Love Is a Hell of a Job!
Some Considerations about Love and its Importance to Psychotherapy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65828/fwxf1373Abstract
Love seems to be fundamental to human existence and, I would dare to say, to human happiness. Paradoxically, love seems to carry with it a great many uncertainties and be a source of anxieties. Love seems omnipresent in our daily life: it features in books, songs and theatre, and also in our ordinary daily conversations and in our weekly conversations with our clients. Paradoxically, little thought is devoted to this subject by existential psychotherapists. Since it is evidently a crucial subject of existence, I believe it is also a crucial subject for psychotherapy. My aim in this paper is to think love as a lived experience, putting emphasis on its paradoxical nature: As both a source of happiness and existential meaning and uncertainties and anxiety. The thoughts of Søren Kierkegaard and Emmanuel Levinas are used to help us to explore this subject.
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