Editor's Introduction: Love

For most of mankind, love has been “a sweet mystery whose presence was a miracle, whose absence was a disaster” (Altman, 1977, p. 35). Since Freud's early attempts to unravel this mystery, six psychoanalysts have added significantly to our understanding of romantic love. They are Therese Benedek, Martin Bergmann, Otto Kernberg, Leon Altman, Janine Chassegeut-Smirgel, and Ethel Person. While these investigators have certainly made important contributions, the fact is that Freud's original ideas continue to be the cornerstone of the psychoanalytic understanding of romantic love. As the three books under review here pertain to love, it seems useful to briefly review the master's thought on this matter.

Freud's complex and multilayered ideas about love were elaborated in a series of papers ranging from 1905 to 1930. He began by pointing out that the love object choice in human beings is diphasic (Freud, 1905). The first move toward the object starts between the ages of 2-5 and is characterized by infantile sexual aims. This is brought to a halt by latency. Puberty then sets in the second and more explicitly sexual movement towards the object. Meanwhile, the repression of the infantile sexual aims renders the earlier longings as merely an affectionate current thus causing a gap between it and the later appearing sensual current. Should these two currents fail to converge, “the focusing of all desires upon a single object will be unattainable” (p. 200).

Seven years later, Freud (1912) again noted the existence of affectionate and sensual currents “whose union is necessary to ensure a completely normal attitude in love” (p. 180). The ontogenetically earlier, affectionate current arose in connection with the early body and psychic care provided by the mother. The sensual current arrived with puberty and had to be synthesized with the affectionate current. Romantic love could then be expressed towards non-familial objects with whom a sexual union was permissible and possible.