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Re: Approximate relationships » Tamar

Posted by alexandra_k on May 25, 2005, at 23:32:22

In reply to Re: Approximate relationships, posted by Tamar on May 25, 2005, at 16:21:44

> I wonder if all this is necessarily true. Is it true that to love freely means to want something back?

I think so. At the very least it needs the love to be reciprocated. Otherwise it would die. Therapy wouldn't work out very well if our therapists needed us to love them as we need them to love us. It would be reciprocal - but it wouldn't be therapy.

To love you want to spend time with the person. Tell them stuff. Whats on your mind. Whats worrying you. But t's aren't supposed to do that. The love they show is limited...

> I loved Renee’s Story, at the end of the chapter. And I think it’s significant that Lott says Renee ‘could safely allow herself the vulnerability of loving him and feeling loved.’

I worry about that sense of 'feeling loved'. One feels loved because of the nature of the therapy relationship. They are supposed to focus on you for that time. Emotionally hold you etc. But RL isn't like that... It is more reciprocal. I worry that therapy teaches us the wrong messages about the nature of love and caring and about the nature of human relationships.

I worry that it fosters desires along the lines of the golden fantasy. That once those desires are fostered all you have done is made that person dependent on therapy relationships to get those desires met.

I'm not sure whether it is good for RL relationships... I'm not sure...

> Is feeling loved also an approximation? I guess it must be... so why doesn’t it *feel* like an approximation?

Whether it is an approximation of love or not kind of depends on how one defines love - I would say.

Can you buy love?
Can you buy the 'love' of a therapist?

I would say 'no' to the first and 'yes' to the second. IMO therapy would therefore be an approximation of love.

Not that the feelings are any the less real...
But just that RL love isn't one sided.
It isn't in measured weekly doses.
It isn't dependent on the payment of a fee.

 

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