The researchers found that, for heartbroken men and women, looking at photographs of former partners activated regions in the brain associated with rewards, addiction cravings, control of emotions, feelings of attachment and physical pain and distress.
The results provide insight into why it might be hard for some people to get over a break up, and why, in some cases, people are driven to commit extreme behaviors, such as stalking and homicide, after losing love.
"Romantic love is an addiction," said study author Helen E. Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University who studies love. "It’s a very powerfully wonderful addiction when things are going well and a perfectly horrible addiction when things are going poorly," she said.
I don't like them referring to romantic love as an addiction
I save teh word addiction to refer to somethign pursued that is DESTROYING your life and the lives around you.
Romantic love CAN be an addiction if its an AFFAIR..
Sorry guys I had to make that distinction.. I dont' consider healthy activities an addiction, and pursuing a romantic partner isn't an addiction.. its not destructive...
It's doing it in SECRET when you are already MARRIED.. THAT's when its an addiction...
My CONCERN is that a wayward cheating spouse will see this article adn think there is NO DIFFERNCE between conventional romance and infidleity.. there IS...
Infidleity is a sick addictive destructive activiity.. the former is NOT
The point is the same point we are ALWAYS trying to make on here, and that is that love and lust are ADDICTIONS, that can either be good or harmful, depending on whether or not they are morally appropriate, that they even show up on CAT scans, and that they should be treated as such.
"Romantic love is an addiction," said study author Helen E. Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University who studies love. "It’s a very powerfully wonderful addiction when things are going well and a perfectly horrible addiction when things are going poorly," she said.
This is the passage that concerns me... it doesn't say "love and lust".. it says romantic love.. ie marriage
Is marriage an addiction? I say no, but this says YES...
SOrry, but the distinctions I want to see just aren't in the passage.. its not what it says here, its what's missing that worries me...
And I still dont' accept a healhty activity as an addiction.. to my mind an addiction necessarily involves something that destroys healthy lifestyles and trades them for something that does damage instead
My concern isn't this passage, its that there isn't a clear distinction between marriage, conventional romance, and infidelity.. its the first thing I look for is a clear distinction between these three activities... To my mind all three are very different activities people engage in...
I can only accept infidelity as an addiction...
I can accept that infidelity triggers the same areas of the brain as conventional romance and marriage, but I can't accept all three as equially addictive...
It just DIGNIFIES infidleity to the same level and I can't accept that
It's a widely-held view that marriages (or any long-term, opposite-sex relationships) go thru an infatuation/love/lust "eros" phase in the beginning, and then settle into a more "agape"/"phileo" love phase the longer the couple is together (still with plenty of "eros" love if the couple works at their sex life). This is why Phil McGraw makes that important distinction that he does (or is it Tupy?) about how unfair it is to compare the giddy rush of a new, adulterous relationship, with the feelings that the wayward spouse has for their husband or wife.
I am making a distintion between even conventional dating and infidelity.. marriage is a third category...
To my mind dating and marriage are both healthly things to do with your life.. infidelity is destructive, and so is tagged as an addictiont aht needs treatment
I don't want people to think dating needs treatment and that its an addiction... it just dignifies infidelity.. see my point?
