Human Adjustment and the Loss of a Romantic Relationship

             "I don't know if I'm real without you.
             I don't know what's real without you.
             Turn on the radio at any point during the day and you are sure to hear at least one jilted singer crooning a heartfelt ballad about a lost love. The preceding excerpt from the song "Shame" by the group Stabbing Westward is one of many similar sentiments expressed through music since the beginning of time. Losing a loved one, whether due to a relationship break-up or through death can be an exceedingly painful process. It is one that is often full of conflicting thoughts and emotions and a profound feeling of emptiness.
             However, while countless songs and poems are written about the pain of loss, few are written about the eventual outcome – surviving that loss. Despite how helpless the situation appears, humans are resilient creatures. Through time and appropriate support one can emerge from this period of grief and adapt to the situation.
             So what is this concept of love that has such a powerful and dramatic effect on us? It is a vague notion that is often best described by the Shakespeare's of our time and not by science, however, some definition seems necessary.
             Aristotle once said, "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." He also felt that there are four different kinds of love: storge (mutual affection), philia (friendship), agape (a forgiving moral love) and romantic love, which he coined eros (Enright and Fitzgibbons, 2000).
             Eros is the type of love that usually comes to mind when this word is used. Robert Sternberg's way of looking at romantic love has come to be accepted by many psychologists as an accurate description (Robbins, 1996, p. 18). He sees this hard-to-pinpoint emotion as best described by a triangle with one of three distinct components at each point: intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment. Intimacy is, according to Sternberg, "those fee...

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Human Adjustment and the Loss of a Romantic Relationship. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 10:40, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/100222.html