Table of Contents

Preface to the Reprint Edition
Introduction
PART I: The Experience of Romantic Love
Chapter 1. Falling in Love
Chapter 2. Love Realized: The Idyllic Phase
Chapter 3. Love's Divided Nature: The Pleasure and Pain of Romantic Love
PART II: The Aims of Love
Chapter 4. How Love Develops: Love Dialogues and the Life Cycle
Chapter 5. The Creative Synthesis in Love
PART III: The Paradoxes and Struggles Inherent in Love
Chapter 6. Self-Surrender: Transcendence Versus Enslavement
Chapter 7. The Link Between Love and Power
Chapter 8. Disillusionment
Chapter 9. Triangles
PART IV: The Gender Difference in Love
Chapter 10. Transference Love and Romantic Love
Chapter 11. Modes of Self-Realization: Women and Romance, Men and Power
PART V: The Fate of Love
Chapter 12. Unhappy Love: Experience and Consequences
Chapter 13. Love That Enriches, Love That Endures
Final Thoughts: Romantic Love as an Agent of Change
Notes
References
Index

Promotional Information

In setting out to rescue love from its devaluation in an age of science and celebrate its transformative power, Person doesn't sidestep the destructive powers of love, but rather makes you sit up over and over again at love's sheer inventiveness, complexity, and variety. She brings a psychoanalyst's insight to bear on the roots of love in childhood feelings, bridging the gap between specialist and general reader, and further enriches her argument with well-chosen case studies, examples form popular culture and the luminous testimony of poets and lovers. You'll find yourself reexamining your own experiences and understanding more about love, not just as an occasional passionate interlude, but as a powerful and abiding fantasy that drives so much of our dreaming and waking lives. Molly Haskell, film critic and author of Love and Other Infectious Diseases: A Memoir and Holding My Own in No Man's Land: Women and Men in Film and Feminists

About the Author

Ethel S. Person, M.D., is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, in New York City.

Reviews

The author takes a very difficult topic, romantic love, and details a fascinating and useful examination of it. There are few other books that explore the topic so well, and love is often avoided by other authors or cast in a negative light. The author takes a positive look at the benefits and pitfalls inherent in romantic love and explores both equally. [Person's] clinical examples are appropriate and the literary/film references help to provide a setting or situation that everyone can appreciate. I particularly enjoyed the section on the paradoxes and struggles in love and I gained a new perspective on some of my patients' difficulties. I would recommend this title to anyone, clinician or lay person, interested in romantic love. Doody's Book Review Service

The author takes a very difficult topic, romantic love, and details a fascinating and useful examination of it. There are few other books that explore the topic so well, and love is often avoided by other authors or cast in a negative light. The author takes a positive look at the benefits and pitfalls inherent in romantic love and explores both equally. [Person's] clinical examples are appropriate and the literary/film references help to provide a setting or situation that everyone can appreciate. I particularly enjoyed the section on the paradoxes and struggles in love and I gained a new perspective on some of my patients' difficulties. I would recommend this title to anyone, clinician or lay person, interested in romantic love.