The Neuroscience of Romanticized Love – Part 2: Either-Or Thinking

The Neuroscience of Romanticized Love – Part 2: Either-Or Thinking.  This is a topic that  causes me to react especially when I read reviews of the "drek", as I see it, of the romance novels pumped out by word processing giants in that genre.  One author who is extremely popular publishes a new novel on a near monthly basis., Her stories always revolved around the same three archetypes of females and the same three archetypes of males.  She merely changes the names, locations and "drama" surrounding these fictional beings, but the characters never seem to gain ground or get any smarter.  Once the reader is stuffed with the cotton candy fluff piece, the aftertaste is sour and the belly is empty, so to speak.  This addiction is sad.  To say the least.  She is incredibly successful and wealthy, thanks to the women who are desperately seeking the "romantic ideal" that has nothing to do with reality, no matter how much the author spins the romance.


"The selling of ideals for romantic love is a multibillion-dollar industry. While these notions contain elements of authentic love, they largely consist of myths, social order politics, and certain either-or thinking patterns known to jam the brain and body’s communication network.

Why the paralyzing effect?

Simply put, this thinking has attributes of belief systems known to jam the reflective thinking processes of the human brain with … fear. Only fear can paralyze the otherwise remarkable abilities of the human brain to reflectively think, learn, understand, empathize, thus, help partners form vibrant, mutually enriching couple relationships.

At best, romanticized ideals, a phenomenon peculiar to the West, form a system of unrealistic expectations that lead single and married partners alike … to look for love where it cannot be found.

The role of language and the ‘power of the pen’?

In romanticized love, this system of either-or thinking tells men and women that they are from different planets, with different purposes, yearnings and emotions, and even worse, that their self-worth depends on how closely they conform to these standards.

In essence, for centuries philosophy, religion, and other political institutions have worked together, wittingly or unwittingly, to interpret physical differences between men and women into laws that legalized ideals for dominance, might makes right, survival of the fittest, and hierarchical values in general.

With hierarchical values in mind, the power of the pen, and the use of language accordingly, have played powerful roles in crafting ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ ideals. Overall, we’ve been culturally conditioned at home, school, work, etc., to use these either-or “shoulds” and dichotomous labels to judge ourselves, our partner, and men and women in general, for example, as either:

• Rational or irrational
• Powerful or powerless
• Strong or weak
• Emotional or emotionally detached
• Dependent or independent
• Deserving or undeserving
• Perfect or flawed
• Loved or unloved

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2011/06/the-neuroscience-of-romanticized-love-%e2%80%93-part-2-either-or-thinking/

 These romanticized ideals:

• Emphasize obedience to authority and win-lose competitions.
• Define power in “zero-sum” and “power-over” terms.
• Associate the ability to exert “power over” with status, strength, men, authority.
• View battles, differences and power imbalances between men and women as inevitable.
• Define “listening to” or “respecting” the other as “doing what told,” in short, obedience.
• Teach that love, self-worth, acceptance, respect are earned based on performance.
• Judge performance on the basis of conformity to external expectations or standards.
• View mistakes as defects, failures or willful disrespect or disobedience.
• Control behavior with external rewards and punishments.
• Legitimize use of physical violence, force and/or emotional manipulation tactics (fear, shame, guilt).
• Teach us to judge self and others by making comparisons.
• Associate emotions of vulnerability with weakness, emotionality, women, children, etc.
• Associate emotions of anger with strength, power to make things happen, men, authority, status.
• Relegate emotions of caring, nurturance, love, affection, etc., to secondary status.

We use these standards, subconsciously for the most part, to continuously judge (shame) ourselves (i.e., self-talk), or those around us, as either deserving or undeserving of love."


The Neuroscience of Romanticized Love – Part 2: Either-Or Thinking.  Read the rest of this powerful and eye opening article, and page back through my blog posts to June 16th, when I published the first of this three part series.  

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2011/06/the-neuroscience-of-romanticized-love-%e2%80%93-part-2-either-or-thinking/