Love: Bondage Or Liberation?: A Psychological Exploration of the Meaning, Values and Dangers of Falling in Love

209 Pages·2010·0.59 MB·English

by  Deirdre Johnson

CHAPTERTITLE I
LOVE: BONDAGE
OR LIBERATION?
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LOVE: BONDAGE
OR LIBERATION?
A Psychological Exploration of
the Meaning, Values, and
Dangers of Falling in Love
Deirdre Johnson
On behalf of the United Kingdom Council
for Psychotherapy
First published in 2010 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2010 to Deirdre Johnson
The right of Deirdre Johnson to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978 1 85575 510 9
Edited, designed and produced by The Studio Publishing Services Ltd
www.publishingservicesuk.co.uk
e-mail: [email protected]
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ix
PREFACE xi
INTRODUCTION xiii
PART I: AQUEST FOR MEANING: 1
THE DIFFERENT NARRATIVES TO DESCRIBE
THE PHENOMENON OF FALLING IN LOVE
(A) What we have been: the first love affair
CHAPTER ONE
The psychoanalytic discourse: emphasizing the 3
intrapersonal
CHAPTER TWO
The relational psychologies discourse: including 25
the interpersonal
v
vi CONTENTS
PART I
(B) What we are: embodied beings 55
CHAPTER THREE
The scientific discourse 57
PART I
(C) What we may be: individuation 79
CHAPTER FOUR
The teleological discourse 81
CHAPTER FIVE
The religious discourse 121
PART II: LOVE’S ALCHEMY: 147
PUTTINGITALLTOGETHER
CHAPTER SIX
Various dualisms and their synthesis 149
CHAPTER SEVEN
Holistic love: what difference does all of this make? 165
REFERENCES 181
INDEX 189
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ideas for this book came out of a series of seminars and
workshops that I gave to qualified counsellors and psychothera-
pists for continuing professional development. I would like to
thank Jennifer Ransom and Hilary Parry for initiating the first
of these and for their enthusiasm and encouragement. I am also
grateful to Laura Henman and Moira Houston, who first suggested
that I might write about these ideas, and to the UKCP–Karnac
editorial team, whose initiative allowed this suggestion to become
a practical reality. My sister, Debbie Johnson, herself a professional
in the field, has given invaluable support in reading the entire
manuscript and offering many helpful suggestions. Gerry Hughes,
SJ, has been of great assistance in helping with the planning of the
work as a whole and in helping me hone my thoughts in relation to
some of the ideas. I am grateful to Muriel Maufroy, who first intro-
duced to me the little Sufi story within these pages. Above all, I
would like to thank my husband, Laurence Hillel, who has so gen-
erously encouraged me in my endeavours and whose continued
patient support and painstaking help with the references has been
invaluable.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Permissions
I would like to thank the following publishers for permission to
reprint the material as cited below:
Pan Macmillan, London for the poem “Text”, from Rapture.
Copyright © to Carol Ann Duffy, 2005
The extract from “Looking for your face”, from The Love Poems of
Rumi, edited by Deepak Chopra, published by Rider. Reprinted by
permission of The Random House Group Ltd.
Coleman Barks at Maypop Books, for the extract from Chapter 27,
The Essential Rumi. Translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne.
Copyright © to Coleman Barks, 1995.
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. for the quatrain from Rumi, Whispers
of the Beloved, selected and translated by Maryam Mafi and Azima
Melita Kolin. Copyright © to Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita
Kolin, 1999.
Shambala Publications Inc. for the extracts from Open Secret: Versions
of Rumi, by John Moyne and Coleman Barks. Copyright © to John
Moyne and Coleman Barks, 1984.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deirdre Johnson is a Training Analyst with the Association of
Jungian Analysts and a member of the International Association for
Analytical Psychology. She has taught counsellors and psycho-
therapists for a variety of UKCP and BACP training organizations
and has led workshops for Continuing Professional Development
in many different environments. She has had her own practice
for over 25 years. Further work has been within the NHS and in
specialist experience with ethnic minorities. She lives in London
with her family.
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