On Romantic Love

Dr. Berit Brogaard is Professor of Philosophy at Department of Philosophy and Center for Neurodynamics, University of Missouri, St. Louis. Her publications have appeared in journals such as Journal of Philosophy, Nous, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophers' Imprint, Analysis, Consciousness and Cognition, and Cognitive Science. Her book Transient Truths appeared with Oxford University Press in 2012. In her academic research she specializes in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences.

Preface ; Chapter 1: Letter from a Friend ; Chapter 2: The Chemistry of Love ; Your Brain on Crack ; Beliefs and Brain Chemistry ; Taking the Drug Away ; Addicted to Grief ; Emotional Pain ; Stress, Pimples and Gray Hair ; Love and Hate ; Chapter 3: The Philosophy of Love ; Love as an Emotion ; Basic and Complex Emotions ; The James-Lange Theory ; The Conjunctive Theory of Emotions ; The Connection Problem ; The Problem of Emotional Responses to Fiction ; The Perceived-Response Theory ; Chapter 4: Irrational Love ; Does the Idea of Irrational Love Make Sense? ; You Call It Madness, I Call It Love ; Irrational Compassionate Love ; Love as a Moral Emotion ; Love as a History ; Love and Personal Identity ; Is Love Unconditional? ; Love and Personal Identity ; Love and Sex ; Chapter 5: Relationships and Insecure Attachment ; Avoidant Attachment Style ; Secure Versus Insecure Attachment ; Avoidant Attachment ; Anxious Attachment ; Childish Relationships ; Jealousy and Anxious Attachment ; Attachment and the Relationship Theory ; Can Attachment Styles Change? ; Familiar Love ; Attachment Love ; Can Animals Love? ; The Other Dimension of Sex ; Chapter 6: Our Unconscious Affections ; Opponents of Unconscious Affection ; Unconscious Affect ; Unconscious Love ; In Your Dreams ; Is Love a Disposition ; Chapter 7: He Is Just Not That into You ; (And Other In-Between Cases) ; Prototype Theory ; Non-Monogamous Love as In-Between Cases ; <"Love>" is a Gradable Verb ; He's Just Not That Into You ; Ambivalence ; Chapter 8: How To Fall Out of Love ; Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche ; Psychoanalysis and Talk Therapy ; Emotional Regulation and Avoidance Behavior ; The Repetition Technique ; Prolonged Exposure Therapy ; Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing ; Deep Relaxation and Meditation ; Heartbreak and Placement Conditioning ; The Sinclair Method ; Out, Damned Spot: Using Soap to Wash Away Your Negative Feelings ; Emotional Regulation as a Route to Happiness ; The End: The Heart Wants What It Wants ; References