Love~Rollo May

A detailed Summary of Love~Rollo May

"There is a belief that love heals all and that if one does not have it, one is a failure."(Monte, 1999, P.591.) People have sought love as a solution to all their problems, but now has become a problem in itself. May has discussed his theory of love in depth in Love and Will. Love and Will describes and Beneath the Mask, Monte repeats May's four different forms of loving. Agape or Caritas or Care, Sex or lust or libido, Eros and Death, and last is Philia. May states that we have created a sort of Schizoid World, a numbness against all problems and feelings. This numbness causes uncaring and therefore an unmotivated life. This numbness is also the cause of violence because people feel as if they don't have an impact on anyone's life, which causes them to resort to physical impact, because they are unable to make an emotional connection.

The first form of loving is Agape or Caritas or Care. It is the love for the wellbeing of others and self. Form the beginning of life care is essential, it is what humans need to survive. A person must care in order to accomplish anything, from having a meaningful sexual relationship or friendship to taking care of the self. Agape or Caritas or Care is the prerequisi

Eros is the Greek god of love (a progenitor, a creator, and the source of life). The thirst to have a relationship grow. But in order to truly love another, one must be able to face grief, sorrow, disappointment, and loss. That is the strong relationship between death and love. It can take at least three forms. First is a realization and recognition of our own mortality and finding great appreciation in things that give us pleasure. Second, there are many links with love, sex and death in speech and in dreams. An example, in dreams, is when a patient dreams of the death of a person they are in love, or later realize they are in love with. Also to love someone and the experience of orgasm is only possible when you are able to surrender yourself completely like in death. The third form is avoiding, defying, fear by reenacting this potentially life-producing activity. An example of this is having unprotected sex, there is a chance of contacting an infectious disease that could be life threatening.

In the following paragraphs I will apply May's theory of love to an aspect of a very close friend of mine. I felt as though my own experiences weren't terribly useful. My friend has been through many different relationships. In some of these relationships she has felt 'in love' in others not.

May's over emphasis on sex and his preoccupation with men's obsession with fulfilling sexual pleasure in their partners were the only two ides I found to critique. I found May's work very interesting and enlightening

The second critique I have found is the May's emphasis on man's obsession with sex, concluding that only men have this obsession. "...anxious overemphasis on achieving the orgasm and the great importance attached to 'satisfying' the partner. A man makes a point of asking a woman if she 'made it', or she is all right'...We men are reminded by Simone de Beauvoir and other women who try to interpret the love act that this is the last thing in the world a woman wants to be asked at that moment. Furthermore, the technical preoccupation robs the woman of exactly what she wants most of all, physically and emotionally, namely the man's spontaneous abandon at the moment of climax." (May, 1969,P.44.) May is stating that all the man wants to do is have good sex, and the woman is the only one looking for an emotional connection. I feel that there would also be times when a woman can act mechanically and not be interested in an emotional connection during sex. An example would be prostitutes; the

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Approximate Word count = 1684
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English