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CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS RESEARCH: A RESOURCE FOR COUPLE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS
Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Jan 2004 by Hendrick, Susan S
Love As Self-Expansion
Still another research approach, based on Eastern traditions, views romantic love as an aspect of personal growth or expansion of the self (E. Aron & Aron, 1996). "The idea is that the self expands toward knowing or becoming that which includes everything and everyone, the Self. The steps along the way are ones of including one person or thing, then another, then still another" (p. 45-46).
Romantic love fits within this model in that the act of loving another and relating to another in a romantic way typically involves an incorporation of the other into oneself and inclusion of oneself within the other, an emotional fusion, if you will. The process of "falling in love" is a particularly salient example of self-expansion, in that self-expansion and inclusion/fusion occur very rapidly, with heady emotional overtones.
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The Triangular Theory of Love
The Triangular Theory of Love (Sternberg, 1986, 1987) is a multidimensional approach, proposing that love is composed of different amounts of three characteristics: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Mixing these components in varying proportions creates eight different types of romantic love: Liking (intimacy only), Infatuated love (passion only), Empty love (commitment only), Romantic love (passion and intimacy), Companionate love (commitment and intimacy), Fatuous love (commitment and passion), Consummate love (all three components present), and Empty love (all three components absent).
Love Ways
Finally, a communication-oriented approach was taken by Marston, Hecht, and Robers (1987), who noted that "communication is the fundamental action which both expresses and determines the subjective experience of romantic love" (Marston et al., p. 392). Marston et al. used interviews and qualitative analyses and from these determined categories that encompassed people's most frequent communicative strategies of love both toward their partner and from their partner. The most frequent communications toward the partner were saying "I love you," doing things for the partner, being supportive and understanding, touching the partner, and simply spending time together. The categories of most frequent communications from the partner were quite similar. Although all these behaviors would not necessarily be thought of as communication (e.g., spending time together), they managed to communicate love from one partner to the other.
These approaches to love offer alternative perspectives to therapists who are seeking ways of construing clients' intimate relationships. Therapists respect diversity in couples and do not want to force their own constructions of love on their clients. Thus, rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all love perspective, couple and family therapists may well want several approaches from which to choose. An additional approach offering multidimensionality is that of the Love Styles.
THE LOVE STYLES
Sociologist John Alan Lee (e.g., 1973) did extensive research over a number of years, reading a variety of literature and interviewing many people about their romantic love relationships. He eventually proposed a theory of love that had six major love styles, three primary ones (Eros, Ludus, Storge) and three secondary ones (Pragma, Mania, Agape) that were combinations of the primaries. He visualized these love styles in terms of a color wheel, using the color wheel as an analogy to love, with both colors and love having primary and secondary features. He also used the wheel as an example of "equality" of love styles, just as there is "equality" of colors. In the same sense that colors are not right or wrong but only preferred or not preferred, so are love styles not wrong or right but simply preferred differentially by people. As noted later, however, some of the love styles are more congruent with satisfaction and commitment than are others.
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