Scan barcode
A review by brontherun
A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, Richard Lannon
4.0
While its academic nature has caused this text to age a bit over the last 20 years, it is still a worthwhile read. The authors delve into the evolution of the human brain and human relationships, and explain how the two are inseparable. Their stance on self-help books is made blatantly clear: "The sheer volume and variety of self-help paraphernalia testify at once to the vastness of the appetite they address and their inability to satisfy it." And yet, the details and insights make this work feel a little like a self-help book in therapist selection, child-rearing, and relationship management.
I am a true fan of the neocortical brain - analytical thinking, reason, and logic are tools fit comfortably to my hand and feel right. The duality of the limbic brain and neocortical brain appeals to my intellectual understanding of neurology, and at the same time a new understanding of the emotional needs of humans based on limbic brain development are revealed.
Several examples resonate closely to personal experience, thus reinforcing their position. "The neocortical brain's tendency to wax hypothetical then becomes a deadly liability. The limbic brain, unable to distinguish between incoming sensory experience and neocortical imaginings, revisits emotions upon a body that was not designed to withstand such a procession." These types of mental traps are all to familiar, and one usually cannot reason oneself out of it. Experience says distraction with another person's life (child, friend, partner) or a sympathetic ear from the same are the best path out.
Our emotional connections, true resonance with another person, physically present, are critical to the human experience. So vital we succumb without it. The authors' words regarding therapy I think is applicable to other relationships: "It impels participation in a process that our modern world has all but forgotten: sitting in a room with another person for hours at a time with no purpose in mind but attending."
Eventually this book gets around to romantic love, but that I will not attempt to summarize or evaluate here. Each individual's take away from that section may be different than mine.
I am a true fan of the neocortical brain - analytical thinking, reason, and logic are tools fit comfortably to my hand and feel right. The duality of the limbic brain and neocortical brain appeals to my intellectual understanding of neurology, and at the same time a new understanding of the emotional needs of humans based on limbic brain development are revealed.
Several examples resonate closely to personal experience, thus reinforcing their position. "The neocortical brain's tendency to wax hypothetical then becomes a deadly liability. The limbic brain, unable to distinguish between incoming sensory experience and neocortical imaginings, revisits emotions upon a body that was not designed to withstand such a procession." These types of mental traps are all to familiar, and one usually cannot reason oneself out of it. Experience says distraction with another person's life (child, friend, partner) or a sympathetic ear from the same are the best path out.
Our emotional connections, true resonance with another person, physically present, are critical to the human experience. So vital we succumb without it. The authors' words regarding therapy I think is applicable to other relationships: "It impels participation in a process that our modern world has all but forgotten: sitting in a room with another person for hours at a time with no purpose in mind but attending."
Eventually this book gets around to romantic love, but that I will not attempt to summarize or evaluate here. Each individual's take away from that section may be different than mine.