Is there any psychological ailment for which love is not an effective intervention? I am beginning to believe, as the hippies purported, that love is the answer.
Love is defined in many ways: respecting the other person's humanity, and genuinely caring for his betterment; respecting a person's right to be whom he wants; accepting the person, even if you don't like his behavior. Love is not just giving the person what he wants. It does not mean giving up your boundaries or rights in a relationship. Love is, at its best, putting your ego aside and doing what is best for the other. Experience teaches us that love is a very effective intervention.
PT blogger Stanton Peele builds a strong case that most addicts quit without help. However, therapy can be effective, just not the confrontational type often employed in addiction treatment. Instead, the most effective psychotherapeutic treatment is motivational enhancement therapy. Although this doesn't directly indicate love as a solution, it suggests an approach respectful of the individual and her process.
Therapy with couples often focuses on eliciting love and understanding as part of the solution. Couples researcher John Gottman identified "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" of marriage. The four horsemen include: Criticism (as opposed to complaints), contempt (the accumulation of long-held negative thoughts), defensiveness, and stonewalling (ignoring the partner either as a conscious defense and passive attack, or as an unconscious defense from feeling overwhelmed by the perceived attack). It is easy to see how love and understanding is a viable beginning to resolving these issues.
Take the depressive patient, the one who believes he hasn't been happy for a day in his life. Yet he reports consistent happiness at the end of therapy. What works is unconditional positive regard as well as really listening.
Love alone may not be enough, but it is an excellent start. The book Zen Therapy points out the benefit of love in the therapeutic relationship. The book advocates Rogerian therapy, and a basic component of this approach is unconditional positive regard. The book challenges the Western idea that the individual should be the solitary focus of therapy, and suggests that through being loving to others one will also be helped.
There are disorders where more love is not an effective strategy. PT blogger Scott Barry Kaufman Ph.D discusses recent research regarding narcissism, indicating that narcissists are well aware they are narcissistic, and that others lose interest in them after a period of time. The focus of therapy should therefore show how their behavior affects interpersonal relationships. This is one area where more love is contraindicated.
Despite these exceptions, love is the place to start when confronting the psychological ills that detract from a happy life. It's as simple as being loving. But simple solutions are often difficult to apply. While the ego protects us, it does get in the way of love. In our attempt to protect ourselves we do create problems. The ego is not entirely bad: No one wants to be unprotected and taken advantage of; we need a healthy ego to function. At the same time we need to keep it in check and prevent it from running rampant and blocking the positive effects of love.
It is a simple solution with difficult application: Awareness of the power of love and the need to keep the ego in check.
References:
Peele, Stanton. PT Blog Addiction in Society, Addiction Wars: Meaning And Purpose V. Disease
Brazier, David. Zen Therapy, 1995.
Gottman, John. Why Marriages Succeed Or Fail, 1994.
Kaufman, Scott Barry. PT Blog Beautiful Minds, Do Narcissists Know They Are Narcissists?
