Love Relations: Normality and Pathology

By Otto F. Kernberg and Doctor (M.D.) Otto Kernberg M.D.

Book Overview

Dr. Otto Kernberg, the internationally renowned psychoanalytic theorist and clinician, here examines the success and failure of sexual love in couples, from adolescence to old age.

Dr. Kernberg considers the two partners' conscious and unconscious emotional interactions and their unconsciously activated superego interactions. He also suggests that they establish a joint ego ideal as a couple, which plays an important role in the success of the relationship. And because the couple experiences love and sex in the context of the social environment, he studies the nature of relations between the couple and the group.

After describing the biological and psychological determinants and elements of the sexual experience, Dr. Kernberg traces the nature of that experience over time in the light of object relations theory. He shows how the activation of unconscious, internalized object relations from the past triggers the most troubling conflicts and is also responsible for the most exciting aspects of a couple's love life. Throughout, Dr. Kernberg considers both so-called normal and pathological relationships, including the role of narcissism, masochism, and aggression in each. The result is a book that expands the boundaries of our current understanding of love relations.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300074352
• ISBN13: 9780300074352
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly Accurate in Many Ways.

Love Relations is a book that exists at the mid-point between pop and professional psychology. A real strength of Kernberg's is that he is able to write in a comprehensive manner which is not sabotaged by a lust for jargon. I do think there is one internal problem within the text that I should mention sooner rather than later: his observations are light on the "normal" and heavy on the "pathological." Remarks specific to the whole are what is of most use in analyzing love relations, and I know, from trying to find quotes to use for my own work, that much of his passages are in reference to hysteria and narcissism-- which makes it far more difficult to develop an overall view of romantic and familial interactions. I was rather surprised that many of Kernberg's assumptions are not discordant with those of evolutionary psychology which, it becomes more clear with each day, has far more to say about the world around us than anything from the psychoanalytic school. Other than the time I recall his referencing the discredited Money study from the seventies, Kernberg is in the vicinity of the truth on many occasions. Furthermore, the individual cases of couples he references are very interesting even though they are too brief. On the whole, this is a solidly educational work which contributes to our aggregate knowledge of that most wondrous of human states.

Both useful and profound

In lively, vivid clinical examples, this book validates Freudian-derived object-relations concepts brilliantly. Erotic forces and the conflicts they engender powerfully shape personality, relationships, and experience of life.The serious student of humanity will find in these pages enlightenment and depth.

Brave, Brilliant, Not Always Convincing

Kernberg goes where psychotherapy fears to tread. By continuing -- mostly convincingly -- to find Freudian thought useful, he eschews the naive humanism one might argue embodied by people like Erich Fromm and Karen Horney. Whenever one wants to dismiss his insistence on, what at times seems like obsession with, theoretical constructs like castration anxiety and penis envy, when he gets to the meat and potatoes of his theory, he convinces. Anyone who has sensed a strange pattern or a strange logic in particularly exciting and frustrating sexual relationships will find a lot to comfort him here. I'd recommend this book to lay readers who have generally strong egos but find that, in sexual areas, their lives don't make sense, their relationships at a much lower level of functioning than the other parts of their lives.If you have trouble integrating sexuality into your life and relationships, and have a general grasp, and affection for, psychoanalytic topics, you will find this book useful. Kernberg's naievete shows in the obstinacy of his writing, but while one might wish for a clearer explication, it's also clear he's not writing for a general audience. He leaves little room for disagreement, but it could also be argued that the strength of his convictions is what allows for such original and at times disturbing insight.My gut tells me Kernberg's right more than he's wrong. The bleakness of his vision has integrity, and the hard lessons he seeks to teach are worth heeding.

relationships on the couch

An excellent book on relationships from a Freudean perspective. People without any background in the jargon will find it slow reading, but it is a lean book. For the average person, they won't benefit from it until they have been burned in relationships with people that have emotional problems, but for folks that have been around the block once or twice, much of this book will be startlingly clear. Freud is like scotch - you appreciate more as you get older. Also, this book explains why a person may have a satisfactory sex life in college during a period of rebellion, but then "settle down" to a loveless marriage with someone who will take turns acting like the guilty, pouting destructive child and the punishing, negligent parent rather than an autonomous adult.