Thoughts of the therapist on love, family and relationships. The neurotic need for love

The issue that we wish to discuss here is a neurotic need for love. These are familiar to every therapist exaggerated needs in some patients for emotional attachment, a positive evaluation from others, their advice and support, as well as in an exaggerated suffering, if this requirement is not satisfied.

However, what is the difference between normal and neurotic need for love?

We all want to love and be loved, if it succeeds, we feel happy. At this point the need for love, or rather the need to be loved is not neurotic. In the neurotic the need to be loved is exaggerated. If people are less kind than usual, it spoils the mood of neurotic. For the mentally healthy person is important to be loved, respected and valued by the people whom he values ​​himself, a neurotic need for love is intrusive and not legible.

Andrew Atroshenko Just for Love Painting

Such a neurotic reaction very clearly revealed in the process of psychoanalysis, as in the patient-analyst relationship there is one feature that distinguishes them from other human relationships. In psychoanalysis, regarding dosage of emotional involvement therapist creates an opportunity to observe these neurotic manifestations in a more vivid way than it happens in everyday life: we see again and again, how many patients are willing to sacrifice to gain the approval of his therapist, and they are meticulous in everything that may cause dissatisfaction.

Of all the manifestations of a neurotic need for love we want to select one, fairly widespread in our culture. This is overevaluation of love peculiar to, above all, a certain type of women. We have in mind, neurotic women who feel insecure, unhappy and depressed always, until no one is infinitely loyal to them, who would have loved them and cared for them. At such women the desire to marry takes the form of obsession. They get stuck on this desire as if they were hypnotized, even if they themselves are absolutely not capable of love and their relationship to men is known to be bad.

Another significant feature of the neurotic need for love is its rapacity, as expressed in the terrible jealousy: “You must love only me.” By jealousy we mean here not a reaction based on actual facts, but namely, gluttony and claim to be the sole object of love.

Another expression of neurotic needs of gluttony in love is the requirement of unconditional love. ”You must love me whether I am myself.” Even the fact that in psychoanalysis, the patient must pay a therapist for the neurotic is the proof that the original intention of the therapist is not help: “I would like to help, would not take money.” In their attitude to one’s own love life is dominated by a similar view: “He (she) loves me only because it gets sexual gratification.” Partner must constantly prove their “real” love, sacrificing their moral ideals, reputation, money, time, etc. Any failure to comply with these absolute requirements is always interpreted by the neurotic as a betrayal.

Another sign of a neurotic need for love is extreme sensitivity to rejection. Any nuances in relationships that could be interpreted as a rejection, the neurotic accept in this way, and answers to this with hatred.

In the end, there is a big question, why is so difficult to satisfy the neurotic need for your love?

One reason – his insatiable need for love, for which everything will always be not enough.

Another reason is the inability to love the neurotic personality.

The neurotic is not aware of his inability to love. He usually does not even know that does not know how to love. Most often, the neurotic lives with the illusion that he is the greatest the lovers and capable of the greatest dedication. He holds on to this self-deception, because he has a very important function to justify its claims to love. It is this self-deception that allows neurotic demand more love from others, and it would be impossible if he really realized that in fact he does not care for them.

Another reason why the neurotic’s so hard to feel loved it’s unreasonable fear of rejection. This fear can be so great that it often does not allow him to approach other people, even with a simple question. He lives in constant fear that they would alienate the other person. It may even be afraid to present gifts – out of fear of failure. Fear of rejection and rejection of the hostile reaction makes the neurotic to get more and more far away from the people. Such people can be compared to people dying of hunger, which could take the food if their hands weren’t tied behind their back. They are convinced that nobody could love them and this belief can’t be changed.

Fear of love is closely connected with the fear of addiction. Because these people really depend on the love of others, and need it like the air, the danger to get into a painful state of dependence is indeed very high. They especially fear any form of addiction, because we believe in the hostility of others.

How can it be understood this neurotic need for love with her constant exaggerated, pathological obsession and insatiable?

You might think that a neurotic need for love is an expression of infantile ‘fixation on the mother. “This is confirmed by the dreams of these people, either directly or symbolically expressed the desire to drop to his mother’s breast or back in the womb. The story of their childhood, really shows that they either did not receive enough love and warmth from the mother, or that they were already in childhood to her very much (obsessive) attached. In the first case of a neurotic need for love – it persists an expression of desire, by all means to achieve the maternal love that they have received less in childhood. In the second case, it seems that this is a direct repetition of clinging to his mother.

In many cases, it seems an obvious interpretation is that the neurotic need for love is an expression of significant deficits in self-esteem. Low self-esteem, attitude toward himself as a worst enemy, the attack on himself are typical companions of people who need love to feel safe and to raise his low self-esteem.

Often, a neurotic need for love is manifested in the form of sexual advances to a therapist. The patient expresses through his behavior a dream, that he (she) is in love with the therapist and tends to some sort of sexual involvement. In some cases, the need for love is manifested directly or exclusively in the sexual sphere. To understand this phenomenon, we must remember that sexual desires do not necessarily reflect the sexual needs as such – human sexuality can also be a form of orientation on contact with another person. The sooner the neurotic need for love is expressed in the form of sexuality, the heavier are formed emotional relationships with others. In such cases, the sexuality is one of the few, and perhaps the only bridge connecting to another person.