The Loving Self

Psychoanalytic practitioners know that the analytic situation is the best possible site for the emergence of love, for the study of all its ambiguities and uncertainties. Analysis creates the space both for the expression and empathic understanding of the fears and desires, the longings and vulnerabilities, connected to many varieties of love, including the love of children for parents, parents for children, sibling love, love of mentors, love of ideas, causes, social movements, and not least the multiple spectrum of romantic love. No better milieu exists, I believe, for the investigation of the practices of love, for the multiple ways individuals are derailed by love, fulfilled by love, are made crazy for and about love. Love is fundamental, essential, and life affirming; yet after over 125 years of clinical work and theorizing, we lack an adequate theory and explanation for how love works.

This is precisely the objective of Joseph Natterson’s new and audacious book, The Loving Self. He provides a theory for the praxis of therapeutic love.