonal relationships is
germane to the experience of happiness and filling one's potential. This view of the intimate
connection between optimal life experience and the capacity to form close interpersonal bonds is
also a vital component of value of our view of natural highsas self -induced changes in brain
chemistry the result in positive feeling states, health, and well-being for the individual and
society.
The characteristics of Peterson and Seligman ‘s (2004) core virtue of „humanity “are helpful in
conceptualizing ideal human connections.
Humanity: Interpersonal Strengths that involve tending and befriending others!
Capacity to Love and be Loved: Valuing close relations with others, in
particular those in which sharing, and caring are reciprocated; being close with
other people
Kindness (generosity, nurturance, care, compassion, altruistic love,
“niceness”): Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care
of them
Social intelligence (emotional and personal intelligence): Being aware of the
motives and feelings of other people and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into
different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.
Secure Attachment: A Prototype for Successful Relationship
The roots of scholarly work in the area of human connectedness are found in the study of
traumatic separation and failed relationships.
2
