Psychoanalytic account of love

Freud considers love to be developed as the outcome of sexual drive. According to him, love as well as sexuality is rooted in infancy (Freud, 1905). As he believed that a person's first love object is the mother. Moreover, he also included that the mother's breast acts as a source of sexual pleasure more than providing nourishment and this is the sexual pleasure what compels an individual to seek from his adult lover.

Furthermore, Freud saw love as the coexistence of “two currents”:

• Tenderness/affection, and
• Sensuality.

While the former begins as an infant pursue the care and nourishment received from parents or any other caregiver, Freudian theory affirmed that the latter is related to sexual energy, or libido. And happy love is the fusion of these two currents. The absence any of either can cause conflict which may affect the individual throughout the life-span. The sexual instincts are said to have a gratification-seeking endeavor. And interestingly Freud believed that the inhibition of this aim results sexual desire being transformed into affection in long-term relationships such as marriage.

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Originally published in Blurtit.com on 24th September, 2006 20:24

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