From the Humanist Health News Network REHUNO Health we are launching a place of exchange where we find a new look on daily life based on an experiential and existential psychology (the Psychology of New Humanism), and which gives some concrete proposals for personal work to reach a full meaning of our existence and a life free of unnecessary suffering. It is not, therefore, a therapeutic psychology, nor does it deal with any pathology, but is aimed at anyone who wants to understand themselves and have the tools, if they so wish, to initiate a positive change in their lives. Psychological wellbeing is undoubtedly one of the foundations of integral health, which is why it is an aspect that needs to be addressed.
We invite you to put these proposals into practice and also to contact us and tell us about your experience. Write to us!
By Jordi Jiménez
To begin with, we could say that there are different types of love depending on the type of person loved. Love between a couple is not the same as love between siblings, love between friends, or love for a close relative or someone very old. Nor is love with children, for example, the same kind of love.
In any case, in either case, we could venture a first idea about this phenomenon of consciousness: true love puts the other and his or her wellbeing above my interests, while at the same time it does not lose sight of one’s own needs, which, in any case, remain secondary. Someone once said that “when you feel love, you feel the other” (Silo, Bomarzo), so pure love, so to speak, has more to do with the other than with me.
A possessive view of love generates violence and contradiction.
Let’s focus first on the most hackneyed and battered love in our culture, or rather, in our cultural productions (literature, theatre, music, cinema and other arts). In this world of love between partners (of whatever sex), everything that has to do with the possession of the loved one is intensely valued (see Possession, an impulse that affects us all), and of course, this is valued much more than anything that has to do with their freedom or their evolution as a person.
Both in cultural productions and in everyday life, the struggle to obtain that beloved “object” is passionately exalted with a clear possessive undertone, disguising this desire in the garb of the union of souls, of being together forever, of that which is the antonym of cold solitude, of the warmth of home and of lasting happiness forever and ever. But however beautiful the declamations of love may be, they are all driven by that possessive undertone which, in reality, colours everything in our culture. Rarely is a situation where the loved one is free to walk away from you when you realise that this is precisely what is best for the other person. In these cultural products (now we have to add “consumer”) we are only sometimes shown such detached and liberating models of the loved one, and when they do occur in the no end they are presented against a dramatic background and with emotional climaxes of loss, so that we are in the same situation.
It must be said that to a large extent it is commercial interest that dictates the passionate narratives and possessive couple conflicts, but it is also true that this is done because the vast majority of the public resonates, adheres or identifies with those narratives that stir and activate visceral tensions, fiery passions, while exalting hatred towards the enemies of this supposedly pure “love”. A feedback loop is then produced that strengthens these polarised love-hate cultural values that are contrary to a minimum psychological health and a minimum coherence of life. In reality, these cultural values that encourage irrational passions and visceral reactions lead us towards contradiction, conflict and often psychological and physical violence. Expressions such as “I killed her because she was mine” and the like are all too familiar. We have many examples of the violence generated by this possessive way of understanding love relationships.
Cultivating an open and detached attitude
It is curious because in the other loves we mentioned before, those that are given to other people (family, friends or children), it seems that there is a less possessive component, there is a greater capacity to put the other person before my desires. The clearest case is that of children, for whom we are capable of doing almost anything, and this capacity to give selflessly almost without limit is also reflected in cultural productions. Why is couple love so possessive while other loves can be more detached?
Therefore, we have to be careful about blindly accepting all those slogans and phrases repeated ad nauseam everywhere, which only encourage a possessive vision of love that generates violence and contradiction. We must be vigilant and not spill out into this simplistic game of commercial interests that sells passions with implicit violence and revenge. It is much healthier to cultivate an open and detached attitude, feeling the other as someone who is as free as I am in his or her intentions and life path.
If I have a look at what is best for the other person, if I feel the other person’s needs and can put myself in their point of view, why do I call “love” that possessive impulse that puts my own interests and desires at the centre, however legitimate they may be? True love is detached, it puts the other person’s happiness before my own desires, it’s as easy as that. It doesn’t mean that I have to ignore my desires or needs, as if they don’t exist, but that I consciously and consistently choose to take into account the other person’s needs even before my own. “You walk away and I am comforted if I have contributed to cutting your chains, to overcoming your pain and suffering. And if you come with me, it is because you constitute yourself in a free act as a human being…” (Silo, “About the Human”, Tortuguitas, 1983).
We have naively believed that receiving is more than giving, and we will only be able to get out of the world of contradiction when we understand that giving is more than receiving. But we will talk about this on another occasion.
