Self-Love and 12 Reasons to Develop It

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson covers what self-love means and does not mean; a list of 12 of the many things healthy self-love helps us do; and how to work and grow using this list.

What Self-Love Means

Healthy, real self-love means you highly value, honor and enjoying the unique bundle of miracles that you are, and that you have been since birth.

Self-love means because you highly honor your own essence and your individual shaping by life, you treat yourself well respecting the one-of-a-kind self you are.  Therefore, you are prone to act to safeguard and develop your gifts and appreciate your unique nature.  Self-love also can mean that you powerfully strive to thrive, live with vitality, delight in your natural self, and that you can be in awe of your own, miraculous, natural processes.

Self-love can mean you actively desire and work for your own well-being and strive to be your best self, not only for yourself but for those you love and care about.  You do that partially because the well-being of others, in a sense, selfishly means a great deal to you.  Self-love also can mean that you take healthful pleasure in the many ways you are built to experience pleasure and share pleasure.  Self-love also can mean that you work against anti-self-love teachings, programming, and influences that come into your life. Such factors can rob you of your strengths, restrict use of your talents, and deprive you of becoming the best self you can become.  Self-love also means that you act toward yourself, feel toward yourself and think about yourself in the ways that are in accord with the definition of love offered at this site.

What Healthy Self-Love Does Not Mean

Healthy self-love does not mean becoming uncaring, ungenerous, mean, stingy, greedy, egotistical, covetous, uncharitable, miserly, narcissistic, hedonistic, sociopathic or self-absorbed.  In fact it means quite the opposite of those things.  That’s because healthy self-love leads to more and better love of others.

You see, when you love yourself healthfully you have the selfish desire to see your loved ones do well, and that leads you to act for their benefit.  Their benefit is your benefit.  It is those who are poor in self-love that go ‘out of balance’ and become stingy, destructively selfish, mean-spirited, etc.  Healthy self-love helps you live by the ancient wisdom which says “Love Others As You Love Yourself”.

What Healthy Self-Love Helps You To:

1.    Believe that the love you have to offer others is good and, therefore, you offer it more

2.    Have a self generating source of energy and power to get through hard times when no one else is giving you their love

3.    Have greater self-confidence and, therefore, accomplish more

4.    Have greater self-reliance and, therefore, be less dependent

5.    Develop more adult maturity so you can emotionally take care of yourself rather than be like a ‘needy child’ who must be taken care of

6.    Be free to ‘want love’ instead of living in a state of ‘need love’ like a weak and needy person more susceptible to false love addiction

7.    Become more ‘inner self-directed’ than ‘outer other-directed’ and, therefore, live more true to yourself, rather than betraying yourself for the approval and acceptance of others, or rather than becoming dutifully or slavishly conformist

8.    Enjoy the praise, thanks and compliments that come from others, rather than automatically discounting them, or being suspicious of them, or becoming addicted to them

9.    Become motivated to take care of yourself so that you have more to offer both to yourself and others, instead of needlessly sacrificing and wasting yourself

10.    Be careful that the love that’s coming to you is of good quality, instead of taking       anything you can get (which includes phony love, contaminated love and love substitutes)

11.    Open yourself up to love chances, opportunities and adventures, instead of being overly protective or defensive about the love you have and, thereby, letting lots more love in

12.    Love life, love others and all that can be loved much more freely because you keep enough of your heart full through healthy self-loving to be able to give a lot

Working and Growing with This List

As a sort of homework to help grow your healthy self-love, you might consider doing these things.  Go back over the 12 items seeing which ones ‘grab’ your attention the most.  It is rather likely that those are the ones that it would be really good for you to examine closely and see if they point to areas you might want to make improvements in.  Are there any of the above items that cause you any level of discomfort or disturbance?  If so, that may represent some area you perhaps are vulnerable in and which needs some strengthening.

Do you find any of the above items more puzzling, confusing, confounding or curiosity generating?  Those, in particular, may (with study) yield clues pointing to areas you might want to and need to explore further.  When working on healthy self-love many people make really good gains by journaling about their learning and growing healthy self-love, and you might want to do the same.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Do you know the difference between when you are being healthfully self loving and when you are being destructively selfish, arrogant, conceited, haughty, contemptuous, scornful etc.?

How to Talk Love Without Words

Synopsis: How Karen loves Lester “really good” and how she learned, 10 surprising things to notice and make powerful love improvements with, The dark side of this issue and how to go to the bright side.

Lester said, “The way Karen treats me when we talk gives me a real sense that she loves me.  No one else has ever done that as well as she does”.  Lester was asked, “How does she do that”?  He replied, “She does that by her face lighting up every time she sees me, and she gives me these great big smiles.  At the same time her voice gets happy, she usually moves toward me, touches me and is happily animated in all sorts of little ways.  When we sit down together she leans toward me and her looks change a little with each thing she or I say.  That tells me she’s really tuned-in to me, is involved and is really feeling things as we talk.

It doesn’t matter what we talk about because most of it, maybe all of it, feels like love is happening with every little gesture and sound.  Sometimes she briefly glances away when trying to remember or figure out something but then she’s back looking straight at me with a hundred different loving expressions dancing across her face.  She’s wonderful that way!”

Lester is lucky.  He is with a woman who is really good at expressional love.  Karen says she wasn’t always that way.  She tells of growing up in a family where everyone was usually reserved, monotone and stone-faced.  Never-the less she learned.  As a child Karen told of being forced to be part of a school play, and there a teacher who understood the importance of expressional language worked with her.  She laughed at herself when she said as a kid she got quite silly and melodramatic, but people paid attention to her and that was better than what happened at home where she felt mostly invisible and lonely.  Lester says he sort of copies Karen because she is really effective, not only with him but with everyone else too.

By copying her he’s become more demonstrative to their children, friends and family, and even at work.  He also proudly proclaims being more like his wife in these ways is paying off quite nicely in every area of his life.  Lester said, “The people who are important to me want to listen to me more, include me more, pay more attention to me, and I’m a lot more effective with everyone than I used to be.  It’s all because I’ve become a lot more “love expressive” as my counselor calls it.  Now it’s just the way I come across.  Karen likes it too and that’s doing our marriage so much good”.

To learn how to talk love without words and do it really well let me suggest this is what you can do.
First, study other people who come across friendly and loving but also effective in their dealings with others.  We are surrounded by people who demonstrate examples of the language of expressional, nonverbal love-- friends who are happy  and caring, loving grandparents, even strangers or actors on TV or in movies.  To do this studying please pay attention to the following:

1.    Notice Faces, especially smiles, looks of empathy, eye contact, looks that seem to express positive regard, support, concerned interest, pride in others, joy, sweet intimacy and everything you can figure out to notice about facial expressions showing positive feelings.

2.   Notice Voices, especially the tones of lovingness, friendliness happy assertiveness, kindness, care, intimacy revealed, connectedness, pride in loved ones, acceptance, the intonations of non-judgmentalism, tenderness, boisterous support, happy self-disclosure with a touch of embarrassment, empathy, unbridled shared ecstasy, serene quietness, and up-beat feelings; all are ways to express your love without words.

3.    Notice Gestures, especially how love effective people do open arm greetings, wave hello and goodbye, signal inclusiveness, friendliness, gestures of expressed positive emotion, especially acceptance, approval (as in thumbs-up and V for victory), and the many hand and arm gestures which signal subtle indications of comradeship and “I’m with you”.

4.    Notice Posture expression, especially posture changes that show turning to include, standing and sitting open to receiving, friendly leaning forward, standing with, gracefully moving out of the way, respectfully making room for, and standing tall in support of loved ones.

5.    Notice Touching which is love expressive, including friendly “tap touches”, strong but not too hard hand shaking, one arm “Buddy” hugs, pats on the back, tiny caressing, cheek kissing, fast and slow ‘up-thrust’ pressure hugs, empathetic and emotionally intimate nonsexual physical contact, gentle holding, tender rubbing, hand holding, leg to leg touching, full body and A frame hugging, movement filled touch, and calming still touch; all of these are ways to “talk” love without words.

6.    Notice Timing, especially as expressed in not talking louder and at the same time loved ones are speaking, waiting for appropriate pauses and until someone is finished, replying in pace (usually not faster or slower), checking to see if a loved one has caught up with you or you with them, avoiding being accidentally interruptive or invasive, and choosing appropriateness of a topic to the situation; all of which can influence your behavioral messages of love.

7.    Noticing Closeness, especially being with, standing with, sitting next to, moving closer, closing space gaps and distancing when appropriate, cycling away and back to a loved one periodically, allowing closeness to happen, being aware of another’s safe distancing, spatial boundaries and boundary reduction, friendly closeness, intimate closeness, private and public closeness differences, formal and informal closeness behavior, and doing uncomfortable closeness when it is needed; these also are part of how we ‘talk’ love without words.

8.    Notice Active Listening behaviors as in making good eye contact when a loved one is talking, doing silent corresponding facial expressions to another’s speech and facial expression changes, nodding approval and acceptance, harmonizing body and gesture movements with a loved ones movements as they speak, obviously paying close attention, avoiding bored, blank or looking away too much, refraining from stone-faced and robot like motions, and being generally synchronized in movements and tones when a loved one is conveying their messages.  This too is very much a part of talking love without words.

9.    Notice Responsive Receptiveness as in quickly turning toward a loved one who is starting to speak, focusing on the same topic a loved one is talking about, responding in a friendly manner to a loved one’s input or questions with at least a sound indicating having heard the loved one speak, returning greetings, friendly acknowledging of messages received, and being generally pleasantly responsive to whatever a loved one initiates even if declining or disagreeing.  Remember receptional love is one of the eight major groups of behavior by which love is directly conveyed (see the entry “A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love”).

10.    Notice Assertive Action conveying love as in suddenly kissing a loved one, reaching and lovingly grasping a loved one’s hand, giving an approval whistle, handing over a surprise gift, initiating flirting with your eyes and other looks, saying common things with intimate special personal tones, a wink, initiating hugs and cuddling, romantically lighting a candle, making lingering eye contact with a special smile, and the many other actions which can assertively convey love without words
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Once you have begun to note how loving and effective others do things, begin to notice your own ways of behaving in each of the above 10 categories.  To do this some people watch videos of themselves at family and friendship gatherings looking for how they can improve.  Others listen to recordings of their own voice searching for tonal improvements to make.  Still others ask friends and family for honest feedback on how they can improve the way they come across when showing love.  Taking a personal speech class (often offered in a continuing education class at local colleges), or being in a counseling group where everybody gives each other improvement feedback can work wonders.  Raising into conscious awareness the things talked about in this site’s entry and others like it may trigger a substantial change.  Adding more exact personal goals for improvement also will do if you practice specific desired changes enough.

Now, let us dare to look at the dark side of this issue.  What happens to those who do not learn enough about how to talk love without words.  For some, things go along tolerably well but for others in love relationships destructive problems arise and sometimes disaster occurs.  Hear what Rita had to say about Rex.  “Rex told me he still loved me and wanted our marriage to work but I decided to go ahead with a divorce because I believed what the rest of him was telling me.  You see, as he told me the words I wanted to hear and believe his actions said the opposite.

As he spoke the right words his head often was shaking no, his voice usually was flat and had no real feeling in it, he frequently leaned back in his chair away from me, and his hands just hung there limp with his eyes looking past me.  Worst of all his face was like a mask without expression.  That was just too much evidence contradicting his words.  I think his words lied but his behaviors told the truth and that’s what I’m going to act on”.  Hear what Trey said about Carmen.  “Carmen was always the same.  Polite, even sweet but I could never tell what she was really feeling.

There was never much variation, or at least not very often.  Maybe she over did it with Botox or something because her facial expression was always the same, a kind of pleasant, plastic smile – but that was all.  Her voice never told me anything either.  I once dreamed she was manufactured by a toy company.  So we aren’t together anymore.  When I broke it off she said she was sad but there weren’t any tears so I don’t think she cared that much, but who could tell”.  Here’s another type of non-expressional couple problem.   Emily said of Colin, “All he ever does is try to look and sound strong or tough.  It’s like he’s made out of stone or steel or something.  I’m done with that.  I want a guy who can show me all the feelings humans have”.

Well now, I think you can draw your own conclusions about the necessity and desirability of learning to talk love without words.   Here’s one last suggestion for avoiding the dark side and going to the bright side of this issue.  Pick just one, or at most two of the above 10 items having to do with talking love without words and focus on that.  Decide for yourself a few specific improvements to practice for a couple of weeks, keeping track of each time you perform a practice action.

Reward yourself for doing that, and then go on to another item.  It’s important not to overwhelm or even just “whelm” yourself by taking on too much at once.  Trying to improve 10 things all at once is definitely too much.  Also you might want to talk to a loved one about these items and see if they would want to choose a few in which to make improvements.  The best of luck in learning and practicing all the subtle and bold forms of talking love without words!

As always, Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
On a scale of zero to 10 (10 being best) how do you rate yourself on your ability to communicate love without words to those most dear to you?  (You could rate yourself on each of the 10 items listed above).

Related posts:

1. Can You Talk about Sex – with Love?
2. Self Talk for Improving Love
3. “Do and Don’t” Love Talk
4. Pro-Love and Anti-Love Talking
5. Listening with Love 

Making Love OR Having Sex?

25 Ways to Answer “Is It Love or Is It Just Sex?”

1. It may be “making love” if both people’s entire bodies are loved on.  It may be only “having sex” if it’s mostly about the genitals and what’s done with them.

2. If all sorts of different emotions are felt during a sexual encounter, these emotions can be shared and also empathized with its more likely to be “making love”.  If only sexual feelings are felt and shown it’s more likely to be “having sex”.

3. Possibly it’s “making love” when there is the inclusion of the very tender, the closely intimate, and the sweetly precious along with the passionate and the powerful.  Possibly it’s “having sex” when it’s all simple, raw, quick, rough or boring sex.

4. It may be “about love” if “No” is an OK answer to a sexual request.  It may be just “having power trip sex” if sexual desires are expressed as demands, followed by punishing rejection if the demands are not complied with.

5. If before during and after a sexual episode you feel a pleasing sense of warmth and a happy sense of bonding it could be “making love”.  If these or similar feelings are lacking, even if it was fantastically great sex, it may not have been making love but rather “having sex”.

6. In an ongoing series of sexual events with a partner it’s more likely to be “making love” if there is a fairly wide variety in the intensity, amount of time, and amount of energy involved and, therefore, lazy sex, silly sex, mental sex, sleepy sex, and no climax sex can all be part of the ongoing picture.  It’s more likely to be “having sex” if it’s usually pretty much the same experience over and over again.

7. When having sex makes you want to know and experience your partner more, be increasingly close, and do more of life together it is more likely to be “making love”.  If having sex results ends with just a feeling of being finished and wanting to get on with something else apart from your partner it could be just “having sex”.

8. If following sex there is an inner dialogue of self-demeaning focus or partner-demeaning focus, criticism, derogatory thoughts, etc. it’s more likely to have been just a form of poor conflicted “having sex”.  If, however, after sex there is an inner and outer dialogue of affirmation, appreciation, honoring and celebration it may have been “making love”.

9. It may be “making love” if there is lots of responding in kind to each loving touch, movement, word, kiss, sound, caress, look, etc..  It may be “having sex” if there is only short, mild, or no responsiveness, or if responses are made only to that which is blatantly sexual.

10. It could be about “making love” if whatever you want, or don’t want, can be talked about freely and lovingly.  It may be “having poor or restricted sex” if there are earnest putdowns, critical remarks, rejection statements, or shaming words and actions given for expressing different sexual thoughts or desires.

11. It could be making love if there is as much, or more focus on pleasuring as being  pleasured.  It’s more likely just to be having sex if satisfaction of the self is the prime goal.

12. ‘Wild sex’, ‘kinky sex’, ‘dirty sex’, etc. all can be part of making love if there is real care and concern for a sex partner’s happiness and well-being along with adequate safeguarding.  All the many forms of sexuality without loving care and concern as an integrated part just may be different ways to be having sex.

13. It really could be making love if all levels and types of one’s physical sexual response and reaction system are acceptable and lovingly treated.  If the physical sexual system of the self, or of the partner, does not respond as desired and that leads to emotional and/or relational dissonance it probably is more about sex than love.

14. It is more likely to be love making if there are a lot of mutual all over gentle caresses, tender kisses, terms of endearment, cuddles, and loving looks leading up to, during and especially following orgasms or following a nap after orgasm.  It might be having sex if all that’s going on are actions that directly assist getting to a climax.

15. Making love more likely is occurring when there are feelings of deep connectedness, high appreciation and high valuing of the unique personal aspects of the partner and of the relationship with the partner.  If there are worries about what the partner is thinking of you, of your sexual expertise, of your masculinity or femininity, of your attractiveness, etc. then maybe it’s more about having insecure sex.

16. If there are repeated insistences or demands for certain sex practices (including intercourse and climax), and without those practices bad feelings and relationship troubles occur it might be more about having sex than making love.  If there is a free-flowing variety of sexual requests with alternates being lovingly accepted then it’s more likely to be about making love.

17. It’s much more likely to be about love making when sexual encounters lead to a greater love of life, general sense of being uplifted, sense of awe, appreciation of beauty and higher self love.  If the experience leads to a sense of lowered self worth, to  indifference, to a desire to get away, to a sense of lonely aloneness or despair, etc. it may have been having unfulfilling sex.

18. When there is a sense of conquest, scoring, using, defeating, proving potency or self importance, of lowering another’s value, getting even, etc. it’s not likely to be about making love.  When there is a sense of mutual enrichment, shared joy, giving and getting benefit, and having done a really good, natural thing then it’s much more likely to be making love.

19. If there are restrictions on verbal or behavioral expressions of strong, vigorous, powerful, potent sexuality along with insistence on only verbally expressing reassurance, commitment, devotion, or tender love and on all sex actions being mild it could be that having insecurity filled sex is what’s really happening.  When a wide variety of expressions of sexuality along with free-flowing expressions of love are being enjoyed lovemaking with eroticism is more likely.

20. Feeling proud, blessed, delighted, cherished, sublime, glorious, excellent, and of course well loved tends to go with quality love making.  Feeling raunchy reverie, glorious debauchery, carnal passion, lovely lust, beautiful lasciviousness, wanton satiation, thoroughly eroticized, saturated with shameless sexual pleasure, and ecstatically exhausted goes with having great sex, all of which and can be mixed into making fantastic love or not.

21. If there is a lot of guilt, shame, disgust, fear, depression, anxiety, repulsion, etc. then it seems there probably is not enough healthy self-love and self care happening while having sex.  If there is a sense of healthy self fulfillment, mixed with care and concern for a partner’s pleasure, well-being and fulfillment then love making more likely is occurring.

22. If when contemplating a sexual encounter there is a fear of failing, performing inadequately, not living up to a standard, or somehow being insufficient then perhaps it’s about having ‘performance’ sex.  When whatever happens is okay and able to be treated with mutual lovingness and fun, and when there is a continuance of sensuous and loving actions even when there is a ‘oops’ then good healthy making love more probably is in evidence.

23. It probably just was having great sex if wonderful erotic excitement, intense pleasure and saturating satisfaction resulted.  However, if there also was added feelings of marvelous union, cosmic connection and spiritual elation then possibly it was great sex with great love making.

24. It’s probably making love when there is a high valuing of the partner, the erotic experience of the partner, and the all over relationship with the partner.  It’s probably having sex if the sexual experience itself is the only thing being valued.

25. When there is a mutual sense of great connection, the people involved are safeguarding each other, there is a sense of natural improvement from the experience, plus a sense of healthfulness exists, and there is rewarding joy it’s very likely to be that a true lovemaking experience is what’s happening.  When emotional disconnection, true danger, unnaturalness, and unhealthfulness, and one type or another of emotional agony results it’s pretty likely that having loveless sex was all that was happening.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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Image credits: “Close up of The Thinker” by Flickr user Brian Hillegas, “The Thinker (female version)” by Flickr user Dave Hogg.
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Related posts:

1. Do You Want To Say ‘Love’ When You Mean ‘Sex’?
2. It Might Be Healthy, Real Love …
3. Sex Fears Mastered with Love
4. Monogamy for Love & Monogamy for Sex
5. Sexual Love Laces 

Can Love at First Sight Be Real Love?

People often ask me “Dr. Cookerly, can love at first sight be the real thing”?  The answer according to most of the research I’m aware of and the knowledgeable thinking on this question is “No, love at first sight probably does not and can not involve real love”.  “What is it then?” is usually the next question.  Love at first sight most often is a case of Imprint Mating.  Here is how Imprint Mating and the whole love at first sight thing is thought to usually work.

It seems that in early childhood we go through critical periods where we are naturally open to things having really strong effects upon us.  In some of these critical periods we become highly susceptible to certain images that have to do with love sources being powerfully imprinted into our deep non-conscious brain.  These images are of people who give us love or from whom we want our love to come during those critical periods.

Much later we encounter people who look, act, smell and perhaps sound like those images we imprinted.  When that happens we automatically project onto these people a false recognition response.  We subconsciously sense we are encountering someone to love, and to be loved by and to whom we already are love connected.  This often causes excitement and positive feelings similar to reconnecting with a long-lost, very important loved one.

Most commonly it is thought our imprinted images come from how we perceived and experienced our mother, or father (or an integration of both parents) before our fifth birthday.  Usually that means in our subconscious we are seeing a person similar to how one or both parents looked, sounded, acted, etc. when they were younger adults.  Sometimes it is not our parents but an aunt or uncle, or someone else who was a possible source of love which we imprinted at a highly impressionable critical period.

Once we project onto another person and ‘see’ in them our imprinted image, it triggers our deep built in ‘mating drive’ which makes us want to ‘mate’ with that person we feel ‘love at first sight’ with.  It’s kind of like, at that moment, that person is a screen onto whom we are putting our projected image.  Therefore, we are falsely seeing who we want to see, and are basically blind to who is really there, at least for awhile.  Mating, by the way, means much more than just having sex.  Our built in mating drive frequently pushes us to much more totally ‘mate’ with that person usually for at least several months.

Another fact quite vital to understanding the love at first sight phenomenon is to know that attraction and love are two very different things.  We can be attracted strongly and quite quickly to people we will never love.  We also can deeply and powerfully love people we do not find necessarily attractive.

Most love at first sight relationships don’t last very long.  Unfortunately some people who strongly rely on first sight love discover those relationships sometimes end in life damaging disappointment and heartbreak.  Others keep missing out on real love because they continue looking for the love at first sight false thing mistakenly thinking it is the real thing. Still others just give up on romantic love entirely.

Does all this mean that ‘love at first sight’ never leads to a lasting, healthy, real mate-type love relationship?  No, not at all.  There are those who grow a real love relationship after getting their relationship started with Imprint Mating.  That’s probably what keeps people believing in love at first sight; there are just enough people succeeding with a love at first sight start-up to keep people believing in it.  Also, it is a very pretty romantic myth, even though it probably causes more hurt and harm than it causes good.  Thus, love at first sight is best regarded as a form of false love which, nonetheless, could (but probably won’t) lead to a lasting, good love relationship.

What is the best thing to do if you feel like you have a love at first sight experience?   I like to suggest that the best thing to do is to operate from the Apostle Paul’s declaration, “love is patient”.  Therefore, taking lots of time to get to know who is really there usually works best.  Look long and hard for what is behind your projections and beneath your first impressions.  If real love is going to happen and grow, it will show itself to be real in time.  So, give it enough time.  Most forms of false love die out within a year.  Some can last a lot longer but usually don’t.  Proceed cautiously but also enjoy all the adventure and excitement of a first sight love experience, while getting to know the real person who is there over time.

Real love may develop but it will take exploration, experience and time to know if that is what’s happening.  If and when a first sight relationship ends you may know that you have had a good, and hopefully growthful love related experience.  Now, with this forewarning and knowledge you will know not to count on it too much, and hopefully you will avoid most of the hurt and all of the harm potential in a love at first sight experience.  Good luck!

As always – Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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Image credits: “The Binocular Bunch” by Flickr user Supagroova.
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Related posts:

1. False Forms of Love – Imprint Mating Syndrome
2. Is “I Can’t Live without You” Real Love?
3. False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome
4. Getting Healthy, Real Love in Your Life
5. False Forms of Love: Shadow Side Attachments 

Emotional Intercourse

“What do women want?” is supposed to be a question that has baffled the wise for centuries.  Even Sigmund Freud said he didn’t figure it out.  Let me suggest that perhaps the answer is – emotional intercourse.  Time and time again when I use this term in couple’s counseling the women smile and nod while the men look quite puzzled.

Frequently a woman will say something like, “Of course” or “How true” or “That sums it up”.  The men will usually remark, “What the heck is emotional intercourse?”.  I think the truth is that males also want emotional intercourse at a deep instinctive level but are not so likely to be consciously aware of having this natural and needed desire.  When both men and women get, and know they have gotten, good emotional intercourse they express that it has enriched their relationship as well as their lives in general.

Emotional intercourse is an extremely important part of intimate, romantic, real love.  It seems emotional intercourse is one of the main things that keeps intimate love fueled and running.  To keep a healthy romantic-type love alive and growing emotional intercourse is probably a very vital, necessary requirement.

What is emotional intercourse?  Emotional intercourse is the frequently satisfying and often passionate giving and receiving of each other’s many and varied emotions.  Much like sexual intercourse it is best done naked – that is, emotionally naked.  Going emotionally naked engenders very real, without disguise or deception communication.  Emotional intercourse also is best done up-close and quite personal, and it’s best when it involves the whole person (facial expressions, voice tones, body postures, etc.) of each of the participants.

How is positive emotional intercourse done?  Emotional intercourse is accomplished by the speaking and showing of emotions, and by closely attending to the emotional expressions of another person while having and showing corresponding, empathetic feelings.  If your lover is sad be sad for their sadness and show it.  If your lover is glad be glad for their gladness and show it.  With each feeling your lover has you can harmonize with that feeling, and feel it and then show you feel it.

Emotional intercourse also can be accomplished by showing corresponding, empathetic caring when your lover hurts, empathetic anger when your lover is angry about something in their life, and empathetic concern when your lover is afraid.  These empathetic feelings are to be felt and shown whether or not you cognitively believe the feeling they are having is justified, rational, or right.  Remember, emotions are facts.  When you have one it is a reality, whether it makes sense to anyone or not.  Emotional intercourse involves intimately being with your lover’s psychological heart, gut and genitals as they feel the feelings that emanate from each of those symbolic centers.

To be good at emotional intercourse takes showing your own emotions.  That is done with varying facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, posture changes and touch.  Of course, the more you can identify, label  and give voice to your emotions with words the better.

In order to enhance the speaking of your emotions here is a little learning exercise.  Make a list of emotions.  Come up with one or more names for emotions which start with each letter of the alphabet.  Yes, there are words that label emotions starting with each letter of the alphabet.  Aim for your list to have more pleasurable emotions than dis-pleasurable ones.  After you make your list think about when you have felt each of these emotions.  Pick out several and share these feelings, and the events that went with them, with someone you love.

After that ask your loved one when they have had the same emotions.  Pay really close, loving attention to what they say and how they say it.  Then show that you are doing this.  Usually making good eye contact, being able to elucidate on the emotion you think they are experiencing, and being able to empathetically reflect back to  them what they just said usually accomplishes this.  In doing this exercise perhaps you will start toward experiencing deeply satisfying emotional intercourse in a somewhat new and different way.

Sexual intercourse has a strong relationship with emotional intercourse in lasting relationships.  To have ongoing, healthy sexual intercourse with someone it almost always requires good, ongoing emotional intercourse.  Yes, people can have short-term, enjoyable sex without having much emotional intercourse with a sex partner.  However, to have a lasting and good sex life with a particular person, good and repeated emotional intercourse seems to be necessary.  If you get really good at emotional intercourse you probably will be getting good at one of the most important skills for growing lasting and highly satisfying, intimate, romantic love.

As always – Grow in love.

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


♥ Love Success Question
What are three emotions you have felt so far today?  Who might you share them with and, thereby, probably feel a little closer to?

Related posts:

1. Intercourse Absent Lovemaking – a Love Skill
2. Listening with Love
3. Are You Talking About Love Enough?
4. Lasting Sex and Lasting Love
5. Sexual Love Laces

Date Your Mate - Always !

(Note: ‘mate’ as used here is the North American, and other’s term meaning ‘a person of ongoing romantic love involvement’ not the Australian or New Zealand (our Oz and Kiwi friend’s), and other’s  ‘acquaintance or friend’ meaning).

Date your mate or lose your mate!  Date your mate to keep your mate!  Have you heard these modern dictums or axioms?  They speak to a modern world love truth you may do well to think about.

Lots of couples come to me complaining that their relationship is not what it used to be.  They worry that they are falling out of love, feel like something is missing that used to be there and wonder what to do about it.  Examining this usually reveals that they are not behaving in ways that keep love alive and growing.  One of the missing ingredients is they have stopped ‘dating’ one another.  They may go out to eat, or go to the movies and things like that but they don’t behave like they are on a date when doing those things.

There are no special preparations like wearing sexy clothes or using a little perfume or aftershave.  When out together there is no flirting, holding hands, sexy innuendos, playful nudges, intimate strokes or romantic squeezes.  Nor is there looking longingly into each other’s eyes, romantic talk, hints of mystery or surprise, or anything else that might identify what they are doing as a date.  Worse there may be problem talk.  It is not a date if there is talk about problems.  It is a meeting!  Dates that grow love usually are best accomplished when two people give each other special, personal, positive focus.  Dates are for intimate compliments, personal appreciations, expressions of enjoyment and sometimes desire and passion.

A real date includes shared laughter, a sense of personal closeness and all things fun and good – not problems, and not a lot of dealing with everyday practicalities and functionality.  Usually after a couple starts taking each other out on new real dates again improvements start to return to their relationship.  This is not the only thing needed but it can be a big jump start toward increasing the special form of love that couples can create.  So, I like to suggest that couples abide by the modern dictums, “Date Your Mate or Risk Losing Your Mate.”  And “Date Your Mate To Keep Your Mate”.

It is especially helpful to go on lots of different kinds of dates.  Here are some to think about.  Mini dates (ice cream store, walk in the park), regular dates (a movie, out to eat), informal dates (coffee shop, browsing a bookstore together), special event dates (birthday, anniversary), dress up dates (a play, the symphony), romantic dates (candle light dinner, carriage ride), adventure dates (balloon ride, mountain hiking), mystery dates (involving unknown destinations and activities), play dates (amusement park, howling at the full moon together – maybe star gazing after), elegant dates (fine art museum, fine dining), sexy dates (tango dancing, a risqué club) at home or at a special hotel sex dates (erotic massage, striptease) and combinations like a romantic adventure date involving riding galloping horses together through the surf on a moonlit night.

One trick to remember is to call it a ‘date’ in order to get in the right mind-set and help you remember to act like you’re on a date.  Avoid doing just the kind of parallel activity that friends can do but instead do the more intimate, special, connecting interactions which are, by the way, good for couples of all ages.  That way you are more likely to keep the love in your love relationship growing healthfully.

As always – Grow in love.

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love success questions
Today will you give thought to the kind of date or special time together a loved one might especially enjoy, and with those thoughts design a date that you ask that loved one to go on?  If you have trouble designing a date how about asking that special loved one today, “What sort of date or time together would you especially like?”  Today would you consider going over the above list of different kinds of dates with them?  If not today, then when exactly?

Related posts:

1. Connection Matching – A Love Skill
2. False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome

Ready or Not for Love?

Are you really ready for love?

Explore the following ‘willingness’ issues and you are likely to help yourself be ‘more ready’.  You also may get in touch with the areas of love- readiness you might do well to understand more, need to strengthen, and the areas in which you are most love-able and love-potent.  Which willingness areas can you say “Yes” to, which ones elicit a “Maybe”, and which ones get your “No” or “Probably not yet” response?

Do You Have STRONG :
1.    Willingness to do the work of learning to love well?

2.    Willingness to do the work of practicing loving well?

3.    Willingness to do the work of unlearning unloving, negative thoughts and feeling systems and the negative behaviors that go with them?

4.    Willingness to risk (to let fear and safety NOT be primary)?

5.    Willingness to love yourself healthfully?

6.    Willingness to live love-centered (NOT money-centered, status-centered, power-centered, etc.)?

7.    Willingness to explore and experiment with new ways?

8.    Willingness to be open to both getting and giving love?

9.    Willingness to choose and use the power of love over all other forms of power?

10.    Willingness to be transformed by love (because that’s what happens) into an ever growing, better self?

11.    Willingness to work at using real love to help heal others, and to use real love to heal you of old wounds and the negative thoughts, feelings, and behavior systems those wounds empower?

12.    Willingness to let love deeply connect you with others, life, nature, spirituality, and other love forces in the universe?

Add up your “Yes” responses, your “Maybe” responses, and your “No & Probably Not Yet” responses.  If you have mostly “Yes” responses you probably are well on your way to ‘readiness’ and enriched living through love.  Mostly “Maybe” answers suggest you could use some work on your love readiness and it is advisable to proceed carefully in love matters.  Mostly “No & Probably Not” responses suggest that before you enter your next great love adventure you may want to emotionally strengthen yourself, look much further into understanding the dynamics of healthy real love and how to avoid love trauma and tragedy.

Please know this is not a definitive test just a little guide for examining your possible love readiness.  It also can be used by couples, or friends and family, and others to help each other look a bit deeper into the area of love readiness.


As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Religion, Love and Mental-Health

“Religion has done me a lot more harm than good,” Molly angrily proclaimed.

Preston, her lover of 6 months, replied with a serious, worried look, “In my way of looking at it religion has been a lifesaver, and it’s what gets me through the bad times”.  Molly folded her arms across her chest and firmly announced, “It took me a lot of work to get over what religion did to me and if we go further in this relationship I don’t want us, or our kids if we decide to have any, to have anything to do with it.”

Preston turned to me with a sad look saying, “Dr. Cookerly, which is it?  Will religion do us more harm or good?  Is our religious difference going to sink us?”  Molly added, “Is religion, if we get into it, going to be a constructive or a destructive thing like it was for me?  You can see this is huge for us and it’s the only big thing keeping Preston and me from going deeper in our relationship.  Can you help us with this?”

Having worked for years with many ‘buckle of the Bible belt’ individuals, couples and families, and later working with a large number of multi-cultural and bi-religion couples and families, I am well acquainted with religion issue questions.  I usually explain that I approach my client’s religion and spiritual issues in counseling as a mental-health professional and not as a theologian or religionist.  As both a psychotherapist and a relational therapist I can agree with Molly that I have seen many people more harmed by some religious involvements than benefited.  I also can agree with Preston having seen religion be a lifesaver, a great helper in the worst of times, and the most constructive influence in many people’s lives.

Sometimes individuals, couples, families and even whole communities are ruined by clashing and destructive religious-based actions, beliefs, judgmentalism, guilt training, and downright sick ways of going about things.  Likewise, by way of religion individuals, couples, families and communities often are healed, reconciled, inspired and re-directed toward healthier, richer, fuller lives through religion.  So the counseling focus for Molly and Preston, and for so many like them, is a three-part question.  Will their religious involvement be more healthful, or more destructive, or will it be the seeming safety of non-involvement?

To help the people I work with discover what their healthiest approach will be concerning religion I start by asking about love.  That’s because how much healthy, real love is, or is not mixed with religion has a lot to do with the mental-health effect the religion has in its participants’ lives.   Starting with simple questions often leads to deep thinking and discussions.  “How’s the love?”  “Where’s the love?”  “Are the people there mostly about love or mostly about something else?”  “How much of what they teach is about love?”  “Is love evident in the practice and actions of the people who practice that religion?”  “Is love central to what’s going on with that religion?”

These and other such questions are typical and important explorations.  Soon we’re talking about how much healthy, real love (see the entries Love’s Definition series) is in evidence at the church, mosque, synagogue, temple, sacred studies class, prayer group, etc. they are contemplating being a part of?

From this mental-health professional’s perspective when considering a religious issue the prime focus is helping clients examine the mental and relational health influence of their religious involvement.  The quickest and best way to start on that is to explore the love issue.  How much is healthy, real love actively being taught and demonstrated by the practitioners of the religion, or religions, being considered?  Likewise, how much anti-healthy, real love teachings and actions are evident in the religious involvement being considered?

Next, it is usually important to look at the following question: In the teachings of the religion being considered is there a high priority placed on compassionate, caring, empathetic, healthy, real love?  Sometimes there is only ‘lip service’ given to compassion and caring love but little or no action.  Here’s another important question.  Where is the love manifest – toward all people or only a select few?  To the clients I’m talking to I also may ask, “How much love do you personally experience coming from the people and the leadership of the religion you’re exploring or getting involved in?”  “Are you dealing with truly love-centered people, or are they practicing more of a ‘fire insurance’ religion where the main interest is just keeping their members out of Hell?”

Also we look into, “Are you getting involved in a religious group where the main thrust is doing healthful love, or is their main dynamic sort of like a game of ‘we are OK, and everyone else is not OK’?”  Could you be in a religion, or subgroup of a religion, which is just a mutual support group for arrogance and safe, social conformity?  Often essential is an answer to this question: As you understand it and discover it, do the religious teachings, scriptures, educational efforts and practices of the religion’s leaders truly exemplify healthy, real love?

Some religious leaders are good at ‘fake love’ so this is sometimes hard to discern.  Is the religion and are the people of the religion love-centered or more centered in status, money, fear, guilt, control or what?  Yes, the first issue to look at, as I see it, has to do with ‘how goes the love’ in the religion and its practitioners.  If the people practicing a religion are not sufficiently about love I have grave doubts about how mentally healthy your experience with them and their ways might be.

It is unfortunate that, as practiced, some religionists are centered on doing non-love and anti-love things.  There are those in religion who just are going through the motions and they are pretty much indifferent, lifeless and loveless.  Others are ‘exclusivity groups’ primarily protecting each other from the new and the different.  A surprising number are primarily about money, and others are about status.  Then there are the groups that are principally about hate.  From a mental-health point of view they are the worst.  Too many others are more about dictatorially telling people what not to do, rather than lovingly suggesting what to do.

Those that are truly love-centered and love-active usually can be found doing great love-centered and love-infused good works helping others.  Their teachings more often tend to coincide with good mental-health concepts and they are actively assisting people toward compassionate, caring, constructive, loving ways of living.  Find and become involved with those groups and you are likely to be much more benefited than harmed.

Now, with those thoughts in mind there is a tricky thing to watch out for.  Some religious groups do ‘fake love’.  This especially is a problem with cults and cult-like groups who practice ‘love bombing’ their candidates for conversion.  This means a person new to the religious cult will be hugged, praised, complimented and well treated so as to get that person addicted to the cult.  Once they are a convert they will be asked for lots of their time, money, effort, etc. and to make sacrifices for the good of the cult.

They also will be pushed toward isolation from ‘unbelievers’ including friends and family, and encouraged to suspend their self-determination and self-directed living.  The convert is, in essence, programmed to not function as a mentally healthy adult but rather as an obedient, unquestioning child.  Reason, skepticism and what we usually think of mature, adult thinking have to be surrendered to the dogmatic tenants and interpretations of the leadership.  Acceptance of the dogma and the leader’s mandates will become primary and real love tertiary at best.

All this and much more were part of Molly and Preston’s discussions concerning religion.  Then Preston asked Molly if she would do him a big love-favor by going to some different religious services, reading different religious material, experimentally engage in some different religious rituals, and be around some different religious groups.  He explained he would like these things to be done so as to jointly get some real experience with religion beyond discussion.  Molly gave this a fair amount of thought and then said she would, if he would endure (out of love for her), any and all doubt, criticism, skepticism and irreverence she might manifest.  She did, however, promise to be publicly polite and respectful.

Preston agreed.  Before they went exploring, however, they made a list of what they thought would be the criteria of a mentally healthy religion which is centered in healthy, real love.  They drew up a list of their own questions and actually were having fun doing this together.  Previously they had been very stuck and only able to destructively argue with one another concerning religion.  Molly said she was going about this exploration like a scientist and pronounced her hypothesis which was that they would never find a religion that would be sufficiently mentally healthy and sufficiently love-centered.  However, she promised to be open minded and to really look at the evidence.

Preston then made his hypothesis which was that they would find at least one, and probably several, religious groups that were mentally healthy and love-centered, and that their involvement in one or more of them would do them a world of good.  Then as a fully loving, good-natured couple they went out to explore and see what they could jointly discover.
Hopefully you and your loved ones can do as well if needed.

Grow and Go with Love, as always!

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Might it be healthful for you to analyze what role religion has played in your own mental health and in your ability to love and be loved?

Related posts:

1. Multiple Sex Partners and Love
2. Do You Want To Say ‘Love’ When You Mean ‘Sex’?
3. Virginity Surpassed and Parental Love
4. Ready or Not for Love?
5. Marriage By Love or by Law

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Previous Comments:

Farmer vs. Mechanic Love Fixing

Synopsis: The clashing and conflict of Farmer Frank versus Michelle the Mechanic, the yea’s and nay’s of our two contradictory approaches, what Michelle did not want to hear and was glad to learn, timeouts, help from the deep inner mind, making choices versus growing solutions, some practical guidelines, and the beautiful interweave of what Frank and Michelle do now.

“Dammit!  Stay here and talk it out with me!  Don’t you dare walk away!  We need to work this out right now, Frank, no matter how long it takes, how upset we get or how tired we get!”  These demands were blasted out by Michelle in loud, angry tones accompanied with ugly looks and defiant gestures.

Frank much more firmly announced “No, I don’t believe that’s true.  We need to take a break, give each other time to calm down and think things through, figure out what we really feel and then work on this problem one little part at a time”.  Who’s right?  Whose approach is better?  Which way of trying to fix a love relationship problem gets the best results, Michelle’s or Frank’s?  And while we’re examining this, think about which of these two ways is more like your usual approach to a love relationship difficulty?

In one way of looking at it there are just two main approaches to fixing love related difficulties.  One is the ‘mechanic’s’ approach and the other is the ‘farmer’s’ approach.  Michelle is using the mechanic’s and Frank the farmer’s.  The mechanic just gets in there and works on the problem until it is fixed, provided he or she has the know-how, the parts and the tools to fix the problem.  The farmer has to work on the problem then back off and let nature do its thing for awhile, then do some more, and then back off again letting Mother Nature do more of her share until the problem is fixed and the goal achieved.  If the farmer digs up the freshly planted seeds to see if there is anything more to be done with them, or to make sure they have started to grow, it’s likely that will destroy the developing roots and stop the growth process.  If the farmer hastens the harvest too soon the crops will be ruined.

The farmer must work with natural processes which require doing some start up actions, backing off, doing some additional tending actions, backing off again and finally harvesting the results.  This is the usual way of working with those things that live and grow or are in need of healing, like crops or people.  The mechanic can take apart and put back together whatever he or she is working on endless times, but for the farmer that could be a very destructive way of going about things.  Some of the farmer’s approach is very mechanic-like and some of it requires leaving nature alone to ‘do its thing’ and being patient.

Here is what Michelle with her mechanic’s approach didn’t want to hear.  Whenever you’re working with things that live the farmer’s approach (with a possible exception) works best.  In fact, it may be the only way many of the difficulties living things experience can be handled successfully.  With inanimate objects the mechanic’s approach works fine.  Perhaps you’re thinking, “What about emergency medicine and surgery; don’t they work by way of the mechanic’s approach”?  No, because after surgery or emergency room procedures the patient is sent to the recovery room where nature’s healing ways take over to do the rest of the job, just like happens on the farm.  The one partial exception is where there is a true emergency and you have to do all you can, as fast as you can.  Even then quite often afterwards there has to be recovery done in the farmer’s or nature’s way.

With the love problems of couples, families, friendships and with self love we usually have to work on the difficulty in the farmer’s fashion.  We have to work on it consciously, and then back off and let our subconscious and other natural health and healing processes work on things without external interruption or too much of our conscious mind’s interference.  Then we can come back and do some more direct, conscious work, and if needed back off again.  That’s why once a week counseling and therapy sessions are the usual frequency standard, whereas ‘intensives’ (extended, uninterrupted therapeutic work lasting many hours, a weekend or a whole week) to work on a relationship or psychological problems are the occasionally useful exception.

Couples and families need to be able to take time out and let everyone’s inner systems process what the conscious mind has taken in.  When facing difficult issues, after a certain amount of direct external work, we need restorative breaks, distraction and relief time, and time to allow our marvelous, deeper mind’s amazing sorting and creative inner systems do their work on our problems.  We need to have time for all our various inner parts or ‘sub-personalities’ to meet with each other and synthesize our often conflicting and uncoordinated thoughts and feelings.  Usually we must do all that internal work to get our best results before we next consciously deal with problems externally.

Another set of problems can arise in our ‘living’ system when we are pressured to use the mechanic’s approach too much or too long.  When we are pressured or rushed, especially at length, our brain begins to make too many stress hormones.  When stress hormones begin to flood our brain and body we tend to grow agitated, irritated, less able to think clearly, we grow angry and more prone to any quick, destructive action which will bring an end to the increasing production of stress hormones. 

Some people are more easily ‘flooded’ than others (which seems to result from how well they were securely loved as children) but everyone can reach their limit.  In addition to that, when we are rushed and pressured into using a mechanic’s approach we are faced with ‘making choices’ instead of ‘growing solutions’.  In love relationships interactively, mutually growing solutions tends to work far better than being forced into quick choice fixes.  This is true in many parts of life but it is especially true in issues of the heart and love relationships.

There are a few practical Guidelines for using the farmer’s approach.  First, agree to use and cooperate with anyone asking for a timeout.  Whenever a timeout is called for schedule how long it’s going to be and when the participants are going to meet next to work on whatever issues are being faced.  Timeouts can be extended if needed but always with a determined time to get back together agreed upon.  Otherwise, dodging the problem for too long or never getting back to it may occur. 

Another guideline is don’t let problem talk invade love or recreation time, and don’t do it late at night or when you’re also trying to handle other stressors.  Pick a start time and an end time to conduct problem talk and stick to that.  With lots of difficulties it’s good for people to ‘sleep on it’ for a night which allows our deep, inner subconscious mind time to ‘do its thing’ which sometimes is quite miraculous.

With some reluctance Michelle conceded the problem she wanted addressed wasn’t a true emergency and so she backed off her mechanic’s approach.  She learned to use Frank’s farmer’s approach more often, then he learned that he could use Michelle’s mechanic’s approach for some of the things they were contending with.  Once in awhile there was a true emergency in their lives and, much more cooperatively, they both went at it like good mechanics can.  They also learned to identify whether a problem they were facing needed a mechanic’s or farmer’s approach and in teamwork they learned to apply that knowledge which eliminated a tremendous amount of conflict they had previously experienced.  Perhaps you can do the same.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Are you more prone to the farmer’s or the mechanic’s approach when you are dealing with love relationship difficulties?

Related posts:

1. Anger and Love
2. Difficult Topics: A Love-Centered Way to Approach and Broach Them All
3. Can Love the Second Time Around Be Better Than the First?
4. Trust and Mistrust in Love
5. Conflict, Power and Love Success 

False Forms of Love: The Devastating IFD Syndrome

Strong, tall, handsome Trent came into my office with tears streaming down his rugged cheeks.  In a groaning, deep tone voice he almost whispered, “I have lost my reason to live.  I lost her – my one, true love.  She was so perfect and I drove her off.  I tried and tried and I can’t get her back.  How am I going to go on?

She won’t have anything more to do with me.  My life is ruined.  It hurts so bad”.  Then he spilled out the story of their relationship.
It was a familiar tale.  Like so many before him Trent had become a victim of one of the big, romantic love killers, the sometimes even fatal IFD Syndrome.

Trent had met and come quickly to think of Tricia as ‘perfect’ in every way.  Things went quite well for them until one day she cut short her long, flowing, gorgeous, locks which had been just right as Trent had seen her lovely hair.  Ever so carefully Trent told Tricia how her hair had looked ideal long and flowing.  He gently insisted she grow it back and never cut it again, plus he sort of pontificated that this was how females should look.  Soon after Tricia started wearing rather short skirts with low necklines.

With some frustration Trent told Tricia it was no longer appropriate for her to wear her clothes like that since they were now in a committed relationship with one another and that type of look was just for attracting men.  Soon thereafter Tricia’s skirts became even shorter and her necklines lower, plus she became rather flirtatious with other men at various gatherings.  As Trent saw it her femininity also was marred by her increasingly risqué talk.  Trent decided he must correct her ways and get her back to acting like she did when he met her.  He tried reason, guilt trips, cajoling, anger and everything else he could think of to get her to conform to the ideal girl he had perceived her to be at the beginning of their relationship.  The more he tried and failed the more frustrated he got.  Then Trent and Tricia began to fight about all sorts of stupid, little things.

That went on for quite a while and kept getting worse.  The end came one day when Trent, in a state of extreme frustration, risked saying “You’re just not the girl I fell in love with and if you don’t go back to being her we are done!”.  Trisha replied, “I am the same girl I always was and if you really loved the real me you would love me as I experiment with new, innocent stuff, go through ordinary changes and find little ways to be more me.  I haven’t done anything I’m ashamed of and you don’t have a right to censor me.  The core, real me is the same.  I don’t think you ever saw the core me and I don’t think you love the real me either.  You’re just in love with your image of me, so, yes, we are done”.  And done they were, leaving Trent defeated, demoralized, dejected and nearly suicidally depressed, trapped in the devastating “D” phase of a strong IFD false love syndrome.

Way back in 1946 a rather then famous linguistic psychologist, Dr. Wendell Johnson, published a book describing the IFD Syndrome and telling of how it negatively effects almost everyone sooner or later.  He called it a “disease” that is particularly common and devastating among university students, sending many into breakdowns and mental hospitals.  Unfortunately mental-health professionals mostly do not read linguistic psychology publications and so this phenomenon went largely unnoticed in the therapeutic community, although it was fairly well received in social psychology and for a time by the lay public.

An experimental psychologist introduced the IFD Syndrome to me when I was in my residency at a psychiatric hospital and we did an in-house study concerning IFD and suicide.  Our results showed that a significant 28% of our most seriously suicide attempting, young, adult patients made their serious suicide attempts in the “D” phase of an IFD Syndrome.  It appeared Dr. Johnson was right about the commonness and severity of this form of false love.  This pattern also showed up in other age ranges to a significant but somewhat lesser degree.

The IFD false love syndrome is thought to work like this.  First, in your childhood and youth you subconsciously begin to get ideas of what your ideal love mate will be like.  This grows into an idealized image of what ‘Mr’ or ‘Ms’ ‘Just Right For You’ will look, sound, act and be like.  Then one day you meet someone who seems to be rather like that idealized, just right, one and only love mate for you.  Your subconscious then projects your idealized image onto that person, blinding you from seeing who’s really there.  Just as you do not see the screen at the movies you only see what’s projected onto it, so too you only see your idealized, projected image and not the real person who is there.  The letter “I” in the IFD syndrome stands for “idealized image” or just “idealization”.

In time you begin to get glimpses of who is really there and you don’t like it because it’s different than your ideal image.  This can be said always to occur because people are dynamic, changing, growing, altering, maturing, etc. and because people are more complex than idealized images.  So even if a person stays pretty much the same for a time the person doing the projecting will start to see more than was seen at first and that will be unexpected, disconcerting and frustrating.  Of course for a time the person you project your idealized image onto may artificially act in accord with what you desire as a way to relate to you.

Eventually new and differing aspects of the ‘real person’ will emerge into your awareness and that will be more troubling to you.  Another way to think about this is that since no two things can be exactly alike your idealized image and a real person cannot be the same, and with time that will be discovered and become disturbing.

What comes next is growing frustration.  As you try to get your lover back up on your ‘idealization pedestal’ and try to get them to ‘act right’ they keep stepping down off your pedestal and being themselves.  After all, pedestals are very narrow, dull places on which to live even if, at first, they seem flattering and safe.  People who live on a pedestal come to feel unloved because in truth they are not loved but only idealized.  Healthy, real love accepts change, supports growth and understands the need for maturation and variety.

For a time in the “F” phase things progress in a troubled way.  As you observe more discrepancies between your static, idealized image and the dynamic reality of the person you are with, often you compulsively and sometimes even desperately attempt to get your lover to regress to what you first saw them to be.  Frequently that person resists overtly or covertly, and you become ever more frustrated, often angry and perhaps even violent.  [It is important to note that the one you think you love must exist as their real self to be healthy, because if they are forced or submit to other than who they really are they often may deteriorate into depression or some other illness.]  But, as you see it, any change is “for the worse” not change for the better.

Usually the relationship becomes increasingly conflicted, difficult and full of more frustration, along with fewer and fewer demonstrations of love.  Unloved people subconsciously, if not consciously, go looking for love and this can lead to cheating and all the frustrations that go with that.  Escape into some form of destructive, self abuse or addiction also may occur to either person if the “F” phase of an IFD Syndrome is prolonged.  The “F” in the IFD stands for “Frustration” and the fight for and against getting the idealized lover to return to the projected ideal.

After living in the “F” stage of an IFD Syndrome finally, by one means or another, the relationship fails completely.  Then the person who did the idealizing (Trent, in the example above) enters the “D” phase of the syndrome.  This happens when the idealizer realizes they’re not going to get their ideal lover, that person is lost, unattainable, and the ideal they had fixated on is likely never to be realized.  If that happens to you in a love relationship you enter a phase of feeling devastated, demoralized, dejected, defeated and all too often temporarily, clinically depressed, even sometimes to the point of being suicidal for a time.  The “D” in the IFD Syndrome stands for those “D” words in the sentence above: demoralized, depressed, etc..  The clinical depression can happen because love situations effect the neurochemical processes of your brain, sometimes quite positively and sometimes quite negatively.

By the way, know that IFD dynamics can occur with lots of different human endeavors.  Some people idealize their parents, or their children, or their spiritual leader, or religion, or political philosophy, or their country, etc..  The results of strong idealization are inevitably the same.  After idealizing someone or something the one doing the idealizing becomes frustrated when he or she sees that which they idealized is falling short or differing from the ideal.  Then the idealizer becomes demoralized when he or she realizes ideals exist only in the mind and not in reality, and the ideal, therefore, is unobtainable and impossible.  However, love and romance-related idealizations often are the worst type to experience when they enter the “D” phase.

Trent, who was quite bright, was helped enormously by learning of the IFD dynamics and how they worked.  He also was helped quite a lot by spending time in a therapy group where others told him of having gone through the IFD Syndrome and come out just fine, often in a surprisingly shorter time than predicted by their mental health professional.  Some mild, mood stabilizing medications which blocked Trent from sinking too low in his depression also had short-term usefulness.  A word of caution here.  Those who have suffered from IFD Syndromes sometimes are thought to have been confused with much more long-lasting mental illness conditions and, thereby, may have been over-medicated and otherwise improperly treated.

For those who get seriously depressed in an IFD pattern just staying alive for 6 to 12 weeks seems to get them over a hump.  That’s because by then for most people the brain adjusts and produces healthier brain chemistry that helps the sufferer to better process the whole relationship dynamic they have been through.  Most unfortunately a number of people in the “D” phase of an IFD pattern are thought to have successfully committed suicide before that amount of time has passed and they could feel better and see clearer.

So, if you think someone is in a serious “D” phase of an IFD Syndrome try to get them to a good therapist who can help them through this sometimes dangerous phase and on to healthier love relating.  It also is important to know that some people get stuck in repeating the IFD Syndrome with a whole string of lovers.  Others get married in the “I” or “F” phase and then divorce in the “D” phase.  Some do this over and over.

The good news is most people who go through an IFD Syndrome come out of it and go looking for new and better understandings of how healthy, real love works.  They have a good chance of developing the real thing.  Again, a good love-knowledgeable counselor or therapist can help make that outcome happen a lot more likely, more quickly and much more completely.

Trent recovered fully and went on to a healthy, real love that worked well.  Later he got to know Trisha again in a much different situation.  His final comment about her in a counseling session was, “Trisha is OK but frankly I don’t know what I saw in her that I was so passionate about.  She seems nice but she’s not someone I’d want to spend a lot of time with”.  His closure statement is representative of most of the final IFD Syndrome outcomes.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Do you have an ideal love mate in your mind, against which you unrealistically compare all real people?  If so what are you going to do about that?

False Forms of Love Series

False Forms of Love: Limerence and Its Alluring Lies
False Forms of Love: Meta Lust
False Forms of Love: Shadow Side Attachments
False Forms of Love: The Devastating IFD Syndrome
False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome