LOVE: THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY - MADRID Enrique Rojas Director Spanish Institute of Psychiatry Research 19. August 2011 JMJ

LOVE:
THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY
       Enrique Rojas

          Director
    Spanish Institute of
    Psychiatry Research
         MADRID
     19. August 2011
                           JMJ

INTRODUCTION

-   What is love?
-   Falling in love
-   Making the right choice
-   7 pieces of advise before getting married
-   Alchemy of conyugal love: 7 ingredients

WHAT IS LOVE?
Love must be the fundation of life

Love is the best answer to all the question and
  unknowns of our existence

Love is the need to emerge from within your
  inner self anohter to walk together through a
  shared existence

Information and formation about love

Love affects all dimensions of human life: love is
  the first and last foundation of the human being

FALLING IN LOVE
There are three basic factors:

-   Admiration
-   Attraction
-   Necesity to share

AFTER…LATER, IN WEEKS
OR MONTHS…
- Disorder of attention
- To make the ephimeral, eternal
- To fall in love is to find one’s self outside one’s
  self
- Time flys (sensation of time has accelerated)
- Desire to have the other person with exclusion
  of others
- To have one’s thoughts mortgaged out
  (Cervantes, Dulcinea)

AFTER…

- Crystallization (Stendhal)
- State of fascination (Alberoni)
- Revelation (Andre Maurois, Somerset
  Maugham)
- How wonderful it is that you exist…for me
- To fall in love is to create a private mythology
- I love you= I need you
- You are my proyect…you are my life

MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE
- Love and knowledge
- Choosing the right person

- Selecting from a certain human prototype…a

  certain profile
- True love is selective

- Intelligent love consists of heart, mind and
  culture
- Don’t make a mistake of expectation

SEVEN TIPS FOR THOSE
GETTING MARRIED
1. Don’t idealise love
2. Don’t idolise the other person
3. Being in love doesn’t guarantee a long and
     happy relationship
4.   Married life requieres constant learning
5.   Couples can undergo crises
6.   Mature love is the union of two people who
     nevertheless retain their individuality
7.   True love means giving more than you take

Alchemy of married love:
            7 ingredients
 1.   Feeling
 2.   Sexuality
 3.   Common beliefs
 4.   Love as an act of will
 5.   Love as an act of intelligence
 6.   Commitment
 7.   Love is fluidity and dynamism

1. FEELING
   - Love is much more than a mere
    feeling
   - Feelings are perfectible and
    destructive
   - Love es a feeling and a decision…it
    is not limited to emotion: it also
    implies determination
   - Don´t forget the stages of love
   - The art of life in common

2. SEXUALITY
   To love is to feel attraction
   Sexuality is one of the key lenguages of
    committment love
   Sexuality must be harmoniously integrate
    into the couple´s common project
   Sexuality must be an integral realtionship:
    phsical, psychological, spiritual and
    historical…combined in a beautiful melody
   We are our body and our body represents
    us

3. COMMON BELIEFS
   Having similar spiritual foundations
   The christian perspective
   Our society requiere more examples
    than prophet, more witness than
    masters
   To share an spirituality in the day to
    day

4. LOVE AS AN ACT OF THE
               WILL
   Will: capacity to pospone the riward
   Will: to know to distinguish between gals
    and objetives…it´s very important
   Diligere is love with will
   Amare is a love focused on feelings
   Caritas is love with generosity and
    surrender
   Will and intelligence are esential if we
    aspire to a mature, stable balance,
    harmonious and lasting love
   To fight in the little details
   Will improves with use

5. LOVE AS AN ACT OF THE
           INTELLIGENCE
   Heart, mind and culture
   Love between a man and a woman must
    be simultaneously emotional and
    intelligent
   One task of the intelligence is to facilitate
    ongoing learning aimed at improving our
    love
   Love improves through knowledge, about
    ourselves and about other person
   To be prepared to practice functional
    solutions…on the conflicts
   Forgiveness is of enormous importance

6. COMMITMENT
   Nowaday…Syndrom de SIMON
   Panic commitment syndrom
   Loving is committing
   True love requires the freedom of the
    loved one
   True commitment is responsability
    and faithfulness
   Faithfulness is exclusivity

7. LOVE IS A DYNAMIC
              PROCESS
   Love isn’t static but dynamic
   Being-for-life     being-for-oneself
    being-for-another
   Love as dedication and renunciation
   We must pay attention to the other
    person, and consider him or her our
    main priority
   Love has and percentage high of
    psychological craftsmanship

SOME BEHAVIOURAL HINTS
      FOR SOLVING CONYUGAL
            CONFLICTS
   Ability to forgive
   Forgiveness is not possible without a
    profound sense of spirituality
   The ability to forget and forgive is a
    feature of emotional maturity and
    love
   I suggest…being able to forgive
    everyone and everything…is a
    challenge…an super (hihger) man

SOME BEHAVIORAL HINTS…
   Don’t bring up the list grievances
   Avoid unnecessary discussions
   Learn to value things (within family
    life) at their true worth (sound
    judgement)
   Mutual respect: is a very important
    factor
   Learn to get over bad days or
    conflcits

SOME BEHAVIOURAL HINTS…
   Learn communications skills
   Sense of humour
   Never talk about divorce
   Avoid distortion in your perception of
    reality
   Stop your tendency to control,
    monitor and spy on your couple
   Always have spiritual reasons for
    overcoming difficulties

AN ENDDING THAT IS A
             BEGINNING
   Have clear ideas about love and falling in
    love
   Know what love is a task full psychological
    craftsmanshi
   Take care little details is intelligent love
   There aren’t love with sacrifice/ renounce
   Love is the great opportunity to achive a
    reasonable happiness