Our Need For Love

We come into this world needing love. 

Love is essential to life and health. When newly born infants are deprived of love there are dire physical and emotional consequences. There are old studies that examined the dire consequences of being born and institutionalized without love. Sickness and behavioral disorder are a common aftereffect. Infant humans thrive on love. Our organism at birth recognizes when love is present and when it is not. The science of just how love supports life is vague and undeveloped. We are focused primarily on what physical requirements infants need to thrive without a clear specific understanding of how and why the early emotional life requires love as it does. When love is limited by the psychopathology or immaturity of the adults who are caring for the infant, the infant human reacts physically and behaviorally because he or she knows and feels deprivation is occurring.

We suffer emotionally and physically when love is not given in childhood and adolescence. 

The nature of the love needed changes over the course of early life. Of course, the love given at birth is different than the love given an older child or teenager. Our need for love evolves. When love is not given adequately, or is interrupted, or lost in childhood, there are painful consequences. The deprived need for love can remain unfulfilled and painful for a lifetime. Resolving the deprivation of love in childhood requires grieving the loss of love and finding mature love elsewhere. The mental health profession is slowly starting to recognize the true origin of mental illness as the deprivation of love in childhood and adolescence. This continues to be a slow and complicated recognition because many professionals in mental health have had unresolved personal experiences of inadequate love in their own lives.

Trying to get deprived childhood love in adulthood

Technically, we only get one chance to be loved as children and that’s in childhood. After that, if the need for childhood love persists into adulthood it’s abnormal. An experience of being loved as a child in adulthood, is at best an illusion with a pretty steep price. Those of us who secretly or not so secretly pursue childhood love from other adults risk being abused in one form or another. A much healthier alternative is to grieve the loss, and become accustomed to sharing an adulthood form of love with another adult. Adult love is mutually given and received, never just one or the other. The good news is, it is possible to be deprived of adequate love in childhood and learn how to love in a healthy way in adulthood.

Need for love in adulthood

The need for matured love in adulthood is a reality whether acknowledged or not. Mother Nature makes sure the need for love never leaves us in the course of our lives. However, we can pretend we don’t need love. We can try to convince those around us we don’t need love. We can even work hard to convince ourselves we don’t need love.  Nevertheless, so much of adult illness and suffering can be traced back to not being adequately loved in adulthood. Sometimes I think that human beings are still not aware of their need for love as an essential human experience. We’ve constructed a world that offers so many unavoidable distractions from our true nature. As a consequence, people too often suffer from an unloved adulthood.

Love life defenses

Psychological love life defenses are the activities we engage in to protect ourselves from the repetitive hurts and disappointments of unhealthy adult love. These defenses are well practiced and interfere with the task of repairing love life problems. They are usually unconscious, meaning we have concealed their presence even from ourselves. Some of the most prominent love life defenses are: denial, distance, conflict, avoidance, and changing partners. Denial is pretty straight forward. “I don’t have any love life problems.” OK, that’s that. Distance involves keeping a distance either physically, emotionally, or both, from people who can hurt us whether we are in a relationship with them or not. Conflict is interesting. People who practice conflict as a love life defense generate conflict regularly as a way to be in a love relationship and not feel vulnerable. Basically, you are too busy fighting and being angry to pay attention to your need for love. Then there’s avoidance. It’s usually called resignation. Being resigned to the idea that love to too hurtful and disappointing to be pursued. “Better safe than hurt” is their motto. Last but certainly not least, is the art and science of changing partners, which has a double meaning. You can change partners by literally replacing people you love with other people you’ll love hoping for a better fit. “The people I find have the love problem not me.” The unfortunate consequence, regrettably, is a superficial love life. The other meaning of changing partners is to try to change the person you are in love with. Make them into the person you need them to be. Sorry, it’s impossible. People just don’t change because we want them to. They can pretend to satisfy us, but what is that worth? You’ll have a better chance in love if you find someone whose faults you can live with.

Love heals the mind and body

An article on the our collective need for love would not be complete without mentioning the healing power of love. Love supports life throughout the lifespan. Remember the old proof for this assertion, married adult men are healthier and live longer than single adult men. Why? Because they are loved? Could be. But how does that work? Does love have a medicinal effect on the body? How does love heal the mind? Perhaps the mind and body get enhanced in some way we don’t yet understand. How about this one: my father-in-law in Florida on his deathbed with a terminal illness, that had already claimed most of his functioning, stayed alive long enough, one week in fact, to say goodbye to his only daughter, my wife. What kept him alive? Love.

Comments welcome. Share your love life experiences.

Dr. Thomas Jordan, clinical psychologist, interpersonal psychoanalyst, author of Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life.  Contact: 212-875-0154 or drtomjordan@lovelifelearningcenter.com for inquiries. Love Life Telehealth Consultations available by request.