Michael's Story: Love and Vulnerability in a Close Relationship
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MICHAEL'S STORY: LOVE AND VULNERABILITY IN A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP by WENDY-ANNE CORRY submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the subject PSYCHOLOGY at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: PROF J.M. NIEUWOUDT NOVEMBER 2002 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 0001943725 For my daughters Heidi Margaret, Nicola Makiri, Catherine Anne & Sarah Natasha (ii) DECLARATION I declare that MICHAEL'S STORY: LOVE AND VULNERABILITY IN A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP is my own work and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. (iii) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Johan Nieuwoudt for his patience and encouragement which enabled me to persevere with this work. Thank-you to all the Unisa staff from my undergraduate and post graduate years who painstakingly taught me to write. Thank-you Vic Kotze and Adrian Tyghe from the Martindale Counselling Centre who awakened the desire in me to study Psychology which placed me on a path of understanding. Most of all I would like to thank Michael for sharing his story with me. (iv) ABSTRACT Being in love in a close relationship is contingent upon biological, intrapsychic, social and cultural events. Understanding these processes has implications for stability and health in individuals families and society. Various dimensions of love are considered as converging on a more basic concept of vulnerability as a part of the human condition where both love and vulnerability are experiences which shape individual development growth, interdependence and survival or the lack thereof The objective of this study is to capture the dilemmas which underlie love and vulnerability in a qualitative study. The method is a case study of a story using narrative analysis and the relation of theory to experiences revealed in the story. Analysis included observation of the major premises, setting, structure, imagoes and voices in the story and theories included Lee's (1977) theory of love, Sternberg's (1986) triangular theory of love, attachment theory, social construction, psychobiological theory and phenomenologal theories of love. A summary finds that most theories infer vulnerability as an underlying dimension in processes of love and that vulnerability as a characteristic in human mortality may be implicated in love experiences. (v) TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 lVIETHOD 6 2.1 MOTIVATION 6 2.2 BACKGROUND 10 3 LITERATURE REVIEW 13 3.1 LOVE 13 3.1.1 A Constructionist approach 13 3.1.2 The Psychoanalytic approach 15 3.1.3 The Psychosocial approach 21 3.1.4 The Evolutionary approach 26 3.1.5 A Phenomenological approach 29 3.1.6 A Psychobiological approach 31 3.2 VULNERABILITY 34 4 MICHAEL'S STORY RETOLD 38 5 MICHAEL'S STORY REVISITED 80 5.1 NARRATIVE ANALYSIS 80 5.1.1 Major premises 80 5.1.2 Setting 82 5.1.3 Structure 85 5.1.4 Imagoes 86 5.1.5 Voices 89 5.2 RELATION TO THEORY 90 5.2.l Lee's (1977) theory 90 5.2.2 Sternberg's (1986) theory 91 5.2.3 Attachment theory 92 5.2.4 Psychoanalytic theory 93 5.2.5 Social Construction 93 5.2.6 Psychobiological theory 94 5.2.7 Phenomenology 95 5.3 SUMMARY 95 6 REFLECTION 98 BIBLIOGRAPHY 103 APPENDIX (vi) 1 INTRODUCTION Ah, love let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land ofdreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms ofstruggle andflight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. Matthew Arnold (1993) In many ways much of the process of falling in love is triggered by contingent biological, intrapsychic, social and cultural events which play a part in the surrender of lovers to each other, and the notion of 'love at first sight' more logically, is an imaginative conjunction of form and feeling which depends on co-incidence. Chance provides an opportunity for lovers to make a leap across a disjunction where imagination finds opportunity to fill the perceived gap. Disjunctions are at the heart of human social functioning, where individuals strive for unity within themselves and between each other in a struggle which includes defending against possibilities of disorganisation and vulnerability (Klein in Rhode, 1998). A relationship is understood to exist when two people are causally and mutually connected at behavioural, emotional and cognitive levels, and the relationship can be considered close to the extent that it involves strong, frequent, and diverse causal connections (Kelley, 1983). Close 1 relationship research provides a framework which identifies broad concepts germane to different relationship types, interdependence, situations and points in development, and in particular, patterns of mutual influence between partners (Clark & Reis, 1988). Desire is pivotal in both altering and constituting relationships in ways which involve longings which not only inspire imagination to satisfy wishes, but together with affect and imagination can modify perceptions of, and interaction with the person loved. Expression of love in adult affiliation is an important consideration in close relationships because of love's influence in producing and sustaining desire to be with the loved person and the consequent implications for health, happiness and satisfaction. Love has been recognised as a significant dimension of life by notable philosophers and influential writers since Plato and the Romantic poets particularly illustrated the imaginative ideals oflove. Love is therefore a particularly complex, interesting and important topic for psychology to comprehend because of the interplay of wishes and imagination which bring about happiness and/or distress in relationships. Understanding love in relationships has implications for stability and health within individuals, families and society. Western contemporary culture places a heavy emphasis and focus on individual satisfaction as a valued end, where increasingly, relationships are targeted as a primary area for personal gratification. When satisfaction is not found, relationships end (Westen, 1996). At the heart of love is a possibility of a freedom to be oneself naturally and to permit others that freedom, a freedom which supports opportunities for meaningful, consistent and coherent self definition. Gilligan (1982) believes that to have a voice is to be human and to have something to say is to be a person but that speaking depends on listening and being heard and therefore 2 speaking and listening are a form of psychic breathing. Love breathes in this context of interaction and internalised histories of interactions. This can mean that social interaction establishes a space where both potential for growth and individual vulnerability arises; a context where vulnerability, if contained, can provide a critical moment for change, and a prerequisite to harmony and clarity. On the other hand, vulnerability in a relationship can precipitate pre occupation and confusion, where thoughts and feelings are constrained from free interaction because they may be experienced as shameful or unresolved, and which may promote destructive interaction patterns and further forms of interactive and internal alienation compounding inner vulnerability. Defences mobilised against painful vulnerability require vast amounts of psychological energy to sustain, and can remove a necessary vitality for loving (Noam & Wren, 1993). In reviewing the literature on love research, a concept of vulnerability has received little attention and while researchers agree that love is a multidimensional construct, it is also possible to conceive that various dimensions converge on a more basic concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability is an inherent part of the human condition, however, pre-occupation and confusion of inner vulnerability is a point of division or shadow - a loneliness one feels between feeling connected from oneself and others. Researchers (Kelvin, 1977; Levin, 1993; & Patterson, 1984) have indicated that tension within an individual's internal and external world, engender opposite experiences of isolation and relatedness, loneliness and connectedness which have implications for intimacy and power motivation in interpersonal relationships. Underlying an attempt to balance isolation and relatedness, is a sense of ambiguity which is experienced as threatening because of uncertainties 3 around predicting and gaining control of a social situation (environment) and because a predictable part of defining and locating oneself in the world (sense of self) is challenged. Underlying conflicts can be characterized by, on the one hand - an independent self, and union with a person - and on the other hand, the wish to expand and enrich the perception of the self, as well as maintain a secure definition of self and identity within existing boundaries (Cohen, 1994). Both love and vulnerability are experiences which shape individual development, growth, relationships, various forms of self-reliance and interdependence and survival or the lack thereof as infants grow into mature adults. A competitive and hostile environment requires coalitions be developed for survival. Porges (1998) demonstrated that love evolved to maximise adaptive benefits associated with reproduction and safety, even to the extent where the nervous systems of mammals were stimulated to form enduring bonds with an inappropriate mate. He found that while selection of a monogamous mate