3-4pages personal growth paper

Love and Relationships

Love vs. Like

· Love is: A constellation of behaviors, cognitions, and emotions associated with desire to enter or maintain a close relationship with a specific other person

· Love is different from liking

· Rubin’s loving vs liking scale

· Romantic love is made up of

· Attachment

· Caring

· Intimacy

· http://psychcentral.com/lib/rubins-love-scale-and-rubins-liking-scale/

· Falling in friendship is very different from falling in love

· When we talk about it:

· Love narrative has greater emphasis on attraction

· Friendship narratives more focused on familiarity

Different Types of Love

· A lot of work has been about the different types of love

· Romantic love

· Compassionate love

· Passionate love

· Familial love

· Falling in Love Definition

· Onset of a strong desire for close, romantic relationship with a particular person

· Seems to be about the transition into passionate love, or from not being in love to being in love

Is Falling in Love a Good Thing?

· When reciprocated, leads to:

· Enhancement of self-concept

· Increased identity domain

· Greater sense of self-efficacy

· Greater self-esteem

· ALSO, effect on social network might be negative

· Can be a problem if you are already in a committed relationship

· When NOT reciprocated:

· Painful

· Can impact self-esteem, self-concept

Lee’s 3 Primary Color styles of Love

· Ludus (game-playing)

· Fun based

· Playing games

· Seeking attention

· Playful

· Storge

· Grows out of friendship

· Based in commitment

· Eros

· Passionate

· Physical

· Satisfying

Sexually driven

Secondary Styles of Love

· Like primary colors, primary love styles can be combined to form secondary colors or styles of love

· Pragma

· Pragmatic

· Sense of Service

· Frank and Clare Underwood

· Mania

· Possessive

· Need based

· Fatal Attraction

· Agape

· Self-sacrificing

· Altruistic

· Forest Gump

Vulnerability: The Key to Connection

Sternberg’s Triangle of Love

· Sternberg believed that there are 3 components of love:

Components of Triangle

· Commitment

· Intimacy

· Passion

Properties of Triangle

· According to Sternberg, the 3 love components differ with respect to a number of properties, including:

· Stability

· Conscious controllability

· Experiential salience

· For example, the elements of intimacy and decision/commitment are usually quite stable in close relationships (once they occur and become characteristic of a relationship, they tend to endure), whereas passion tends to be less stable and predictable

· Sex therapy

Types of Love Relationships

1. Non-love

2. Liking (intimacy alone)

3. Infatuation (passion alone)

4. Empty Love (decision/commitment alone)

5. Romantic love (intimacy and passion)

6. Companionate Love (intimacy and decision/commitment)

7. Fatuous Love (passion & decision/commitment)

8. Consummate Love (intimacy & passion & decision/commitment)

Relationships and MFTs

· According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT)

· A family's patterns of behavior influences the individual and therefore may need to be a part of the treatment plan. In marriage and family therapy, the unit of treatment isn't just the person - even if only a single person is interviewed - it is the set of relationships in which the person is imbedded

· Retrieved from: https://www.aamft.org/imis15/AAMFT/Content/About_AAMFT/Qualifications.aspx?hkey=2d5f6fac-24c6-40fd-b74f-5f3eaf214e55

· All behavior makes sense given the context (Relationships are part of the context)

· There is value in understanding a person and the way they exist within relationships

· What do your relationships say about you?

Knapp Relationship Development Model

· Proposes that relationship development is a 10 step process broken down into two phases

· Coming Together Phase

· Coming Apart Phase

Coming Together Phase

· Initiation

· First impressions

· Experimentation

· Individuals begin to share their story and learn about each other

· Exploring the relationship, experimenting with activities and questions to determine if they like each other

· Intensifying

· Continued exploration that increases the connection

· Conversations become deeper

· History gains more rich details

Passion is developed

Coming Together Phase Cont

· Integrating

· Partners begin integrating personal, individual parts into the couple parts

· Introducing friends and family

· Developing the “we”

· Couple identity is formed

· Bonding

· Marriage

· Commitment

· Couple is bonded together (successfully or unsuccessfully

The Coming Apart Phase

· Differentiating

· Differences between partners become more salient

· “Were you always this stubborn?”

· Conflict resolution and problem solving is negatively impacted; instead of working as a team to solve problems, focus becomes more individualistic

· Circumscribing

· Individualistic routines are increased

· Personal time, personal space increased

· She works on the backyard alone

· The garage is his space

· Stagnating

· Stuck in a rut

· Things that used to bring excitement now seem mundane and routine

· Avoiding

· Literal avoidance

· Mental, Emotional, Physical separation between the individuals

· Detachment, lack of attunement

· Needs are left unnoticed, unmet, uncared for

· Terminating

· A decision is made to end the connection

· Staying in the relationship no longer produces happiness, fulfillment

· Relationship outcomes and goals do not match

· The relationship is terminated

Why does this matter to you?

· If you want to become an MFT, obvi it matters

· Understanding the developmental process of relationships helps us to understand how we exist within them

· MFTs look for patterns - do you recognize patterns in your life?

· If so, what would you learn from those patterns about your life?

· Would you make any adjustments?

· We have talked about developing the self concept, now we are developing an understanding of ourselves within the context of our relationships

· Part of healthy development is learning to cultivate meaningful personal relationships; and learning to eliminate toxic relationships