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What's LOVE Got to do with it? Love, Creativity and Mental Health

What's LOVE Got to do with it? Love, Creativity and Mental Health. The psychology of Love, attachment and the use of Creativity. (Key Note Lecture) By Divine Charura (Psychotherapist and Lecturer) Annual Conference of Psychological Therapies: Leeds Metropolitan University 2011.

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What's LOVE Got to do with it? Love, Creativity and Mental Health

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  1. What's LOVE Got to do with it? Love, Creativity and Mental Health The psychology of Love, attachment and the use of Creativity. (Key Note Lecture) By Divine Charura (Psychotherapist and Lecturer) Annual Conference of Psychological Therapies: Leeds Metropolitan University 2011

  2. How we will look at Love? • Attachment & Love styles. • Impact of Love on the Family system. • Impact of love on the brain/mental health and issues in Therapy. • Impact of creativity.

  3. Quotes on Love • Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." - Mark Twain • Love is patient , love is Kind… God is Love (Bible) • If there had been no love.The world would have not existed. (Traditional Dalmatian song) • All you need is love.John Lennon & Paul McCartney

  4. Love exists in many cultures, faiths, Philosophies and religions. • Many studies have concluded that Love exists in every culture. • Is there anyone who has never heard of the word or the concept of Love?

  5. Research Studies highlighting importance of Love and attachment. • Early 1900's, Of 10,272 children admitted to the Dublin Foundling home during a single 25 year period, only 45 survived (Joseph 1999). • R.A. Spitz, (1952) studied institutionalised Children- display low intelligence, extreme passivity, attention deficits. • Romanian orphans–“virtual black-hole“ orbitofrontal cortex (Chugani et al 2001).

  6. Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process throughout life. • The concept of "attachment", referring to a continuous tie to a specific person that the child turns to when feeling vulnerable and in need of protection (Bowlby 1951) • In Adults - throughout life may manifest as separation anxiety, grief experiences and mourning.

  7. Emotional development Attachment and Development of Love • Margaret Ainsworth's (1963) "Strange Situation" study. • Margaret Ainsworth's & John Bowlby (1991) - A neglectful, stressed or inconsistent parent gave the kind of care which tended to lead to anxious, insecure or avoidant children. • Further studies showed prediction attachment pattern of children aged 5 and 8.

  8. Why Love matters: Parent-Child Attachment Perspective - Sue Gerhardt • Earliest relationship shapes the baby's nervous system, with lasting consequences (2004). • Development of the brain can affect future emotional well being. • Distress at 4 months old: behaviour at 1 and 5 years old predicted.

  9. Attachment theories- Melanie Klein Love, Guilt, and Reparation (1921-1945) • "... The power of love - which is the manifestation of the forces which tend to preserve life - is there in the baby as well as the destructive impulses, ……..“ • Love is central to child development.

  10. Theories of Love as attachment • Secure attachment • Anxious Ambivalent • Avoidant attachment • Attachment theory has been criticised for nature of experiments and by feminists. • Focus is on what then are an alternative theories of Love?

  11. Love Styles- Greek Philosophy andColours of Love (J.A Lee 1973) • Agápe - Brotherly love • Éros - Passionate love, with sensual desire • Philía - Love between family • Storgē-Friendship • Ludus- Game playing love ( Playful Interactions: Uncommitted Love) • Mania – (Eros + Ludos) Jealousy & Dependency • Pragma– (Storge + Ludos) Realistic and practical Love

  12. Robert Sternberg’s duplex theory of love (1986). Liking Intimacy Romantic Love Companionate Passion + Intimacy Intimacy + commitment Infatuation Fatuous Love Empty Love Passion Passion + Commitment Commitment CONSUMMATE LOVE INTIMACY – PASSION - COMMITMENT

  13. Do we learn about Love in our primary family system? • I propose that concepts of Love Begins in the family. • What is a family? • AFT takes 'family' to mean any group of people who define themselves as such, who care about and care for each other (AFT 2011).

  14. Difference and Diversity in family processes and Love The Jones Family Jane 47 Sue 50 James 56 Paris 7 Malcom 16

  15. In my family I learnt that I should Love you with my whole heart….. • ……………Well actually I Love you with my whole Brain…….and all the chemicals in it make me love you more……OR hate you. • Its all to do with Brain Biology.

  16. Impact on the Brain • Differences in brainstem and limbic forebrain • If reared in an abnormal, deprived environment, the limbic system nuclei will atrophy, or neural pathways will develop abnormally. • Brain Neurochemistry

  17. Cortisol, Love and the brain • Cortisol is a Hormone produced in the hypothalamus responsible for homeostasis, emotion & motor function. • Regulation of Cortisol is experience dependent. • Too much is linked to depression and fearfulness; too little to emotional detachment and aggression.

  18. What's Love got to do with it? • Our own personal lives • Children • Death bereavement and loss • Couples, families or individuals we meet everyday in therapy • Psychological adjustment: M. health

  19. What's Love got to do with it?

  20. Conditions of worth and conditional positive regard- Carl Rogers 1959 • Conditional positive regard. • Alienated from our true selves. • Incongruence between the perceived self and ideal self: maladjustment. • Our ‘Work’ and Love? i.e Therapy, Chaplaincy, Psychoanalysis?

  21. Psychoanalysis and Love • “At base Psychoanalysis is , a cure through Love” (Letter to Jung , 6 December 1906). • “Our treatments are treatments of Love”–Viennese psychoanalytic Society on psychoanalytic treatment.

  22. Love Creativity? • Research shows that in all therapeutic relationships what is helpful is • “ The relationship” = Love? (Haugh and Paul 2008) • Only one way to Love: Creativity

  23. Forms of creativity • Exploring a narrative • Biographical work (photos, letters..) • Invocatory work- using an object to represent meaning. • Radical group work • Art, dance, music • Complementary therapy • In whatever we do we can be creative

  24. Impact of Creativity on Continual development of The Limbic System The right side is more visual and processes intuitively, holistically, and randomly Left side of the brain is active in language and processes in a logical and sequential order. • Love and Creativity stimulates both sides • Formation of New Nerves. • Better mental health?

  25. To love and be creative or not to Love that’s the question? • Attachment & Love styles • Impact of Love on the Family system • Impact of love on the brain and mental health and issues in Therapy. • Impact of creativity Above all I wish you true Love: Thank you

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