The Psychoanalytic Basis of Love by Hamidreza Yazdani

The Psychoanalytic Basis of Love

Hamidreza Yazdani

Abstract:

Speaking of love is no simple task, but writing about it, if not impossible, is at the very least exceedingly difficult. Love is the most tangible word that humans have heard and lived with, but what truly is love? At what point does a person fall in love? What factor causes a person to feel the warmth of love within their being? And more importantly, what fine line demarcates the boundary between being in love and liking?

In this article, based on Freud's views and his analysis of the concepts of "Mourning and Melancholia," as well as Žižek's interpretation of Freud's views and these concepts, we seek to scrutinize the reason for love and its point of origin. In fact, we are seeking an answer to the question of how an individual becomes a person's lost half, and more importantly, how this can be recognized. Following this important point, and considering that the intimate connection of love with human religious life is undeniable and that the human relationship with one's God can be considered the most prominent and beautiful manifestation of love, which elevates humans from the earthly to the divine and provides them with wings to fly, we will analyze the factor that creates a rift between divine love and earthly love. Through this, we will shed light on the origin of the difference between earthly and divine love and examine the meaningfulness of human life.

Keywords: Love, Object, Object Desire, Meaning of Life, The Transcendent

Introduction:

Speaking of love is no simple task, but writing about it, if not impossible, is at the very least exceedingly difficult. It was not without reason that Rumi, in describing love in his Masnavi-ye Ma'navi, lamented:

Whatever I say in explanation and description of Love, When I come to Love itself, I am ashamed of that.

Although the commentary of the tongue illuminates, Yet tongueless Love is more illuminating.

As the pen hastened in writing, When it came to Love, the pen split upon itself.

In expounding it, reason lay down like a donkey in the mud; It was Love itself that told the tale of love and loving.

(Masnavi-ye Ma'navi, Volume 1, Book One, Section 6)

Love is the most tangible word that humans have heard and lived with, and through this very word, they have undergone the deepest human experiences. It is a two-dimensional word that, in a way, joins earth and sky. It is both a human bridge and a heavenly rope. Now the question is, what is the truth of love? Can a specific definition of love essentially be given? And more importantly, can a quantitative scale be found for defining love, through which the distinction of a specific person as the beloved from the lover's perspective can be explained? What is evident is that love has different types, and there is no necessity for all forms of love to benefit from a single definition. In fact, love between parents and child, love for one's homeland, and romantic love are different forms of love. But in most cases, what is under consideration is romantic love.

The truth of the matter is that when we set out to gain knowledge of the world around us, this understanding and knowledge makes us safer in living in the surrounding world and causes us to experience a greater sense of security from life in the world. In the same vein, knowledge of the deepest and most human feeling, that is, love, causes a person to hold a mirror up to themselves and see themselves. This seeing of oneself and becoming aware of the depths of one's own being gives a person a sense of security that allows them to understand themselves better. Although in this writing, my effort is to arrive at a definition that can be generalizable to various forms of love, I begin with romantic love. Of course, it is quite clear that clarifying the concept of love is manifestly difficult.

1- A Mythological View of Love

To begin, I would like to take a look at the words of Aristophanes in Plato's famous treatise, the Symposium. In the Symposium, Aristophanes recounts a mythical story according to which, in the beginning, humans were round in shape, their back and sides forming a circle, and moreover, they had four hands and four feet, and two completely identical faces situated on opposite sides of the head, upon a neck that was also round and circular. They also had four ears, two sets of genitals, and the rest of their limbs were in like proportion. These humans, like people today, stood on two feet and moved and walked in whichever direction they wished. Because humans resolved to assault the gods, Zeus and the other gods held a council to stop them. As a result, Zeus cut humans in two, just like a fruit sliced down the middle or an egg divided in half with a hair, and cast each half in a different direction. From that day on, each of the two halves, separated from its original whole, sought its time of reunion, running about bewildered here and there, and with a burning passion searched for its lost half to find it, to cling to it, and by striving for connection with the other half, to become a unified whole (Plato, 87: 90).

It seems to me that this myth, despite being captivating and novel, while it can describe the nature of romantic loves, is incapable of explaining the cause and origin of the experiences of romantic love. In other words, although this myth can, to some extent, show why humans are drawn to one another and consider themselves lovers, it cannot provide a reason for at what point, within society and despite the many connections they have, humans feel they have fallen in love with one person? From what does love arise? What quantitative criterion exists by which one can understand that love has sprouted, and most importantly, why is our love for some people greater, more intense, and deeper than our love for other people? This article precisely seeks to find an answer to these questions, and the author's attempt is to formulate a response to them.

2 – The Views of Freud and Žižek (1) on Melancholia

In his essay "Mourning and Melancholia," Freud distinguishes between the two concepts of mourning and grief on the one hand, and melancholia on the other, as two reactions of the individual to the loss of a beloved person or object. Mourning or grief is the very action an individual performs upon the loss or absence of a loved one or object. In Freud's interpretation, when the work of mourning or grief is completed, the ego or self becomes free and uninhibited once again. In other words, the individual can successfully accept the loss of the object, whereas in melancholia, the individual is unable to detach from the lost object and still desires to become one with it. In this essay, Freud shows that the melancholic individual, in contrast to the normal person who directs their libido or emotional drive toward other objects after the period of mourning, transfers the libido inward, the result of which is the very concept of narcissism. (Freud, 82)

In fact, one could say: the common understanding of the Freudian opposition between mourning and melancholia is something like this: the person who mourns, through this act, accepts the loss of the lost object and comes to terms with it, but the melancholic person refuses to confront this loss, and in this way, he continues to cling to the lost object (Perjam, 91). However, Slavoj Žižek, relying on a sentence from Freud's famous essay, gives a subtle twist to the concept of melancholia. Žižek quotes Freud as saying that melancholia is a premature mourning. The melancholic person mourns the object at a time when the object has not yet been lost. In fact, it is the "shadow of future loss" that falls in advance upon the thing and upon the present moment. Just as the awareness of a loving couple, at the height of their amorous passion, of the fact that this passion will one day end forever, can make their relationship melancholic. But Žižek points to something even more hidden: if the melancholic person mourns the object in advance, while the object is still present, it is because he no longer desires the object. What the melancholic person has lost is not, of course, the object of desire but the "cause of the object of desire," that is, that which is in the object more than the object itself and arouses our desire for the object. Žižek gives the example of the process of immigration. In his view, what is distressing for the immigrant is not directly the distance from the homeland and the recollection of its memories, but rather the awareness that over a period of time, perhaps not so long, he will in any case forget the homeland and integrate into the new society. Thus, what the melancholic person shirks is not the confrontation with the loss of the object, but the confrontation with the loss of his own desire (Zizek, 2011). My intention is to formulate love within this very mechanism of melancholia, with the twist that Žižek has given to Freud's interpretation.

3- Analyzing the Origin of Love

Humans in society interact with many people and organize their relationships with numerous individuals, among whom both men and women have a significant presence. Now consider a person who, during his interactions with various people, suddenly feels a special feeling towards a specific person among these individuals, and over time feels the warmth of love within his being, and at this moment, his entire being beats for that specific person and considers them his lost half. And it necessarily causes that specific person to become valuable to the lover. And he demands their active and constant being and presence. It is here that the individual undergoes a special experience in inter-human relations and likes that within it, two separate "I"s merge and form a new identity, a "we." Individuals find themselves broader and more complete within the context of this "we," and in the heart of this experience, they experience a kind of openness, perfection, and deep existential peace. In other words, perhaps it can be said that it is at this point that the individual's being rises in rebellion to seize and possess that specific person. He wants them, and in this wanting, there is a mysterious allure that drives forward and takes no account of obstacles, and like a dam-breaker in whose vast patience the observance of twists and turns is lost, drives straight ahead, to collapse walls with its thunderous roars and bite the earth with its teeth and rest. But why does the individual experience this experience of falling in love only through that specific person? Or, as Harry Frankfurt says, why is the importance of the beloved not general for the lover but inevitably becomes specific and particular (Frankfurt (2), 95)? In other words, why, despite the generality of human beings, does a person consider a specific individual as their beloved? What factor causes such a deep and intense feeling to arise in them? In other words, the lover desires their beloved to flourish and not be harmed. Why does this feeling arise? Why does this feeling arise only towards a specific person or those we claim to love?

It is here, in the view of the author of these lines, that the "fear of loss" comes to dominate the lover. And this is the beginning and origin of love. In fact, just as the melancholic mourns the object at a time when the object is not yet lost, and it is the "shadow of future loss" that falls in advance upon the thing and upon the present moment, the lover likewise discovers himself to be in love with the beloved precisely when he fears losing her, and it is the loss of losing her that makes him fall in love with that person. And this is an extremely important and key point. Perhaps it is not without reason that when you enter a romantic relationship, you become very vulnerable. Indeed, one of the characteristics of love is that it makes you vulnerable to your beloved. The lover drops his masks. He lowers the defensive walls of his soul, and therefore, any arrow shot at him by the beloved will lodge in the depths of his soul and wound him deeply. Because the lover is deeply afraid of losing the beloved. This fear of loss is so excruciating that it renders the lover vulnerable. It is not without reason that the pain of heartbreak in love is exactly the pain of losing a loved one (Naraghi, 95).

This fear of losing a specific person, which was proposed as the reason for the creation of love, causes a person to experience a strange feeling within himself toward a specific individual, a feeling he will not experience in his dealings with others. And this is the reason why, among the vast multitude of people with whom one has close relationships, a person only develops romantic feelings for one specific person. And this fear explains why the lover desires the constant presence of the beloved by his side and strives mightily to win her at any cost and spend his entire life with her. One might ask whether such a definition of the reason for love can explain the existence of degrees of love. Naturally, in life, a person undergoes many romantic experiences with varying intensity and, while loving his spouse, simultaneously loves his children and family as well. How can this diversity and plurality in loving be explained? And more importantly, how can one distinguish between liking a person and loving them?

In response, it must be said that, in fact, seeing the reason for love as the "fear of losing" the beloved can explain why a person can simultaneously have different objects of love, and at the same time, it is the degree of this fear that explains the intensity of loving. When you love your beloved, this love arises precisely when you feel the fear of losing her, but experience has shown us that loves are not lasting and do not continue with their initial intensity. And perhaps more tangibly, we may all have heard that union destroys love. Why, indeed, has such a persistent and pervasive belief always existed, and why does the lover, even knowing this belief, still struggle to attain union? Why does such a belief exist at all? Now, the meaning of the statement that the melancholic mourns the object when it is the "shadow of future loss" that falls in advance upon the thing and upon the present moment, and that the lover discovers the beloved precisely when he fears losing her, and it is the loss of losing her that makes him fall in love with that person, becomes clearer here. Before union, the "shadow of the fear of losing the beloved" so dominates the lover that he sees union as the only balm for the deep pain of love, and on this path, he spares no effort and is willing to endure all hardships to pave the way to reach the beloved, because this fear cripples him and consumes his being every moment. Any "other" who looks upon his beloved, or any rival who appears, is like a dagger plunged into the lover's heart, because it increases his fear of losing her. It is not without reason that in our rich literature, there are many examples where the presence of a rival makes the lover's day as dark as night, because every rival acts as a factor that intensifies fear.

May no stranger's hand reach that lover and stature/ Tell the morning breeze to lift the veil from the rose's face

(Soroush, 85)

اما پس از وصال، طبیعی است که این " ترس از دست دادن" کم رنگ و کم رنگ می‌شود و فرد با دست آوردن آنچه می‌خواسته است احساس آرامش می کند و این ترس، به دست فراموشی سپرده می‌شود و فرد اندک اندک خودِ واقعیش را باز می‌یابد. زیرا در اوان دورانِ ایجادِ "ترس از دست دادن" در وجود او و بالتبعِ آن عاشق شدن، فرد به تنها چیزی که می‌اندیشد غلبه بر این ترس و وصال معشوق است، پس سعی می‌کند خود را مطابق میل و نظر معشوق درآورد تا بتواند این ترس را با نزدیک شدن به معشوق از بین ببرد و دقیقا به همین دلیل است که عاشق را متفاوت از خود واقعیش می‌دانند و عشق را سبب دگرگونی عاشق تلقی کرده‌اند. با کمرنگ شدن این ترس، عشق که محصول چیزی جز همین ترس از دست دادن نیست، به محاق می‌رود و مشاهده می‌کنیم که کسانی هستند که با اینکه در ابتدای امر عاشق و شیدا بودند، به مرور احساس عشقشان دستخوش تغییر می‌شود. به همین علت، مشهور است که در عشق دو قانون وجود دارد اول اینکه عاشق قانع نمی‌شود الّا به وصال، و دیگر آن که وصال، قتلگاه عشق است. زیرا با وصال" ترس از دادن" به عنوان علت وجودی عشق کم رنگ یا اصلا به محاق می‌رود و سبب می‌شود به مرور خود عشق هم کم رنگ شود. حتی اگر زندگی دو فردی را که پس از عشق زیاد، رو به سردی می گراید و با این وجود کنار هم می زیند را با واژه عادت توصیف کنیم، واژه عادت را با بی دقتی بکار برده ایم. آنچه می توان به ضرس قاطع بیان کرد اینست که به مرور زمان همان ترس از دست دادن در کنه وجود و در لایه‌های زیرین آدمی هنوز وجود دارد و علیرغم کمرنگ شدن، سبب پیوند همیشگی می-شود و تنها زمانی که این ترس از بین برود و از دست دادن متعلقِ عشق برای عاشق علی السویه بشود در آنصورت می توان گفت دو نفر پیوندی بینشان برقرار نیست. این جداییِ نهایی سبب می‌شود که هرکدام در برهه‌ای از زندگیشان دوباره نسبت به فردی دیگر این ترس را تجربه کرده و عشق جدیدی را آغاز نمایند. اما آنچه واضح است اینست که ترس از دست دادن همیشه وجود دارد و تنها متعلقِ آن ترس متغیر می باشد. اینچنین می توان به علت تعدد عشق در زندگی هر فردی نزدیک شد. هیچ چیز در این جهان متناقض‌نماتر از عشق نیست؛ ظاهر آن ایثار است و باطن انحصار. یک رویش فدا کردن خود است برای او، و روی دیگرش فدا کردن او برای خود. ظاهراً خود را در او محو میخواهی و باطناً او را در خود. در داستانی آمده است که حجامی میخواست مجنون را حجامت کند و تیغ در او میخلید و مجنون تاب نمیآورد. از او پرسیدند تو که عاشقی و این همه تب را تاب میآوری، چرا از نشتری میگریزی؟ گفت “ترسم ای فصاد گر فصدم کنی / تیغ را ناگاه بر لیلی زنی”. چرا لیلی در مجنون است؟ پاسخی نارمانتیک این است: چون عاشق معشوق را میبلعد؛ او را میخورد و جزئی از خود می‌کند؛ برای همین غیور می‌شود. چون هر نگاهی به معشوق تفسیری جز سوء نیت به عاشق، به مال عاشق، به جان عاشق نیست. این مثل سینمای سه بعدی است: اگر چه در بادی مهیج می‌نماید، اما بسا که عاقبت به سرگیجه و ترس و فرار منجر شود(مردیها،85).

دست آخر آنکه، شاید ایراد بگیرند که این رابطه ای که در بالا مطرح گردید اتقافا برعکس است و انسانها چون عاشق می‌شوند، "ترس از دست دادن" بر آنها چیره می‌شود. در مقام پاسخگویی باید گفت درست است که مرز بین این دو بسیار باریک است و تقدم و تاخر بین آنها بسیار کوتاه اما اگر درصدد برآییم تا عشق را در اولویت قرار دهیم آنگاه باید پرسید از کجا فرد تشخیص می دهد که عاشق شده است؟ چه عاملی سبب تقلای فرد برای وصال می شود؟ مگر جز اینست که زمانی انسان می‌فهمد عاشق شده که می‌ترسد متعلق عشق خود را از دست بدهد؟ مگر جز اینست که این ترس چنان در تمام وجودش رخنه می کند که او را بی‌محبا به عمل وا میدارد تا صورت دلپذیر معشوق را بخود بگیرد و به وصال محبوب نزدیک شود؟ آنچه که مبرهن است تصور تقدم "عاشق شدن" بر "ترس از دست دادن" از عدم تفکیک صحیح و مرزبندی بین این دو اتفاق نشات می‌گیرد و با آناکاوی دقیق پرواضح است که علت و چرایی خودِ عشق چیزی جز " ترس از دست دادنِ" متعلق عشق نیست.

This perspective can now be extended to other forms of love. A person's love for their child, love for their homeland, and so on, all originate from the "fear of loss," although the recognition of this differs in each type of love. For instance, a person's love for their child should be considered the most prominent example of love arising from the "fear of loss." This is because children are so intertwined with their parents that parents see themselves in them, and children are a complete mirror of their parents. This feeling is much deeper in mothers, who nurture their children within themselves. Consequently, this profound and intense fear of loss creates such a love in parents, and subsequently in children, that its like cannot be found anywhere else. Because with the loss of their children, parents feel they have lost not an "other" but themselves, and this fear of loss causes parents to devote their entire lives to protecting their children and keeping them under their care. It is not without reason that with the birth of children, they become concerned about the future and providing a good life for them. It goes without saying that there are parents who do not have this deep feeling towards their children and do not feel obligated to care for them, which of course falls into the category of special cases. The same applies to love for one's homeland.

It is here that one can take a risk and assert with certainty that there is a common denominator among all types of love, and that is the "fear of losing" the beloved object.

4- A Psychoanalytic Consideration of Two Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Love

Regarding love, many philosophers have tried to explain and clarify this phenomenon, but they became so entangled in providing a qualitative explanation of love that it not only fails to explain the multiplicity in love but is also incapable of explaining the change in the intensity of a single love. In the following, we will glance at the views of contemporary philosophers on the reason for love.

Alain Badiou(3), the French philosopher, considers love a way to experience the world based on difference. In his view, love takes us to the defining parts of experiencing different things and essentially leads to the idea that the world can be experienced from the perspective of difference (Badiou, 94: Badiou 93). He also says elsewhere: What is universal is that love presents a new experience of truth. An experience concerning "two-ness" and not "one-ness." Meaning that we can experience and encounter the world other than through individual consciousness: every love is a new testimony to this claim, and that is why we love to love (ibid: 42). This claim has a major and unproven presupposition, which is that humans are inherently averse to loneliness. But regardless of this claim, what is more important is that difference may explain the mechanism of love, but it is not sufficient. In fact, it might be a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient condition. Seeing love in the difference between two "I"s causes the stagnation and sedimentation of love. In that case, all individuals who have differences with each other could fall in love, which would mean that people's loves for one another would not be a sign of evolution and maturity, and such love would happen once and for all with a fixed process, and one could not explain the difference between beloveds or the evolution of the lover. Secondly, having a difference cannot explain the intensity of love, because how am I to know with which of the people I have experienced love I was able to experience more difference, and more importantly, which of two people can create a deeper and more intense feeling in me? Recognizing difference is not an a priori matter, and moreover, recognizing its intensity requires much exploration within oneself and the other person, and this hesitation could forever prevent the emergence of love. Apart from this, difference is a completely qualitative matter whose existence is difficult to discern, let alone measuring and creating a metric for its degree. Also, the result of difference, according to Badiou, is that the greatest enemy of love becomes not an external rival but "myself." A "self" that prefers identity over difference (Badiou, ibid). With this account, it is not at all clear what place this type of view on love leaves for sacrifice and self-devotion for the lover, and most importantly, what place it leaves for being a lover.

Lacan(4), the renowned psychoanalyst, believed that love is a cover that substitutes for the absence of sexual relations. Because, from his perspective, since sexual relations do not exist at all, love is precisely what substitutes for this absence (Homer(5), 94). This conception of love entails at least two kinds of interpretations. The first interpretation suffers from a vicious circle. To explain: if love fills the void of sexual relations, one must ask, sexual relations between whom? The two lovers? In that case, love fills the absence of sexual relations between two lovers, which is a vicious circle and does not explain why love causes a relationship between two specific individuals. Secondly, perhaps a human being may experience many sexual relations throughout life; does love then occur under any circumstances, and does the individual fall in love? According to Lacan's analysis, then, humans should fall in love with every sexual experience, whereas the relationship is precisely the opposite. That is, because humans fall in love with and become infatuated with someone, they want to become one with them and experience a deeply emotional relationship. In other words, it is only upon falling in love that humans desire physical union. The issue of the existence of sexual relations itself has many complexities, and for this reason, the American philosopher Robert Nozick argues that humans do not have their best sexual experience solely in a romantic relationship with their spouse (Nussbaum(6), 95). So, as observed, this definition also cannot explain the why of love, because in that case, the question of why humans fall in love with a specific person remains unanswered.

5- Love and the Meaning of Life

In the long history of human life, fear has been the source of many matters, and this very fear has led to much development and prosperity. From being the origin of religion to many inventions that occurred in human history due to fear. It was not without reason that Russell and Frazer considered fear to be the origin of religion (Russell, 2004: Frazer, 84). Although much inquiry has been made into the meaning of religion during this time, and many unsound reasons have been rendered sterile, what is important in this quotation is the impact that fear has had on human existence and humanity as a whole, to the extent that it compelled a philosopher and logician like Russell to believe that religion stems from fear. Fear has been and is the driver of human life, and the most important achievement of fear must be considered the understanding of the surrounding world. Due to fear, humans were compelled to better understand the world around them, and as a result, from greater understanding, they brought about a more comfortable life for themselves. When humans better understood the surrounding world and were able to dominate it to some extent, this understanding brought them a more peaceful life. In the same vein, the fear of loss, more than anything else, causes a person who was indifferent until yesterday to struggle and strive so much that the world is incapable of opposing them. This fear and striving cause us to have a deep satisfaction with ourselves and ultimately achieve a more peaceful coexistence with ourselves.

But love must also be viewed from another dimension. In other words, one must delve into the human being's relationship with their God, which is the most prominent and beautiful manifestation of love, separating the human from the earth and providing the wings for their flight. Can a schism be seen between earthly love and divine love? Does the cause and origin of human-to-human love differ from human-to-God love? To answer this question, one must turn attention to a point, namely that the human being is on both sides of this relationship, and the nature of the human and their mechanism is the same. Therefore, does human love for God originate from the "fear of losing" God? Humans are born with God and find His presence prominent in all moments of their lives, but the subtle point that exists is that humans also love God out of the fear of losing Him, and this point can be seen in the most prominent manifestation of this fear, namely "repentance." The mercy and boundlessness of God are precisely defined in this: that God is a being whose fear of losing occurs simultaneously with the fear of not losing. At a juncture in their life, a human feels they are drifting away from their Creator, and at that moment, they repent; that is, at the moment they feel they are losing their God, this fear compels them to repent and ask to draw closer to the Creator. This feeling of God's constant presence gives the human a peace that is the axis of their life. Nevertheless, not all humans strive for self-improvement before God(7).

In short, the function of the "fear of loss" as a reason for love may not be to make people better, but its function is solely to give meaning to their lives and thus help make their lives worth living in this way.

Notes

1- Sigmund Freud & Slavoj Žižek 2- Harry Frankfurt 3- Alain Badiou 4- Jacques Lacan 5- Sean homer 6- Martha Nussbaum

7- I deem it necessary to mention that the relationship between man and God was only a passing reference, and the examination and elaboration of this relationship itself requires another occasion and article.

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