Planets in Retrograde -- The Basics
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Rebecca Brents

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Don't Be Nice, Be Real: Balancing Passion for Self With Compassion for Others
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Kelly Bryson

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	Libra Astrology Self Improvement for Libra Why Do People Fall in Love? by
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

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Why Do People Fall in Love?

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"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains, My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains..."

So Keats described the love state. He'd be very right if scientists turn out right. At the New York State Psychiatric Institute of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, they are inferring a connection between paranormal amounts of phenylethylamine in the brain and being in a love state. Phenylethylamine is a chemical that induces the same effect as amphetamine. This may account for the in-the-clouds feeling of most lovers.

Chemical basis for love?

Further, according to psychiatrists in the Institute, many patients suffering from depression turn out to have love problems. Chances are, they believe, these people may have developed an unstable control mechanism of sorts which causes their brains to erratically fluctuate in triggering the supply of some amphetamine-like substance, perhaps phenylethylamine. The psychologists add, the patients admit to eating chocolates when love-depressed. Chocolates, coincidentally, are phenylethylamine-rich.

Perhaps, if we could induce those we love to eat plenty of chocolates, then we would look more appealing in their eyes. Only, the sad consequence is, they may fall -- being more susceptible to love -- not for us...but for somebody else?

Nevertheless, suitors continue to give their prospects Hershey's. In Japan, it's tradition for girls to give their crushes chocolates. Could they have known all along?

Stanley Englebart, who once presented the institute's findings in a Reader's Digest exclusive, hypothesizes that the lethargic, inconsolable, even weepy status of rejected lovers could have a chemical basis. After all, it resembles a person who is into amphetamine withdrawal symptoms. So it's not surprising, being in a similar state, for depressed lovers to contemplate of suicide and all those romantic thoughts of the tragic.

Says romantic poet Robert Herrick:

"Love brought me to a silent Grove, And shew'd me there a Tree, Where some had hanged themselves for love. And gave a Twist to me."

Simplifying Love

As to how or why we fall in love, researchers have been "simplifying" the process. For one, John Money, teacher of medical psychology at Johns Hopkins who has written many books on love, terms it imprinting. He argues that falling in love is hardly a random process. To him, nobody can be too young to love.

Falling in love necessitates being biologically as well as psychologically primed for it. We fall for somebody because we have in each of us a "blueprint," albeit unconscious of the right person. This blueprint developed through the years. It reflects our family background, race, religion, schooling, etc. Thus, we naturally or otherwise imprint in ourselves the person or persons we will someday love.

Love Processes--Imprinting, Idealization And Sublimation

There are girls who dream of their Prince Charming saving them from fires, carrying them through floods and even out of haunted houses. Sometimes, the dream is so vivid he even has a complete name! They have never met him in person, but many-a-night, they dream of the same man, the same face. Unfortunately, however, we seldom meet the ideal person.

This is what usually happens in courtship. If Prince Charming never comes, there is always that someone whom you may not like at first, but you learn to love -- in the long run, anyway. When we look at this situation objectively, what this ardent suitor is actually doing is yet another version of imprinting.

You might have a "blueprint" that's diametrically opposed to what he is. But after years of trying to erase that "blueprint," and trying to sell his "blueprint" to you, you begin to love him. In a sense, the girl's original "blueprint" has been effectively blurred, if not erased. And so there are two types of love: love at first sight, and the love that develops over time.

The psychoanalytic interpretation of love would come to terms with two processes. The first one is what psychoanalysts (i.e., devotees of Sigmund Freud) refer to as idealization, where the lover, first hit, so to speak, has an idealistic outlook of the person loved. At this stage, psychoanalysts argue that the person is mainly in love with himself.

He apparently thinks of no one else but his girl and cares naught about himself. But you know what the truth is? He's really too taken by the idealistic image of the love object to really care. All he cares about is the pleasure in seeing his loved one as he wants to. As a consequence, when reality impinges on the image, invalidating it, it could mean disaster. The lover lunges into deep depression. He isolates himself, mopes around the house.

Idealization is viewed by experts as self-love. But this is a necessary stage in the loving process. As one cliche has it, one must love oneself first before anyone else. This is probably because, if we haven't loved ourselves first, then it would be hard to realize that another human being could actually love us.

Easily confused with the first, the next process is called sublimation. Here, the unconscious desire to please oneself is replaced by the desire to satisfy the needs of the other person. This, psychoanalysts say, is when romantic love is replaced by a more stable love. As Allan Fromme wrote, "By the process of sublimation, the self love of childhood develops into the outgoing love of maturity."

Romantic Love

To Fromme, this kind of love is incompatible with marriage. But even this is necessary in the human process of love's evolution. Love actually begins in our lives as plain love of our bodies.

As babies, we cared only about our own needs and cried when our needs were not met! As months went on, we discovered our own bodies -- first, the hands, then the feet, then everything. At this stage it is virtually impossible to understand other people's bodies, only our own.

Finally, in adolescence we became less self-centered and took an interest in the other sex. Then, we fell romantically in love one day. This love was very much compatible with our age. Being young and restless, we behaved as if time were running out, and how we felt it did!

So like many Romeos and Juliets, we were in a state of frenzy to fulfill what Einstein once said about the Relativity of Time -- it was always too short for amorous people. The poet Robert Herrick would immortalize this stage we're all familiar with:

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying."

For romantic love, indeed, is short-lived. According to Dorothy Tennov, author of Love and Limerence, it has an average life span of three years. Yet in spite of its mortality, it happens to be the most familiar kind of love to us.

The whole world seems deceived by the two lovers' eyes fixated on each other. The flame is the real love for humans who tend to remember mostly the bitter and the sweet. Ironically, however, nobody wants to stay in that condition forever, especially if one asked the men. The Hite Report on Male Sexuality (1987) reveals that men have also had those moments in love when they were ecstatic, which to Shere Hite, is commonly associated with women.

But the obvious difference was that the men did now want to be in that state of suspense forever because they hated feeling vulnerable, as evidenced by the fact that most of the men polled confessed to not marrying the woman they were most "in love" with. Writes one respondent: "I've been in a relationship where I loved her more, and I was in her control. It was awful. Never again."

Then there are men who keep falling in love but without remaining that way. When the fire has died and the relationship has stabilized their first resort is flight (some women, too, for that matter). This is understandable. We earthlings tend to seek out things that are new for fear that we might lose interest all too easily. But this might spell a miss on the experience of the greatest love of all (if I may borrow a phrase from Whitney Houston)--the love that more often goes with marriage.

Mature Love

As previously discussed, there are men who would rather marry the woman they are more at ease with, leaving behind the other, with whom they felt they were always in for a roller-coaster ride.

The two loves, however, could be found in the same person. In fact, these loves are actually one: the first one is the first stage; the other one, second stage, as the famous sexologist Joyce Brothers would put it. And she adds -- love has a way of dying, to be resurrected into something deeper if we're only willing to wait.

Researchers are only currently probing into the how and why of that old black magic. But, just as many facets of our lives have already been subjected to scientific inquiry, we would have to look forward to the time when love turns out to be an open book.

Would love, then lose its charm and magic? Wait till you fall in love again...

Are you looking for more information on Relationships, Cooperation, Teamwork, Diplomacy, Negotiation, and Cultural Issues?

Libra is the astrology sign that deals specifically with Relationships, Cooperation, Teamwork, Diplomacy, Negotiation, and Cultural Issues. Learn more about Libra.
The information here tells all about Libra Astrology.

Libra Horoscope

The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity. Godlike he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas the things one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis completely expressible in words.
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~
Born June 22, 1906

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Last updated January 31st, 2004

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Guided Imagery for Self-Healing: An Essential Resource for Anyone Seeking Wellness
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Martin L., Rossman, MD