A General Theory of Love is a book about the science of human emotions An emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Emotions are subjective experiences, often associated with mood, temperament, personality, and disposition. The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin emovere, where e- means 'out' and biological psychiatry Biological psychiatry, or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as neuroscience, psychopharmacology, biochemistry, genetics and physiology to investigate the biological bases of written by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon, psychiatry professors at the University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dental, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world. The UCSF Medical Center is consistently ranked among the top 10 hospitals in, and first published by Random House in 2000. It has since been reissued twice, with new editions appearing in 2001 and 2007.
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Overview
The book examines the phenomenon of love and human connection from a combined scientific and cultural perspective. It attempts to reconcile the language and insights of humanistic inquiry and cultural wisdom (literature, song, poetry, painting, sculpture, dance and philosophy) with the more recent findings of social science, neuroscience and evolutionary biology. Presenting scientific facts and hypotheses through engaging prose, A General Theory of Love has been compared to the work of Stephen Pinker and Oliver Sacks. Since its first publication, the book has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Latvian, Croatian, and Persian Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq, Bahrain, and Oman. New Persian, which usually is called also by the names of Dari, Farsi, Parsi or Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation.[1]
Contents
The book surveys scientific understanding of emotions An emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Emotions are subjective experiences, often associated with mood, temperament, personality, and disposition. The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin emovere, where e- means 'out' and particularly intimacy Intimacy generally refers to the feeling of being in a close personal association and belonging together. It is a familiar and very close affective connection with another as a result of entering deeply or closely into relationship through knowledge and experience of the other. Genuine intimacy in human relationships requires dialogue, and love Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my boyfriend"). This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the, from Freud Sigmund Freud , Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating psychopathology through modern neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Such studies span the structure, function, evolutionary history, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, informatics, computational neuroscience and pathology of the nervous system, with a focus on the emerging understanding of the limbic brain and the development of personality. The authors put forward the idea that our nervous systems are not separate or self-contained; beginning in earliest childhood, the areas of our brain identified as the limbic system The limbic system is a set of brain structures including the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex, which support a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long term memory, and olfaction. The term "limbic" comes from Latin limbus, loosely translating as "border" or "belt" (hippocampus The hippocampus is a major component of the brains of humans and other mammals. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in long-term memory and spatial navigation. Like the cerebral cortex, with which it is closely associated, it is a paired structure, with mirror-image halves in the left and right sides of the brain. In humans, amygdala The amygdalae are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex) is affected by those closest to us (limbic resonance) and synchronizes with them (limbic regulation) in a way that has profound implications for personality and lifelong emotional health Mental health is a term used to describe either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological. The authors maintain that various forms of therapy are effective not so much by virtue of their underlying theory or methodology, but to the degree to which the therapist is able to empathetically modify these set patterns (limbic revision). The authors go on to examine how many aspects of our society and social institutions have been constructed in a way that is incompatible with our innate biology, which gives rise to individual Psychopathology is a term which refers to either the study of mental illness or mental distress, or the manifestation of behaviors and experiences which may be indicative of mental illness or psychological impairment, such as abnormal, maladaptive behavior or mental activity and social pathologies.[2]
Critical Reception
A General Theory of Love received generally positive reviews, including Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, the Washington Post, and the San Francisco Examiner.[3] It reached number 5 slot on the San Francisco Chronicle's Non-Fiction best seller list.[4] However, the book has been criticized for its "convoluted and opaque" prose style,[5] as well as its extensive reliance on the model of the triune brain as defined by Paul D. MacLean Paul D. MacLean was an American physician and neuroscientist who made significant contributions in the fields of physiology, psychiatry, and brain research through his work at Yale Medical School and the National Institute of Mental Health. MacLean's evolutionary triune brain theory proposed that the human brain was in reality three brains in one:, a model that has been variously categorized as obsolete,[6] imprecise or unnecessary.[7]
See also
- Affective neuroscience Affective neuroscience is the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood
- Limbic resonance
- Limbic regulation
- Limbic revision
References
- ^ Lewis, Thomas. "Thomas Lewis: Author's official website". http://www.thomaslewis.com/writing.html. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ Lewis, Thomas L.; Amini, Fari; Lannon, Richard (2000). A general theory of love. New York: Random House. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0-375-50389-7.
- ^ "Amazon.com page listing review blurbs". http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0375709223/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ "San Francisco Chronicle's Non-Fiction best seller list". San Francisco Chronicle. 2001-04-08. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/04/08/RV4542.DTL&type=chart. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ Prose, Francine Francine Prose is an American novelist. Since March 2007 she has been the president of PEN American Center. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968, and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991. She has sat on the board of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own Award, and her novel Blue Angel, a satire about sexual harassment on college campuses, (02/13/2000). "Kisses and Limbic Resonance, a Foolish Feeling Called Love". The New York Observer. http://www.observer.com/node/42557. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ "Wikipedia Article: Limbic System, History". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic#History. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ Joseph E, LeDoux (2000). "Emotion circuits in the brain.". Annual Review of Neuroscience. p. 155-184. doi The Digital Object Identifier System is a managed system for persistent identification of content-related entities on digital networks. These entities may be content items (digital files, physical objects, abstract works), or any related entities in a content transaction (e.g. licenses, parties, etc.). "DOI" is sometimes used to mean the:10.1146/annurev.neuro.23.1.155. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10845062. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
External links
- Fari Amini, 73; Used Science To Study Love, The New York Times.
- American Scientist, book review by Roger Martin.
- Entertainment Weekly, book review by Clarissa Cruz.
- The Permanente Journal, book review by Vincent J Felitti, MD.
- The New York Times, book review by Liesl Schillinger.
Categories: 2000 books | Psychology books
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Their theory of government tells them that all three of these programs are evil, evil socialism. They have not been shy in making this claim. ...
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Mark Sandell
hu, 20 Aug 2009 19:05:12 GM
I . love. him, I make mad, passionate, drunken . love. , then wake up hating him and what's he's done to me and to himself. Is it because Africans are such wonderful people individually, fun loving, warm and welcoming, caring but fatalistic people ? . ... The reason I found that . theory. wanting, perhaps, is that Europeans needed to expend a lot more effort to survive, food-wise, than do those living in tropical climates. Not that Africa is all tropical, far from it, ...
Q. Well, Im 15, really smart, and in love with science. I know a small bit about Einstein and his theory, but So Far, I have no real knowledge about it. I will be taking physics next year but Could you please tell me about it? Thanks a lot! And Please dont leave out the general stuff.
Asked by Red Shadows - Sun Sep 3 02:50:02 2006 - - 12 Answers - 0 Comments
A. Well, E=mc^2 is just one of the fundamental results that come out of "The Special Theory of Relativity." The basic assumptions of this theory, upon which everything else if based are: 1) The laws of physics are the same independent of inertial reference frame. I.E. they are the same no matter how you perceive them/ 2) The speed of light is a constant, irrespective of reference frame. e.g. The speed of light you measure on the ground, or on a spaceship travelling at 0.5c (0.5 times the speed of light) are identical. This might seem weird, but it's completely 100% true. The Michelson Interferometer was used to prove it. After you realise that the speed of light is independent of reference frame, you are forced to change the way you think… [cont.]
Answered by jamesrobinson59281 - Sun Sep 3 03:27:38 2006
