A General Theory of Love - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A General Theory of Love is a book about the science of human emotions and biological psychiatry

Biological psychiatry

Biological psychiatry, or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as neuroscience, psychopharmacology, biochemistry, genetics and...

written by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon, psychiatry professors at the University of California, San Francisco

University of California, San Francisco

The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...

, and first published by Random House in 2000. It has since been reissued twice, with new editions appearing in 2001 and 2007.

Overview

The book examines the phenomenon of love and human connection from a combined scientific and cultural perspective. It attempts to reconcile the language and insights of humanistic inquiry and cultural wisdom (literature, song, poetry, painting, sculpture, dance and philosophy) with the more recent findings of social science, neuroscience and evolutionary biology. Presenting scientific facts and hypotheses through engaging prose, A General Theory of Love has been compared to the work of Stephen Pinker and Oliver Sacks. Since its first publication, the book has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Latvian, Croatian, and Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

The book surveys scientific understanding of emotion

Emotion

Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...

s and particularly intimacy and love

Love

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...

, from Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

through modern neuroscience

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...

, with a focus on the emerging understanding of the limbic brain and the development of personality

Personality Development

An individual's personality is an aggregate conglomeration of decisions we've made throughout our lives . There are inherent natural, genetic, and environmental factors that contribute to the development of our personality. According to process of socialization, "personality also colors our values,...

. The authors put forward the idea that our nervous systems are not separate or self-contained; beginning in earliest childhood, the areas of our brain identified as the limbic system

Limbic system

The limbic system is a set of brain structures including the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, septum, limbic cortex and fornix, which seemingly support a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long term memory, and olfaction. The term "limbic" comes from the Latin...

(hippocampus

Hippocampus

The hippocampus is a major component of the brains of humans and other vertebrates. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in...

, amygdala

Amygdala

The ' are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system.-...

, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex) is affected by those closest to us (limbic resonance

Limbic resonance

Limbic resonance is the capacity for sharing deep emotional states arising from the limbic system of the brain. These states include the dopamine circuit promoted feelings of empathic harmony, and the norepinephrine circuit originated emotional states of fear, anxiety and anger. The concept was...

) and synchronizes with them (limbic regulation

Limbic regulation

Limbic regulation, mood contagion or emotional contagion is the effect of contact with other people upon the development and stability of personality and mood....

) in a way that has profound implications for personality and lifelong emotional health. The authors maintain that various forms of therapy are effective not so much by virtue of their underlying theory or methodology, but to the degree to which the therapist is able to empathetically modify these set patterns (limbic revision

Limbic revision

Limbic revision is the therapeutic alteration of personality residing in the human limbic system of the brain.The concept was first advanced in the book A General Theory of Love , and is one of three interrelated concepts central to the book's premise: that our brain chemistry and nervous systems...

). The authors go on to examine how many aspects of our society and social institutions have been constructed in a way that is incompatible with our innate biology, which gives rise to individual

Psychopathology

Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...

and social pathologies.

Critical reception

A General Theory of Love received generally positive reviews, including Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, the Washington Post, and the San Francisco Examiner.
It reached number 5 slot on the San Francisco Chronicle's Non-Fiction best seller list.
However, the book has been criticized for its "convoluted and opaque" prose style, as well as its extensive reliance on the model of the triune brain

Triune brain

The triune brain is a model of the evolution of the vertebrate forebrain and behavior proposed by the American physician and neuroscientist Paul D. MacLean. MacLean originally formulated his model in the 1960s and propounded it at length in his 1990 book The Triune Brain in Evolution...

as defined by Paul D. MacLean, a model that has been variously categorized as obsolete, imprecise or unnecessary.

External links

Fari Amini, 73; Used Science To Study Love, The New York Times.
American Scientist, book review by Roger Martin.
Entertainment Weekly, book review by Clarissa Cruz.
The Permanente Journal, book review by Vincent J Felitti, MD.
The New York Times, book review by Liesl Schillinger.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Overview

Contents

Critical reception

See also

External links