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Stephen B. Levine, whose clinical practice is based at the Center for Marital and Sexual Health in Beachwood, Ohio, and who is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, is a well-known scholar in the area of human sexuality. Those familiar with his review articles and two previously published books are aware that he is thoughtful and well informed. In this, his most recent volume, he grapples with clinical and existential-philosophical problems of love and sexuality in mid-life. His choice of topics in itself warrants our gratitude, as love and sex are often neglected by modern clinicians.
The chapter titles convey the shape of the territory covered: “What is the Nature of Love?”, “Psychological Intimacy,” “The Paradoxes of Sexual Desire,” “Psychological Development in Mid-Life,” “The Unseen Hand of Biology,” “Extra-Marital Sexual Affairs in Mid-Life,” “The Sexual Side Effects of Serotonergic Antidepressant Medications,” “On Being a Middle-Aged Therapist,” and “One Avenue to Spiritual Love.”
Throughout his career a particular strength of Dr. Levine's has been his encyclopedic knowledge of sexual psychophysiology and pharmacology. He maintains his excellent standard in this volume, although physiology is not its primary focus. The book was written prior to the release of sildenafil (Viagra) onto the market and with that single exception the bibliography is excellent and up to date.
The discussion of love includes Sternberg's conceptual model of a triangle whose three points are intimacy, passion, and commitment Categories of love are considered in an illuminating way using this model, including infatuation, romantic love, consummate love, fatuous love, and empty love. This is but one